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Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte Poster.JPG
Promotional Poster for Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Produced by Robert Aldrich
Written by Henry Farrell
Lukas Heller
Starring Bette Davis
Olivia de Havilland
Joseph Cotten
Agnes Moorehead
Cecil Kellaway
Mary Astor
Music by Frank De Vol
Cinematography Joseph Biroc
Edited by Michael Luciano
Production
company
The Associates and Aldrich
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date
  • December 15, 1964 (1964-12-15)
Running time
133 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $2,235,000
Box office $4,000,000 (US/Canada) (rentals)
79,168 admissions (France)

Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a 1964 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Robert Aldrich, and starring Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotten, and Agnes Moorehead, as well as Mary Astor in her final film.

The movie was adapted for the screen by Henry Farrell and Lukas Heller, from Farrell's unpublished short story, "What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?" It received seven Academy Award nominations.

In 1927, young southern belle Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis) and her married lover, John Mayhew (Bruce Dern), plan to elope during a party at the Hollis family's antebellum mansion in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. Charlotte's father confronts John over the affair and intimidates him with the news that John's wife visited the day before and revealed the affair. John pretends he no longer loves Charlotte and tells her they must part.

John is then brutally murdered and decapitated in the summerhouse with a cleaver, with one hand severed. Charlotte discovers his body. She returns traumatized to the party in a bloody dress, and most of the guests assume Charlotte is the murderer.

The story jumps to 1964. Charlotte is now a wealthy spinster, still living on the Ascension Parish plantation that has been in her family for generations. Charlotte's father died the year after Mayhew's murder, believing his daughter guilty. All these years, Charlotte has believed that her father killed John Mayhew. Everyone else assumes that Charlotte, the crazy recluse, decapitated her lover.

The Louisiana Highway Commission intends to demolish her house and build a new highway through the plantation. Charlotte is vehemently against this and ignores the eviction notice, refusing to leave. She keeps the foreman (George Kennedy), his demolition crew, and the bulldozer away by shooting at them with a rifle. They temporarily give up and leave.


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