What Ever Happened To Aunt Alice? (1969)
From the wickedly penetrating mind of Robert Aldrich and his production company comes yet another Hag Cinema obscurity and a consummate Women in Peril movie starring impishly resplendent actress Ruth Gordon and the intensely razor-edged Geraldine Page, in this confrontational psychological thriller of matching wits.
Directed by Lee H. Katzin, ( Along Came A Spider 1970) and uncredited Bernard Girard (Dead Heat on A Merry Go Round 1966, The Mad Room 1969, and several of the most powerful episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1962-64 )
Based on the novel The Forbidden Garden by Ursula Curtiss, penned for the screen by Theodore Apstein.
The casting is perfect, with not only the two brilliant ladies mentioned above but includes the wonderful Mildred Dunnock, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller, and Joan Huntington.
Ruth Gordon performs the inquisitive and determined Aunt Alice Dimmock, who takes on the job of housekeeper for the iron widow Geraldine Page as Claire Marrable who maniacally tends to her garden. Alice goes undercover as the widow’s helper in order to find out what happened to a missing widowed friend, Edna Tilsney ( Mildred Dunnock).
Claire Marrable is a tightly wound, biting, and ruthless serial killer who is left only a stamp collection by her husband, thus resorting to stealing money from her housekeepers, killing them, and burying the bodies in her lovely garden.
All *kinds* of observable differences: The world of Ruth Gordon
“What makes her garden grow… wouldn’t you like to know!”
Happy Trailers MonsterGirl!