Geraldine Page was a terrific actress. But she could also be quite scary. Particularly as an older woman. The Oscar nominated star of Hondo, Sweet Bird of Youth and Interiors, the veritable fixture of New York stage and actress with a capital A, the quirky dramatics of Ms. Page usually translated to screen with a compelling, but sometimes freaky combination of forceful integrity and downright perversion. The crazy fixed eyes, the airs and, in the case of What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, the lopsided wigs.

Produced by Robert Aldrich, who'd already created one of the greatest hags gone wild masterworks of all time, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, the film's title, obviously cribs liberally from Baby Jane. But other than the dueling elder-leads (the fantastic Ruth Gordon co-stars) hashing out their problems (and they certainly have a few), there is little else resembling the Bette Davis Joan Crawford classic save for some screaming and brittle bones. Filmed with flavorless, TV style strokes by Lee H. Katzin, Aunt Alice is much too plodding and pedestrian for its charismatic leads. It's supposed to be scary but instead, feels sad. You'll stare at the lonely desert backdrop, scope out the late '60s furniture and clothes and feel badly for these old broads spending their twilight years in such creepy tedium.

Page plays Claire Marrable, a fancy woman who's recently lost her husband only to learn he left her with nothing but debts. She moves to Arizona near her nephew George (Peter Brandon) and spends time in a modest house in the middle of nowhere where, by film start, she begins losing her grip on sanity. Looking at the flat landscape of her life, who can blame her. But her attempts to solve her financial struggles are a bit, uh, extreme. She loves nothing more than to discuss money and the stock market and imparts her thoughts to her housekeepers whom she tricks into placing their life savings in the market. When they begin to reap some change, she nabs their dough, kills them (with a shovel!) and buries their bodies in her yard. There is something incredibly unseemly about watching Page maniacally smack a feeble old ladies head with a shovel and the film knows it, though it never makes you fearful, just saddened--saddened by her character's desperation and the film role itself. Bette Davis got horrifying makeup, baby doll dresses, black and white cinematography, scene chewing monologues and dead birds, Page gets a shovel.