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Geraldine Page (Oscar-winner for The Trip to Bountiful) chews the scenery in a delightfully villainous performance in What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, one of the ‘hag horror’ movies that popped up in the wake of 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (both produced by Robert Aldrich). Page plays a widow whose husband left her penniless, leading her to steal money from a series of housekeepers she murders and buries in her garden. Her latest housekeeper, played by Ruth Gordon (Harold and Maude), is onto her nefarious scheme — but will she be able to prove the case before winding up the next victim?
What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice is remarkable for Page’s entertaining performance over all else. This is a woman you really love to hate, especially when she tries to add children and pets to her body count. If Ruth Gordon’s character were less of a victim and more of an equal to Page’s, this movie might be regarded a classic on par with Baby Jane. Goodness knows Gordon is more than capable of stepping up to such a challenge (just see her in Rosemary’s Baby or Every Which Way But Loose). Other aspects of the film hold it back a bit, including a lack of rising tension and the shoehorning of secondary, uninteresting characters into the script. Production values are relatively low, more in line with a TV movie than a feature film.
Directed by Lee H. Katzin. With Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller, Mildred Dunnock, and Joan Huntington.