It's a ruthless, cunning role and Page makes the most of it.Īfter the death of her husband, the widow Clare Marrable (Geraldine Page) finds he has lost his fortune in bad investments and receives only a briefcase with a rusted dagger, a butterfly collection and a stamp collection. It's not a great horror film but it does have its moments, thanks mostly to GERALDINE PAGE who does a marvelous job at showing us all the tics and nuances of a very eccentric woman who means to get her way, no matter what she has to do. It's her scenes with Page that make the whole film so satisfying. Gordon pretends to apply for a job after the last housekeeper has gone missing and is actually doing some detective work on her own. It seems they flourish nicely, hence my suggestion above for a better title. After disposing of her victims she buries them in her garden and plants another tree to mark the spot. (Not unlike some real-life events depicted in a gruesome TV documentary recently). But she's intent on hiring lonely housekeepers and murdering them to steal their savings. She's a woman, believing her husband has left her penniless, who moves to Arizona where she will be near her nephew. However, it's a quiet one, building its suspense slowly as we come to realize just how manipulative and cunning Page's character is. It works not so much because the story (an eerie one, to be sure) is so original, but because the cat-and-mouse aspect of the story which has Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon as adversaries in a household fraught with suspicion (of murder), is what hooks the most interest in this vastly entertaining little shocker. Lots of mordant humor and a clever plot twist at the end are sufficient reason for watching WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE?, but when a cast includes GERALDINE PAGE, RUTH GORDON and MILDRED DUNNOCK and promises to be a suspenseful film along the lines of BABY JANE and HUSH.HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE, you owe it to yourself to watch it.
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