The story is actually fairly predictable, borrowing a great deal from every thing from Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND to the French DIABOLIQUE and quite a bit from BABY JANE as well. In the 1920s, Southern belle Charlotte Hollis has a torrid affair with a married man--an affair that ends when her lover is hacked to bits with a meat cleaver. Every one assumes that Charlotte did it, but did she? And some four decades later the question is still unanswered and Charlotte has become a recluse. When her decaying mansion is threatened by highway construction, she turns to cousin Miriam for help... and with Miriam's arrival the mystery begins to unravel at last.

The great thing here is the cast. Davis plays wildly, wildly over the top and gets away with it as only Davis can. But the real acting interest here comes courtesy of Mary Astor, Agnes Moorehead, and Olivia de Havilland. Star of such classics as THE MALTESE FALCON, Astor makes her final screen appearance here in the small but pivitol role of Jewel Mayhew; Agnes Moorehead, one of Hollywood's most memorable character actresses, almost steals the show from Davis as the ... housekeeper Velma. And de Havilland is quite remarkable. Although she had a broad range, de Havilland had never played such a role as the perfidious cousin Miriam--but she brings it off with all the authority of a coiled rattler.

Given the broadness of the project, SWEET CHARLOTTE inevitably emerges as more "camp" than "classic"--but whether you watch it as a thriller or as a cult comedy, the film is just flat-out fun. Unfortunately, this particularly video tape is not: you'll actually find that the occasional television broadcast of the film offer better picture quality, and you may want to wait for a restored release. Or better yet, a DVD!


About Bloody Time!!!   June 1, 2005
 15 out of 16 found this review helpful

Whew!!! Here's a great film that took ages to finaly make it to the DVD format. Hey Fox, what took you guys so long?! Oh well, it doesn't matter. At least it's finally here.

This is the film that single-handedly transformed my perception of what an "old" film could be. I remember when I was thirteen years old (1996) and I caught this one on AMC on a stormy evening. By the fantastic staircase confrontation scene between Velma (Agnes Moorehead) and the sinister Cousin Miriam (Olivia DeHavilland, the movie had absolutely grabbed me by the eyeballs and wouldn't let go. I was captivated. I've had a lifelong love affair with older suspense films such as this one ever since, and this particular masterpiece is still my all-time favorite film.

If you've got a young person in your family who wonders why people are always talking about the "Golden Age" of film, you just pop this baby into the DVD player and let those young'uns learn a thing or two. If they're anything like me, they'll fall in love.


"YOU JUST CAN'T KEEP HOGS AWAY FROM THE TROUGH!"   November 30, 1999
 14 out of 14 found this review helpful

"HUSH...HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE" is my 3rd favorite movie ever. My 2 favorite are Joan Crawford films. I agree with the other reviewer. As great an actress as Joan Crawford was, she would not have been the BEST Miriam. Olivia de Havilland's brilliance in the role of Miriam is the way she played with understatement. That's what makes the psychological abuse inflicted on Charlotte so chilling...Miriam is unbelievably believable right up to the very last. Had Joan Crawford gotten into a power struggle via the camera, the whole film would have suffered. She would have had to keep too much charisma, strength, and presence pumping to hold her own with Bette Davis (which she was ENTIRELY CAPABLE OF DOING). Someday, if it still exists, 20th Century-Fox Video would be able to make a mint by releasing the unreleased film footage shot with Joan Crawford. Agnes Moorehead is excellent as Velma Ca--rothers: "Shooo-weeee! She ain't nothin' but a chiiiiiild..." This is my favorite Bette Davis performance (a close tie with "Deception" from 1946). Joseph Cotton's and Mary Astor's roles could have been walked through by just about anyone, so you can't blame the actors. All in all, you just can't beat "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" for putting the "fun" back into dysfunctional family reunions. Show it at YOUR next one! Hopefully, 20th Century-Fox Video or Key Video will get around to repackaging this title soon. The box artwork has not changed since...well, since about 1964!


Profoundly Underrated Horror Classic-- DVD out in Aug 2005!!   May 15, 2005
 13 out of 15 found this review helpful

Beware new 2005 DVD--- it's not really the total widescreen original (see below).

Review of film:

Ever since I was a kid I identified this as "the scariest movie I've ever seen", and even today, despite the fact that as an adult, one no longer possesses the same ability to be frightened by a film, "Charlotte" still emerges as one of the of the purest of terror-films in that it hits so many of the horror cliches dead-center (in a good way) as few ever quite have.

Oh, sure, it can't compare to later slasher pics for blood (only one person gets sliced & diced, in fact) but the term Southern Gothic, to my mind, simply held no real meaning until THIS came out...

Many people dont realize that "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" received more Oscar nominations [7] than any other horror film up to that time, a record tied olny by "Silence of the Lambs" (in 1991) and surpassed by "The Exorcist"s 10 nominations (in 1973).
"Charlotte" won none, but the fact it lost the Best B&W Cinematography Oscar (for Joseph Biroc's drippingly dark work) is akin to grave-robbery!

Grander and more haunting than "Baby Jane" (though from the same production team), "Charlotte" is the more seductively macabre movie.

Borne of an era when "real" thrillers were coming to a close, when "Psycho"-period shockers felt so supernatural and creepy (even when they may not have been, technically, supernatural in plot)... Somehow, it all just feels more sacred and sad than sadistic.

And "Charlotte" is one of the most forlorn of them all (the dinner scene is a classic in itself), with smatterings of various scenes from Bette Davis pictures re-executed.

8/05 DVD Update: the extras aren't great, folks. The commentary is by rote, and they didn't include the 'AMC Backstory' episode so many of us were hoping for. Also, THIS IS NOT total wide-screen, as the film was originally shot in 1:1.85, and the DVD is 1:1.66, so we're still missing some of the sides of the movie! (Thank goodness this isn't just some "fake" widescreen, where they take a TV print and cut the head [pun] and the feet off! But we're still missing both sides of the frame).

4/08 DVD Update: the new DVD release at least has a HUSH...HUSH, SWEET JOAN mini-doc about Crawford's original participation in the film before ducking out--- regrettably, none of her scenes are apparently available.