What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

For October, I want to cover four horror movies. Is What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? a horror movie? Or is it an odd mixture of genres? Let's find out.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? is a classic 1962 psychological thriller starring Betty Daves and Joan Crawford.

It is not the subject of this blog post.

I'm covering the 1991 made-for-TV movie remake instead.

I watched the original What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and tried to do a post about it, but I couldn't. It was too good, and the jokes weren't coming. While watching it, I was thinking that  Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? might be one of the best movies I've ever seen. Then I remembered that I had just watched Crimson Bat, Nico the Unicorn, and One-Armed Executioner. Relativity is a thing.

My one-sentence summary of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?: It's Sunset Boulevard + Misery + Riding the Bus With My Sister and the movie with Rosie O'Donell depicts the most exploitative relationship.

I still wanted to do a post about Baby Jane, and luckily enough, someone decided to remake it. So, unlike the other films I've seen, I know the entire story going in from the original. I'm going to be reacting to it as if the audience (that means you) have seen the original.

If you haven't seen the original 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and don't want to be spoiled, watch it before reading this,

If you haven't seen the original 1962 film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and don't care about spoilers, still watch it. It's a good movie.

This is the 1991 remake of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? I call it What Ever Happened to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane??

(This is the first time I've ever had to embed a title with a question mark inside a title with a question mark. APA only goes so far.)


The original movie starts with a jack-in-the-box popping out and scaring a young girl. The remake starts with a snowy night making a young girl sad. Not really getting the mood right.

This is young Jane. She is on a movie set. The audience isn't supposed to know this yet, but anyone who is watching the movie does. She sings a song to a doll in a cradle.

The original opened in vaudeville with Jane singing the simultaneously grating and creepy "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" This song is a lullaby without a clear repeated title. There last line is "Tomorrow Is not Far away"

I just cant see that being as eerie as "I've Written A Letter to Daddy" when she sings it to Flagg later

The director says "Cut" and surprise, surprise, it is a movie set.

In this version, Jane is a movie star and Blanche is a stunt-double/bit player. That's a...deviation from the original.

Blanche

Blanche asks Jane when she will get a bigger part, and Jane says never. Blanche's mother comforts her and says that the parts will get bigger. Blanche looks into the cradle and smothers the Baby Jane doll.


There are a lot of adjectives that fit the 1963 What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? "Subtle" is not one of those adjectives. But at least we didn't see Blanche smothering a Baby Jane doll with a blanket.

Cut to the sisters running along a beach.

I went back to check the original because I thought the prologue consisted of the vaudeville show when they were kids and the movie studio when they were adults and then it went to car crash. And I was right. They clumsily inserted this  beach scene so that the girls can spout some forced lines:

Blanche: I want to live at the beach always

Jane: Maybe we could

Blanche: Daddy?

Dad: No, Blanche. It's too far from the studios

Mom: But it might be nice for the girls

Does it count as dramatic irony if the audience knows the ending of the original?


Jane gets some ice cream from a vendor with her father and Blanche looks woefully after her.

Now it just...fades to Blanche as an old woman watching her old movie. Yeah, remember that whole scene in the original where Blanche becomes a big movie star and we see see the car crash? That was apparently not important. Also, there are no titles to indicate the years.


I don't want to be one of those people who say "Man, movies were so much better back before color/special effects/CGI/whatever." All I'm saying is to compare the houses of the original and the remake.

One of them looks like it belongs in a psychological thriller and the other wouldn't look out of place on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.

The one on the left might be on Bette Homes and Gardens though.

Jane walks in on Blanche. The TV is in the kitchen. So she isn't upstairs? Doesn't that ruin the movie?

Jane looks less like a grotesque, blond Ethel Merman and more like a soccer-mom.

Jane and Blanche talk about their movies. Jane says that they only cast her in bit parts of Blanche's movies and cut her out later. Blanche tries to deny it. It is lifeless.

A man walks in on his wife doing up their new home next to the Hudsons. This is the only thing that is an improvement over the original. In the 1962 version, a mother comes home to her daughter watching a Blanche Hudson movie and they casually tell us everything about their neighbors despite having lived next to them for years. In this version, it makes more sense for them to talk about their neighbors since they just moved in,

What doesn't make sense is that the wife just happened to be glancing at the tabloids in the grocery store and knows everything about the accident that the audience didn't see. Trading one contrivance for another doesn't do anything.


You know, the second part of the prologue to the 1962 movie was long and expository. But it was necessary for the film to flow. This is just really confusing.

Jane plays keep-away with the remote because she has work to do. She tells Blanche to watch TV upstairs, and Blanche rolls away.

Okay, if they have a ramp going upstairs, I am quitting this movie. That would be like remaking Misery and having a functional phone right by Paul's bed.

Luckily, there is no ramp. It's a lift. I'm glad this psycological thriller remake is ADA compliant. There is some suspenseful music as Blanche transfers herself onto the lift. So we know it will be relevant later.

Actually, we know it will be relevant later because we have seen the original film.

The neighbor, Connie Trotter, comes over and shares some cookies because she was watching a retrospective of Blanche's films and is becoming a fan. Jane says that she doesn't go out much, her sister doesn't go out at all, but thanks for the cookies.

Blanche  watches the neighbors go back and calls for Jane. She buzzes a phone and asks for Jane to come up.

Hey, remember how in the original movie, there was just a simple buzzer? This was effective because Jane didn't know what Blanche wanted until she came up. So, for example, in this scene in the original movie, Jane put together breakfast for Blanche and brought it up because she pushed the buzzer. But Blanche didn't want breakfast, she just wanted to know who was at the door.


The buzzer in What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? symbolizes the depersonalization of Blanche and Jane's relationship. Since the buzzer does not allow the sisters to communicate their needs to each other, Jane is reduced to a mere servant of the buzzer, controlled by Blanche. Throughout her adult life, Jane associates the buzzer with both her sister and with a vague demand for her resources. This likely leads to her psychotic breakdown as depicted through the film. What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? masterfully uses imagery such as this to represent the depersonalization of the two sisters' relationship.


I took a ridiculous Writing about Film class during my freshman year at college and I'm pretty sure my papers were about the quality of the above paragraph. I wrote that in a few minutes and I'm not even sure if I used "depersonalization" in a valid context. The passive voice is a very effective way to fill up a paper quickly and not say anything.

My point is- it's stupid that they have walkie-talkies when a huge part of the buzzer was that Jane didn't know what Blanche wanted until she walked up the stairs.

Blanche asks Jane what the neighbors wanted. Jane says that they are just moving in. Blanche asks Jane to wash her hair, like when they were kids at the beach.

At this point, I opened up the original movie in another window because I thought I was misremembering something. Was the beach a theme throughout the original too? No, it wasn't. So why keep bringing it up? Why not remake Psycho and have Marion Crane talk about showers for the first half of the movie?

At fifteen minutes, this movies changes from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? to Sex and the City.

Blanche yells at Jane because she cut her hair too short. Man, psychological thrillers were so intense in the early 90s.

Jane walks downstairs to a man. Who is....? He walks up to get Blanche and I figured that he was the Elvira character. But instead of a maid, he is a massage therapist? His name is Dominick.

Dominick tells Blanche that Jane is drinking and that he found a note downstairs. It's a piece of...something. We just hear them describe it as "hate mail"

Jane comes and gives Blanche a health drink. Instead of the parakeet getting out, we hear a dog barking and Jane facetiously says "Bruno, I'll give you 20 if you strangle the  mutt"

Racism. That's definitely what was missing from Bette Davis' performance

Jane is trying to call a liquor store. That scene in the original, where Jane had to impersonate Blanche's voice and they actually used Joan Crawford's voice? And that becomes a plot point later? Doesn't happen. Instead she just threatens the store that she will order somewhere else.

Dominick walks downstairs as Jane is opening a can. Jane asks when he will be back, and Dominick says he does call-backs. Jane takes offense because....it means that she will be inconvenienced?

Jane plops the can on the plate and brings Blanche up her lunch. Is this THAT scene? I mean, this is where it would be chronologically. But, is there any sort of set-up? Do they talk at all before about the house? What?

I just want to point out this one shot from the original:

And it takes one conversation in which we learn that Blanche has been lying to Jane about having to sell the house, Jane tearing off the phone, and this line:

Eat your lunch, it'll get cold

The reveal comes after thirteen seconds.

But this version does it much more efficiently. Jane brings up a sandwich, there is no argument, no tension between the two,and Blanche immediately picks up the sandwich.

Why not remake Eye of the Beholder with a slip-on mask?

Blanche opens the sandwich to find:

Worms? Was that some connection to the dog talk from before? What? Or does worms=gross=horror?

Jane is at the piano playing the song from the beginning:

Some one is

falling asleep tonight

Sandman

 I'm talking to

 this little girl

who has just turned

out the light.

Make sure her dreams

are a colorful

sight.

The lines become mumbled and you tell that this movie is trying so, so hard to be creepy and failing.

Jane walks to Blanche and says "I'm not so dumb you know. After I've had a few, I may not drive straight, may have accidents, but I can still think straight."

This is the the part where Jane reveals that she knows that Blanche sold the house, and Blanche tries to worm (heh,heh) her way out. But...

This type of movie only works if the two main characters really despise each other. Or the two main actresses. This doesn't work at all.

I looked up these actresses. It starts real-life sisters Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave as Jane and Blanche respectively. They don't know how to chew scenery.

Jane walks to her car and chastises the neighbor for his rowdy dog.

Calling it: That will be the equivalent of "Blanche? You know we've got rats in the cellar?"

Jane drives into a relic of 1962.

She walks around, disparages a customer for looking at a Blanche Hudson Movie, and then goes to the counter and asks for a video machine. She casually asks if they have any Baby Jane Hudson films, another employee says no, but remembers them. Jane sings the final line "Tomorrow is not far away," and the employee recognizes her. Jane wants to find her old films on tape, but they don't have any. However, the employee, Billy Korn is an old producer. He is going to help Jane restart her career. He offers to buy some coffee.

This TV movie is about an hour and a half instead  of the over two hour original film. So, they are going to have to simplify some things. Cutting out all the dramatic tension apparently isn't enough. Billy Korn appears to be a combination of the newspaper reporter and Edwin Flagg from the original. Hey, if this change means that the film is shorter, I'm all in favor of it.

Over two cups of coffee, Korn says he can sell himself better than anyone else. I agree. I've even thought of a name for his company: Korny Productions.

Jane says she wants to do a one-woman show featuring songs from  her early years. Somehow, Billy knows all of Baby Jane Hudson's songs. He asks for Jane's number and Jane writes it on his arm with lipstick.

Back at the house, Jane types out a note that ends with "Under no circumstances, let the director use the contents of this scene."

Remember this scene from the original?

All that scene did was create a thrilling and suspenseful atmosphere that lingered until Jane repeated the final line a few scenes later: "And under no circumstances, let my sister see the contents of this note."

The remake decided that atmosphere is superfluous to the thriller/supense genre and cut out that scene to make room for...video stores?

Instead, the remake jumps ahead to the equally great scene of Blanche agonizingly dragging herself down the stairs to reach the phone.

Sorry, I was looking at the wrong movie. This is the new and improved suspenseful scene. Blanche transfers herself out of the chair on the lift:

Blanche: You wouldn't be able to do these awful things to the script if I weren't still in this       chair.

Lift: But you ARE, Blanche, you ARE in that chair.


The movie tries to make up for the...missed opportunity by having Blanche moan slightly as she drags herself to the phone.

Blanche talks to Dr Shelby, but we don't hear Dr. Shelby's side. Jane walks up from behind as Blanche tells him about Blanche's drinking problems and emotional outbursts and asks for Dr. Shelby to come over.

In the original, Jane kicks Blanche repeatedly, then calls Dr. Shelby,impersonates Blanche's voice and says that it was just a mistake- there was nothing wrong. In this version, Jane grabs the phone and hangs up, accuses her of trying to get pills to drug her, and kind of, puts her foot on Blanche lightly.

Jane calls back Dr. Shelby and impersonates Blanche. When Blanche looks shocked, Jane covers the mouthpieces and says "and you thought I couldn't act."

...I really, really don't want to give this movie credit for anything, but that was pretty good.

Jane drags Blanche to the chair lift in the extent of this movie's violence.

I used to be one of those people who thought that violence didn't make a movie scary- only lazy movies used that technique. I now hate myself for having thought that.

Billy Korn walks into his room with a stack of Hudson photos, magazines, etc. He calls Jane and says they should get together as soon as possible. Jane is sleeping with a Baby Jane Hudson doll. It's supposed to be creepy. Jane invites Billy over in an hour.

This movie is like someone who just starts a hobby or sport and copies techniques of the best people in that hobby or sport without learning the fundamentals. That's how corporations get people who are just starting to buy this super-expensive elite equipment that doesn't make a difference at that level.

Jane brings Blanche a covered dish. I'm glad that this movie skipped over the scenes in the original of Blanche starving because she refused to open up any of the meals Jane brought up. Those scenes just built atmosphere or something unimportant like that. Blanche asks whether the scarf Jane is wearing around her neck is new. Jane says no, but the belt is new. It's a dog leash.

I was right. This was supposed to be "Oh Blanche, you know we got rats in the cellar?"

Jane opens the dish and....

Blanche's reaction is similar to mine. We are both looking at a dog.

Just to beat a dead...dog, let's compare it to the original. It takes thirty-nine second from

Oh Blanche? You know we got rats in the cellar?

 to the reveal:

This also leads to Jane's first big breakdown.

Blanche recovers from the trauma of being served her neighbor's ground-up dog really easily and calls out to her neighbors. The dog is not tethered to the post.

Billy Korn enters the Hudson Mansion. Jane is wearing a dress that she claims is a replica of one she wore in her old movies. Korn nods politely.

Korn compliments the house. Jane receives the compliment by passive-aggressively aggressive-aggressively accusing Blanche of not paying for the house and just living off of her.

The buzzer buzzes. Jane walks upstairs...

Hold one, wasn't it like an intercom, system before? Didn't I rant about that?

Anyway, Jane walks upstairs and grabs the buzzer away. She asks why Blanche didn't eat her dinner and eats some herself.

So...it isn't ground dog. Turns out that the neighbors took the dog to obedience school that week. I'm confused, Blanche says that if she dies, Jane won't get any money because they will take Blanche away somewhere.

Blanche asks for dinner and Jane says she is going to get her career again.

Billy Korn is playing the piano. Jane comes in on the last line and sings "Tomorrow is not far away."

My favorite scene in the original movie is the reprise of "I've Written a Letter to Daddy." Based on the eeriness level.

Overall, a more pleasant theatrical experience than Gypsy.

So skipping the entire sequence and inserting one lyric is fine by me.

Korn says that he wants to do a trial at a cabaret, which will cost $1000. Jane decides to go for it, and Korn asks to use the phone.

I shouldn't have been so quick to judge this movie at the beginning, because they are doing the note scene now. Blanche uses a tape recorder to ask the neighbor to call Dr. Shelby. She ends the recording with "Please don't tell my sister about this message."

Korn gets off the phone and says that that the agent wants both Jane and her sister on the act. Jane says "No, my sister is in a wheelchair." That's ableist. More ableist that psychologically torturing your sister because she is in a wheelchair.

Korn tells Jane that they will do in Wednesday and suggests the song "There Should be Love". Jane says that the music is on on the piano.

Instead of the eerie "I've written a letter to Daddy", Jane just stumbles over the words and it becomes an attempt at cringe comedy.

Now, I love cringe comedy, but it doesn't really belong in a thriller movie. And it isn't very good cringe comedy,

Korn decides to have the act lip-synced. He says that they can play the record in the background, have a spotlight on Jane in one side of the stage, and have the other side dark for Blanche's parts

Taking short-cuts to make up for a lack of talent is definitely something this movie knows about.

Jane promises to give Korn half the money. She goes up to Blanche's room and says she has to go out and will bring breakfast later. Blanche is starving. The car pulls out.

Blanche wheels over to the window with the cassette recording. She flings into a bush. Then she goes into the dresser and finds some candy.

It's strange that some of the minor details like the candy by the dresser are intact from the original but the bigger things are different.

Anyway, Blanche finds the notepad of Jane practicing forging her signitures. The movie tries to make it creepy with Baby Jane dolls staring:

But it is trying too hard.

The bank clerk says that usually Blanche calls ahead when she is about to cash a check. Jane manages to convince her otherwise.

At the house, Blanche tries to transfer herself to the lift but falls down the stairs. Still doesn't make up for the failure to have the hobbling scene.

Jane drops Korn off and Korn tells her that the studio still wants Blanche as part of the act. Jane throws a fit and drives away. Korn declares that Jane is crazy. Show, don't tell.

The most interesting  thing about this movie is this girls walking on her hands.

The scene with the note/cassette was towards the beginning of the original movie, when Jane first left the house. There is an extended shot of Blanche looking out the window wondering whether Jane or the neighbor will pick it up.

In this version, Jane just scoops it up. Dramatic tension is so 1963

Jane walks in and finds Blanche prone on the flood. Dominick drives up. Jane carries Blanche up and drags her away.

Dominick walks up the stairs. This is like the scene with Elvira. Except, in the original, Jane had just kicked Blanche repeatedly, so she was in a worse state when Elvira saw her

Hey, it's almost like the scenes in the original flowed in a logical order to convey a narrative.

If Jane was just dragging Blanche into her room as Dominick was entering the house, how does she get her into the constraints in time?

Dominick finds the door locked. He asks Jane for the key.

Blanche looks just as bored as I feel

Compare that to the original

Dominick cuts Blanche's restraints and leaves the scissors on the bed. Jane picks them up and stabs him.

I can't complain about that, considering Elivera leaving the hammer next to Jane in the original.

There is an extended, comedic death scene. Jane drags Dominick to the lift and sends him tumbling down the stairs.

Korn enters the house. The scene of Jane refusing to let Flagg in the house and sobbing on the stairs is cut. Korn tells Jane that he has a showcase spot for her on Wednesday,

Meanwhile, Blanche struggles with the restraint.

The rehearsal is going well.

Korn and a coworker exchange exposition. The coworker says that Blanche ran down Jane in a car after a Hollywood party. Then says that they found Blanche in bed with an actor she was making a movie with.

Just a friendly reminder that, in the good movie, Flagg's mothers tells him this information. When she says "They found her in some hotel with some man she had never even met before", Flagg replies "Well why should that upset you? Isn't that how I was conceived?"

That one line is better than this entire remake.

Jane comes home to find Blanche right where she left her. She tears off the duct tape over her mouth. Blanche asks for water, Jane gives her a sip, and runs out the door to the show.

Jane stumbles backstage looking for Korn. He is in the bathroom and yells that Jane is next up. The stagehand gives her a mic. Jane comes out dancing and lip-syncing. Then Korn in Blanche-drag comes out singing.

This is a rejected comedy sketch, not a psychological thriller.

Jane gets upset that Korn is overshadowing her and starts moving into the Sandman song. This girl reminds her of the Jane doll

The movie tries to turn this into a psychological thriller moment with some music and echoing "Jane"s.  It fails

Jane and her doll are busy MST3King the movie.

They are taking my job.

Jane is talking to a figure in the back about her award. Korn enters the house

I really hate to give this movie credit for anything, but I was confused about who was sitting in the back of the theater When Jane walks by, the camera reveals it is Dominick and it was creepy and effective.

Korn calls out for Jane and walks upstairs. He opens the door and sees Blanche. Blanche tries to talk, but can't.

I can see the director thinking of this scene being really creepy. but it looks ridiculous.

Korn walks downstairs in drag asking for money. Jane thinks that he is Blanche, and stabs him with the trophy. So the body count for this movie is already higher.

Jane comes up the Blanche's room and says that everyone is gone. There are ten minute left, are they ever going to the damn beach?

Trying so hard to be as creepy as the original and failing.

Ready for the big twist? Ready?

No, because there absolutely no set-up for it. We never saw the scene with the car crash. It was only vaguely referenced. We didn't know about Blanche's feelings through the second prologue scene. So learning that Blanche was driving the car doesn't mean anything,

It's kind of insulting when Jane says the line from the original verbatim "You mean, all these years, we could have been friends?" As if it means anything.

Jane buys two cheap strawberry Popsicles. Two police officers find them and identify Jane by name due to her white Cadillac.

Jan says "My name is Baby Jane Hudson and this is my sister Blanche hudson. She's  a movie star too,"

The police officers radio for an ambulance. Blanche walks out into the ocean and the officer swims after and catches her. We hear a voice-over "Poppa" to tell us that Blanche thinks she is a child again. The end.

 In conclusion, can I classify What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? as a horror film?

Definitely. It is a terrifying horror film about how to completely ruin a great movie.

One-Armed Executioner

I think it's about time to do an exploitation movie. I should probably justify the name of the blog.

Trigger Warnings: (e) all of the above.

I take trigger warning seriously, but putting trigger warnings on an exploitation film seems redundant.

Some triggers: Attempted sexual assault, drug abuse, amputation, blood, gore, and general unpleasantness.

 This is a 1978 Filipino exploitation film called They Call Her...Cleopatra Wong and it's about a one-armed executioner.

Sorry, I was looking at the Wong title. This is a 1978 Filipino exploitation film called One-Armed Executioner and it's about a one-armed executioner.

I like how the E is a gun. So far, this is a 10/10 movie and I haven't even gotten past the title.

It starts with a car driving down a dark street. A man named Mouse is talking quite openly on a payphone to a policeman, reporting a drug deal. Another man comes out of the car and walks to the phone booth. He takes a bar, locks the phone booth, and pushes it into the sea. Now he will have to pay extra for the overseas calling.

Cue upbeat music over the opening credits.

I would compliment this movie for getting straight to the point, but the executioner clearly had three arms; left, right, and his gun.

Maybe "arm" means "gun" and I'm wasting my time.

A woman and man are at a bar. They have just had a honeymoon and are waiting for the disappointment to begin

They were visiting Ann's family in San Francisco. I'm surprised Ann has a family- she looks like she was manufactured on an assembly line for exploitation movies.

He gets a phone call from the boss. The bartender asks Ann if her husband might leave Interpol. Ann says no, it means too much to him and she knew what she was getting into when she married him. Blind Swordswoman had more subtle exposition.

The boss says that they found the man is in water and want him to come investigate before the police get there.

The killer with the beard enters a bar and talks with his crime boss. He asserts that he killed Mouse before he gave away the  information about the drug trade. Good to know.

Mouse is a Rat.

Interpol drag the phone booth out of the water. One of them says "Not much to go on, I'm afraid." Well, you have cause of death pretty much certain.

Back at the office, the head of Interpol says that Mouse gave useless tips, but maybe this one was worth something because, you know, he was sent over the edge of the water in a phone booth.

The man who married Ann is named Ortega. The other man is named Sanchez. The head of Interpol tells Ortega that he has to get on a plane at dawn. Letting work interfere this early in the marriage?

I made a joke about Ann being plastic earlier- but look at her offspring:

Almost ten minutes into this exploitation film, and we've already had a murder, a drug trade, and a betrayal. That means it is time for a sex scene. In the shower. Hitting all the bases.

Ortega is at the airfield waiting for the plane. They are trying to get information about the drug deal tip. Ortega says "Remember, we want information, not dead bodies." They follow this instruction and engage in a shooting battle with the gang.

Someone runs out of bullets and gets shot. Also, the plane blows up. Remember the "information, not dead bodies" thing? The gang gets out of there because "nobody could live through that."

Actually, someone does, but gets shot. Then the camera zooms in a briefcase.

A member of the gang comes out to a gathering and declares:

Another member named Milo calls him out on his ableist language and says "May I suggest 'numbskulls'?"

The ableist  member says that Wicks, his corporate assistant, died in the plane. He says it's a disaster, but Milo says "May I suggest 'catastrophe?"

He about the briefcase and, when assured that it was destroyed in the fire, says "you better be right."

Cut to the briefcase at Interpol. Get it? He thought that something wasn't destroyed, but then it cuts to the thing that wasn't destroyed. The movie is great at foreshadowing.

But the insides are destroyed. The diary is burned up. I should stop making assumptions.

Ortega says that the legitimate businessmen don't enter the country in an undercover plane with a secret diary. Really?

Sanchez says Mouse was in touch with Edwards right before he was pushed into the bay. They don't know whether Edwards is involved.

They think the diary would prove Edwards was involved. They want to bluff and threaten Edwards with releasing the contents of the diary, pretending that it wasn't destroyed.

Does the plot even matter? Especially when we can see scantily-clad women massaging a gang member.

Milo is interviewing that member for a press release. The gang member dictates: "State how shocked  and stunned that Edwards is that a top member of our management..."

Milo interjects "How about 'most trusted' member of management?"

Edwards approves and continues "...was involved in such a..such a crime'

Milo adds "May I suggest 'heinous'?"

Running jokes only work when they contain humor.

Interpol comes in. They ask if Edwards was waiting for Wicks. Edwards says no, and they inform him that Wicks was killed smuggling drugs. Awkward.

Edwards says he is shocked that his employee was involved in a crime. He also accuses Interpol of spying and harassment, threatening that other members of the gang are upset.

Then he says "You will have my full cooperation in the investigation of this...most heinous crime."

I laughed at a joke in a 1983 Filipino exploitation film. We all have done things in our lives we aren't proud of.

Edwards asks Milo to recover the diary and to attack Ortega.

Ortega enters his house to see Ann tied up. Gang member attack him.

I assume that, at some point, lying to the gang boss about having a vital piece of information that could incriminate his entire operation and then not guarding his house seemed like a good idea. I must have skipped that part of the movie.

A guy with the sword, who was the killer at the beginning of the movie cuts off Ann's dress sleeve.Then he nicks her shoulder. Then he just stabs her through the stomach and laughs.

Well, this is certainly living up to the "exploitation" genre.

Ortega. looks downwards and the camera holds on a ring on one of the gang's fingers. That was too subtle, so the camera zooms in on it.

I'm sure seeing your wife being murdered right before you is traumatizing, but he still takes note of this ring. I'm sure it won't be relevant later.

Now the guy with the sword tells them to hold out Ortega arm. He specifies the right arm for some reason. Then he amputates it and laughs some more.

That scene was, um, interesting, and justified the title. It also justified me putting it on the blog.

I have a bad feeling that, after a few more months of this blog, I'm going to look back at this movie as it if were Care Bears.

At the United Doctor's Medical Center. Ortega wakes up, hooked to an IV. Sanchez and the chief are standing over him. He slowly reaches over, grabs his stump, and screams that he will kill them. They put him under again.

A pair of white shoes enters the room, and the man wearing them sits on Ortega's bed and tells him that his wife is dead. It is in a hospital, the lighting is shadowy and we never see his face. I have always wondered what Eye of the Beholder would look like if it were a Filipino exploitation movie.

Interpol investigates an island where the plane crash occurred. Meanwhile, Edwards is doing some tests on a shipment of drugs. He asks a doctor about his "patient". So a member of the hospital is part of the gang.

Ortega is depressed about his lack of a arm. Wo-Chen, his officer, tries to cheer him up. Also, he calls him Ramon. So it's Ramon Ortega.

I don't like to beat a dead horse, but this 1983 Filipino exploitation film is morally superior to Me Before You.

Ortega swears revenge, but the chief of Interpol tells him to let the police department handle it professionally and:

Okay, that was twice I laughed. Not even sure if that was intentional, but it was funny.

At the graveyard, Ortega cries over his dead wife. He says life is worthless without her and it is hilarious.

The officers talk about what to do with Ortega. They suggest a desk job or a pension. This is known as workplace discrimination.

Orega takes a taxi to a bar. A very sleazy bar. Because exploitation film.


So Ortega walks into a bar.
The bartender asks "How much is your tab here?"
Ortega shrugs and replies "Can't tell you off-hand."


Ortega orders a bourbon double. A woman comes up and hits on him. Because exploitation film. Her name is Maria.

Cut to later that night. Maria has successfully made Ortega drunk and taken all his money. Then she takes him home and lies him down.

This scene is cool because the fan makes shadows across his face and it adds to the atmosphere. Yes, I'm praising the cinematography in a 1978 exploitation film.

Ortega goes to look at rings. Relationship moving that quickly? He walks around and people stare and him. Then he knocks over a fruit stand. The music tells me I'm supposed to be feeling sad about this.

Ortega sits alone in a room, drinking, and tells Ann that he is trying but doesn't know how to begin.

He hears Ann's voice in his head saying they were both looking for happiness and she thinks she has found it. Then there are some flashbacks of the Ortega and Ramon being romantic, clearly on the same level as the romantic flashbacks in Casablanca.

Mr. Wo-Chen and Sanchez talk about  Ramon. I'm going to call him Ramon from now on because the characters are. Ramon is missing, and Mr Wo-Chen put out a search party because he is afraid that Ramon will try to seek revenge. Mr Wo-Chen says that Ramon isn't ready. I thought the police discouraged revenge.

Sannchez says this:

That's ableist.

Ramon is in a dark alley, so he gets beat up. And mugged. So he goes back to the bar. He stumbles and asks for a drink. But he doesn't have any money, and the bartender refuses to put it on a tab because he "is no longer one of his best customers."

The man who was sitting next to Ramon dials the phone ominously.

A car drives up and a man grabs Ramon,  forcing him into a car. They drive to a location. It looks like a nice resort.

This is the part of the movie where they train the person with the new injury to fight. I've seen it in The Crippled Masters, Crimson Bat, and now The One-Armed Executioner. Every time I see this scene, I think about how Will Trainer killed himself because he couldn't surf.

Mr Wo-Chen summarizes it:

Ramon's first task is to walk across a beam. He walks across the beam the second time he tries it. I don't really get the idea that he achieved something great if he got it on the second try.

He fails at fighting twice.

This is turning into a bad anime.

Actually, it's turning into a bad montage. An extremely bad montage.

I disagree.

Wo-Chen reminds Ramon that a single touch could kill him in real battle, and he trains again.

This fighting isn't interesting to me. I don't know why.

This part is hilarious though. He skips rocks across the water and Ann's face shows up. You would think that her face would shimmer onto the surface of the water. but there is just a still photo of her on the water, the water shimmers away and she starts moving. It's hard to describe, but this is when you first see her photo:

And when the water leaves, she starts moving as if she just remembered to start the flashback.

Wo-Chen comes and gets Ramon away from dead wife visions. Wo-Chen plays armchair psychologist and says he will never stop having nightmares until he lets go of his guilt. He also assures Ramon that it is not his fault that Ann is dead.

Eh, I wouldn't say he is blameless. I'm not passing moral judgement, but Ramon did bluff and tell a crime boss that he had incriminating evidence, and then left his wife alone at home without taking any precautions. Just saying.

Wo-Chen  asks Ramon what the men who killed Ann looked like. Ramon says he isn't sure because they were wearing masks.

Stop trying to be philosophical, One-Armed Executioner.

Here is where the Chekov's ring comes back. Ramon says that he saw a ring while witnessing the traumatic slaughter of his wife and somehow managed to remember it. He describes the ring as gold, with a dragon design and a snake surrounding it. Also, the snake was holding a chalice. Let's look at the ring from a previous scene:

Not seeing it.

More training the next day. If he is holding a gun, doesn't he have two arms? Making the title a lie?

Ramon holds the gun between his knees to reload. He goes to target practice. Wo-Chen calls out numbers and Ramon shoots the  targets. He is too slow for Wo-Chen. Through the magical teaching powers of a jump cut, he suddenly is fast enough

That was fast.

Wo-Chen says the ring is of Chinese origin, 6th century, with the sign of an apothecary or a healer. This means that the doctor is the person wearing the mask.

Um...seems like valid logic. For a 1983 Filipino exploitation film.

Ramon goes to the doctor's house and says he wants to know about rings. The doctor says "The jeweler is in the next office."

Wait, no, Ramon grabs his hand and asks about the ring. The doctor says that it is only a common ring.

It would be funny if that ring was not a 6th century Chinese ring, but a mass-produced modern ring and Ramon is interrogating an innocent man.

The doctor says Mike Jason killed his wife and that he lives in the penthouse  at the Superior Insurance Company. 2/3 of the way through an exploitation film and we are just getting to the penthouse? Ramon slaps the doctor to the ground.

The chief of Interpol tells Sanchez that Doctor Henderson was killed. We didn't get to see the kill. Sanchez says that he was Ortega's doctor and the chief says he was also Edward's physician.

The chief reminds Sanchez how professionally the veins were tied up. A lot of the logic in this seems really, really flimsy. Also, way to discriminate against the medical profession. The chief says he wishes they could find Ortega. Then it cuts to Ortega. This is a masterful piece of directing, not unlike the briefcase shot from before.

Ortega goes into the penthouse and convientally finds Jason immediately, getting a massage. Ortega accuses Jason of brutally slaughtering Ann, and Jason can't really deny it. Especially when Ortega throws him Doctor Henderson's ring. The masseur (thank you, Google) runs and grabs a club while Ortega beats up Jason.

Is that an intentional double-meaning of "rod" or
am I overthinking this?

Rod and Jason fight Ortega. Jason uses a sword and Rod a club.  The fight scene is...okay. At one point, Jason drops his sword, and then Ortega picks it up and stabs him. So it's like Hamlet. And both works of revenge fiction have equal literary merit.

Ortega goes to the dock, throws a sleeping man off a boat, and rides it across the bay. Two gang members try to fight him when he docks on the other side, but Ortega kills them both. Then he ambushes a few guards on the way to Edwards' hideout.

Milo and Edwards are on the phone and tell us how the drug trade is coming along. They have to get to a refinery by tomorrow to get a shipment out on Thursday. Thank you for the exposition.

They hear Ortega fighting off the guards and decide to address that problem. Edwards shoots twice at Ortega, but he jumps out of the way and Edwards yells at his guards to take  care of it as he runs back inside.

In one interesting scene, Ortega holds a guard's gun as the guard is shooting at him and aims it at Milo.

That's about the only part of the fight scene I liked.

Edwards runs towards a boat, turns back, about to shoot, but decides against it and flees

Milo isn't dead because Ortega needs to know where Edwards is going. Milo says he is going to the refinery. Ortega asks where the refinery is, and Milo replies:

That was the pay-off for the running joke.

Actually. I thought it was funny.

At the refinery, Edwards is angry the his men didn't kill Ortega.

Wo-chen, Sanchez, and Ortega fly in a helicopter over  Panginay, Bulacan. They find the refinery pretty easily, as it is marked with two guard towers.

Edwards tells his men that after this delivery, they will have to close up shop for awhile. See, it's funny because Interpol is going to kill them.

The guards try to shoot the helicopter down. Ortega throws some explosives and blows up the guard towers and the bridges, isolating the gang.

Ortega jumps down from the helicopter in an exciting shot.

Ortega advances towards the refinery and takes out Edward's men. It's...a fight scene. Nothing special, but nothing awful either.

Jason is smoking a cigar. In case this film hasn't hit enough clichés, Ortega runs out of bullets when he tries to shoot Jason.

Ortega runs through some tall weeks which will make things more difficult.

The helicopter finally lands. Wo-Chen steps out.

Ortega hears the click of a reload. We know this because there is a close-up of an ear.

Wo-chen calls for backup.

Jason and Edwards stumble through the jungle. Jason is wounded, so Edwards leaves him to die.

Ortega stumbles across a body in the mud and shoots at it.  A gang member shoots at Ortega and misses. Ortega tries to shoot, but he is out of bullets, so he grabs a sword off of the corpse and throws it at the attacker.

Jason and Edwards find a boat.

NAZIS? WHAT?

Jason helps Edwards start the boat. Edwards thanks him by hitting him with a briefcase and riding away.

Ortega runs back to the helicopter and reveals that Edwards got away. Wo-chen stays behind as Ortega and Sanchez fly after Edwards.

Edwards tries to shoot, but his gun is out of bullets. of course. Luckily, he has another gun.

This movies is starting to get ridiculous

Ortega throws the explosive into the boat and kills Edwards.Then they find Jason, struggling to stay alive on the beach. Ortega jumps out of the helicopter, takes out his gun, points it at Jason. He pulls the trigger, but he is out of bullets.

That's not what happens. Ortega says it is hard to kill Jason and throws him the gun. Ortega walks away,  and Jason shoots at him. Ortega lies down, and takes another gun out of his pocket.

Have you forgotten why Ortega wants to kill Jason? Don't worry, the movie give you a flashback of Jason brutally slaughtering Ann.

Ortega shoots Jason, and we immediately cut to Wo-Chen, the chief of Interpol, and Sanchez in the boat. They come onto the beach, and the chief offers him a job back.

Ortega says "No thanks chief. My work is all finished"

Then the movie ends on this shot.

Final thoughts...

I started this movie expecting that, by the time I finished it, I will have seen my first Filipino exploitation film about a one-armed executioner.

At the end of the movie, I can confirm that I have seen my first Filipino exploitation film about a one-armed executioner.

Therefore, I have to give this movie a positive rating.

Q: Why did Ortega pay full price for his equipment?
A: He couldn't buy them second-hand.