I hadn't seen this at all, until very recently on YouTube, and boy was I hooked! I found it a delicious black comedy in every sense of the word. Geraldine Page (a fine actress) very clearly enjoying herself here camping it up as the snooty and obnoxious Mrs Marrible. Geraldine was in good company with Ruth Gordon playing Mrs Dimmock. A very entertaining film, despite its dubious production values. I'd even go as far as to say that I was surprised to find out that this little gem was the supporting feature to the MAIN film, when theatrically released! See it, you will enjoy it!

It's cat and mouse with two of the New York stage's premier divas. Clare (Fitzgerald) lures lonely housekeepers to her small desert estate where she bludgeons them, turning their remains into tree food for her precious garden. Trouble is she hires Aunt Alice (Gordon) thinking she's another easy prey, except she's not.Producer-director Bob Aldrich, one of Hollywood's most underrated filmmakers, struck something of a gold mine by recycling aging divas into a series of Grand Guingolds, as in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962) et. al. This entry comes near the tail end of the series, and is fairly suspenseful, as Fitzgerald mugs it up as a sadistic loony barely able to contain her homicidal glee. On the other hand, Gordon deadpans it as the diminutive impostor eager to get to the bottom of the strange goings on. Together, they're the whole show, except for a number of moody wind-blown tree shots reminding us of what's underneath. There's a tenuous romance thrown in to relieve the macabre, I suppose.One thing for sure, the movie didn't cost much to produce. There're basically just two settings-- the desert plot with the two houses, and the interiors where most of the action takes place. So, you need to be a fan of aging divas conspiring against each other, because there's not much else to look at. All in all, it's a showcase, especially for Fitzgerald who looks like she's not just emoting but having fun, as well.

After the funeral of her husband, money-hungry Geraldine Page (as Clare Marrable) is left with a rusty dagger, stamp album, butterfly collection and some worthless oil holdings. The middle-aged widow moves to Arizona and begins to hire housekeepers - like mild-mannered Mildred Dunnock (as Edna Tinsley) and secretive Ruth Gordon (as Alice Dimmock), planning to kill them while stealing their savings. Page intends to bury the ladies under pine trees, but Ms. Gordon has other plans. Despite Page's pointed need for privacy, curious Rosemary Forsyth (as Harriet Vaughn) and nephew Michael Barbera (as Jim Vaughn) move into the cottage next door. All this attracts handsome Robert Fuller (as Mike Darrah). Nice watching Page, Gordon and the dog "Chloe" battle it out; however, a different line-up of casualties would have made it even nicer.****** What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (7/23/69) Lee H. Katzin ~ Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller

I've begun to regret that "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" was ever made. Two over-the-hill stars and some cheap sets and a lot of psychological horror must have made a fortune otherwise there wouldn't be so many rip offs.I missed the first 15 minutes or so but don't think it matters much. This is pretty sick. It's my own opinion, and I'm pretty perverted myself -- debauched even -- if you ask my so-called friends and my shrink, Dr. Wilbur C. Veruckt. I promise you, Bill, you've seen the last of my checks. And don't think I don't know what's hanging in your closet.Is there anything more depressing than seeing two ladies who might, most generously, be defined as middle aged trying to kill each other by bopping each other over the head with pocketbooks and telephones? No. There is nothing more depressing.Geraldine Page, stage star, I gather has buried the body of her housemaid in the garden to provide fertilizer. An old friend of the housemaid, Ruth Gordon, applies for the position without revealing her identity. This is a big mistake on Gordon's part, a fatal one as it turns out.The next door neighbor is Rosemary Forsythe, pretty but too tall for me. We're talking women's basketball here. She and her son get somehow involved in the fertilizer business because they've adopted a dog who is attracted to Page's garden, drawn presumably by the scent of cadaverine and the prospect of bones. A loose blond roams the periphery of the story and has nothing to do with it. A deep-voiced young man is around too, exhibiting a talent that belongs on the small screen.The musical score is made up of electronically enhanced orchestral sounds that are dissonant, scratchy, distracting, and frankly irritating. The setting is a rather nice Spanish-style house in the Sonoran desert on the outskirts of Tucson, now probably swallowed up in urban sprawl, but no use is made of the location.If you enjoy seeing some snotty ill-groomed chatelaine sitting in a wheelchair flinging insults at her humble housemaid and nurse in what she, the mistress, seems to regard as high-falutin' speech, then this is your movie. Women are much better than men at humiliating and degrading others. Men have a tendency to simply backhand those they dislike. I kept waiting for Page to come up with some really lethal insult -- "Hence, horrible villain, or I'll spurn thine eyes like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head, Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd'in brine, smarting in lingering pickle." It might have fit the character but the lines never appeared. The writer must have been a dull and muddy-mettled rascal.