Product Details

• Actors: Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Cecil Kellaway
• Directors: Robert Aldrich
• Writers: Henry Farrell, Lukas Heller
• Producers: Robert Aldrich, Walter Blake
• Format: Closed-captioned, Black & White, Dubbed, Subtitled
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Dubbed: English, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: August 9, 2005
• Run Time: 133 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (160 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0009NZ2MO
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,707 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Poor Charlotte Hollis. She's been shunned by the community for decades, ever since the fateful night in 1927 when her lover was hacked apart with an axe. Her antebellum southern mansion is slated for the bulldozer, as it stands in the way of highway construction. Charlotte's only hope lies in her cousin Miriam (Olivia de Havilland), coming down from up north to help settle things. Miriam, however, has other designs. Together with her boyfriend Drew (Joseph Cotten), she embarks on a scheme to systematically drive Charlotte out of her mind (not a great leap) and get her mitts on the family fortune. From there, things only get more complicated. Charlotte puts the "gothic" in southern gothic, as a great showcase for completely bizarre, overwrought, and out-of-control performances from all involved. Agnes Moorehead plays Charlotte's loyal, disheveled housekeeper to the hilt, with an odd inflection that calls to mind Amos and Andy more than southern gentility. As the drunken, conniving Dr. Drew, Cotten's accent is indeterminate at times, and seems to come and go. As great as the supporting players are, though, the crown goes to Bette Davis as the shrieking Charlotte, a portrait of isolation and decay stuck in a world of tragic delusions inside her crumbling mansion. De Havilland is a close second as the scheming Miriam; the scene where she slaps the holy snot out of a hysterical Charlotte is itself worth the price of admission. Mary Astor (in her last role) and Cecil Kellaway (as a kindly Lloyd's of London adjuster) put in the only performances with any restraint, acting as counterweights for the rest of the cast. Besides, you'll never get another chance to see Joseph Cotten playing the harpsichord and singing, or caked in mud and lily pads! With Robert Aldrich's claustrophobic direction, Charlotte is as Southern as a field of kudzu, and as subdued as a train wreck. --Jerry Renshaw

Product Description

This is the tale of a wealthy southern spinster Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis) who lives with her eccentric maid (Agnes Moorehead) in a decaying southern mansion, shunned by the townsfolk after the mysterious axe-murder of her late lover. When her jealous cousin (Olivia de Havilland) and her cousin's wily husband (Cotton) arrive for a visit, the two conspire to drive Charlotte insane and have her commited so the two can sell off her estate and pocket the proceeds.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Robert Aldrich and his All-Hag Revue January 5, 2001

By Michael Wilk

Format:VHS Tape

My initiation into the wonderful world of Bette Davis was at the age of eight, when I begged my father to take me to see "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" at the Center Theater in Sunnyside. I just figured it was a "horror" movie. Well, seeing Bette Davis and company, it was love at first sight! "Charlotte" boasts a cast of "old vets" chewing up the scenery as if their lives depended on it. Miss Davis storms and rages and descends into near-madness as only she could, Olivia DeHavilland, who is a very fine and diversified actress, portrays Bette's sugar-coated rattlesnake of a cousin in a most convincing manner, and Agnes Moorehead-well, what can I say? Her slovenly, white-trash Velma Crother is a sight to behold-the woman was a scene-stealer. Add to this witch's brew an oily Joseph Cotten, the grand Mary Astor, Victor Buono, George Kennedy, and Ellen Corby in a small part, and you're in for a hoot of an evening! The films is a little too long, but with such company, who cares? Nowadays, where "horror" films are populated by 24-years-old and younger performers, I can only think about the "good old days" when the genre boasted seasoned performers whose life experiences didn't take place in shopping malls. "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" is an old-fashioned blood-and-thunder melodrama enacted by performers who had years of theater and screen experience under their belts. There are also nods to "Diabolique","Gaslight", and "Eyes Without a Face" in this deep-fried fag-hag extravaganza. Now, how about an all-drag-queen stage recreation of this camp classic?

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars About Bloody Time!!! May 31, 2005

By P. B. Reynolds

Format:DVD

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.

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "YOU JUST CAN'T KEEP HOGS AWAY FROM THE TROUGH!" November 29, 1999

By CHUCK WEST

Format:VHS Tape

"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!

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The ne plus ultra in gothic atmosphere --- an underrated classic May 15, 2005

By widowedwalker

Format:VHS Tape|Amazon Verified Purchase

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 back-of-the-dark-closet horror cliches dead-center (in a good way) as few ever quite have.

Oh, sure, it won'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 don't realize that "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" received more Oscar nominations [7] than any other horror film up to that time, a record tied only 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) at the Cold War peak of the early-'60s...

Somehow, it all just feels more forlorn and sacred and sad than sadistic.

It's also one of the most quotable of films --- the dinner scene is a classic in itself. And, if you watch closely, it's chock full of smatterings of various scenes from Bette Davis pictures re-executed.

2005 DVD: 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!

2008 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; also, the copy is full and proper 1x1.85 dimensions, unlike the 2005 DVD. Read more ›