Though this subgenre combining camp histrionics and gothic horror became popular in the 1960s, its origin may have been more diagnostic than symptomatic of a throwaway Hollywood culture that discarded its once-worshipped women. In essence, it was Hollywood's Golden Age glamour goddesses being ritually tormented for our viewing pleasure. Then- New York Times film critic Renata Adler called it ' the Terrifying Older Actress Filicidal Mummy genre.' Mad Magazine's parody called it, ' Hack, Hack, Sweet Has-Been, or Whatever Happened to Good Taste?' Over time, it has been described in more demotic terms: hagsploitation, Grande Dame Guignol or more popularly, psycho-biddy. Robert Aldrich's film was intended as a follow-up to the surprise 1962 hit What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which staged the murderous sibling rivalry between Bette Davis's Blanche and Joan Crawford's shut-in Jane. Going from tormented to the tormentor in Hush.Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), she took on the role of the manipulative cousin to a wealthy shut-in played by Bette Davis. Not even 50 yet, she found herself playing a widow trapped in her home elevator and tormented by thugs in Lady in a Cage (1964). But when I read of Olivia de Havilland's passing two weeks ago, I couldn't help but think of how her once-A-list career had been reduced to B-movie roles as she entered middle age.

Even more famously, she was Catherine Sloper in William Wyler's The Heiress: it was a transformative, unglamorous role which earned her a second Oscar. More famously, she was Melanie Hamilton, foil to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. She was Ruth and Terry Collins, the good and bad twins in Robert Siodmak's film noir The Dark Mirror.

Billy wilder film sunset