What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, newly available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, came late in the cycle of horror films in which actresses of a certain age attempted to revive fading film careers by playing leads in horror movies, often as grotesque characters. The cycle began with 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? produced and directed by Robert Aldrich, who produced, but did not direct Aunt Alice, the only one of numerous films he produced that he did not also direct.

Aldrich was primarily known for such testosterone driven macho films as Kiss Me Deadly, The Flight of the Phoenix, and The Dirty Dozen with the grand guignol Baby Jane and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte lucrative outliers.

Geraldine Page, 44 during filming, and Ruth Gordon, 72 during filming, form an unusual pairing playing characters from the novel The Forbidden Garden in which Page’s character was older than Gordon’s. To make them appear closer in age, Gordon wears a red wig.

Page, who began the decade with high profile starring roles in Summer and Smoke, Sweet Bird of Youth, Toys in the Attic, and Dear Heart while continuing in high profiles roles on stage and TV, had by the middle of decade retreated to supporting roles in such films as You’re a Big Boy Now and The Happiest Millionaire. What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? was her first starring role on screen in five years. Gordon, on the other hand, was enjoying a career resurgence.

A legendary stage star, Gordon was best known in Hollywood for her Oscar-nominated screenplays for A Double Life, Adam’s Rib, and Pat and Mike. Her Oscar-nominated portrayal of Natalie Wood’s mother in 1965’s Inside Daisy Clover was her first on-screen appearance since 1943’s Action in the North Atlantic. Three years later she was well on her way to an Oscar on her fifth nomination for her witch next door in 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby when Aunt Alice began filming.

Page and Gordon follow in the footsteps of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in Baby Jane, Davis and Olivia de Havilland in Charlotte, Crawford in Straight-Jacket, de Havilland in Lady in a Cage, Davis in The Nanny, Tallulah Bankhead in Die! Die! My Darling among others and predate Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters in What’s the Matter with Helen? at the end of the cycle of horror movies starring middle-aged actresses whose careers had seen better days.

Page plays a not-so-grieving widow who learns that her late husband has left her nothing but his worthless stamp collection. To compensate, she moves to the Arizona desert where she develops a plan of hiring elderly housekeepers with no known relatives who she gets to name her as beneficiary of their insurance policies and then dispatches them, burying them in her garden. When her good friend (Mildred Dunnock) disappears, Gordon shows up as Page’s latest housekeeper, determined to get to the bottom of her friend’s disappearance.

With a good deal of it played for laughs, the film is never quite scary, but enjoyable if your real interest is in seeing Page and Gordon upstage one another.

The film co-stars Rosemary Forsyth as Page’s next-door neighbor, a widow whose young nephew and his dog live with her. Page and Gordon also play widows with nephews creating an interesting dynamic. Gordon’s undercover nephew, played by Robert Fuller, doubles as Forsyth’s love interest.

TV director Bernard Girard began the film but was fired by Aldrich for taking too long and was replaced by fellow TV director Lee H. Katzin.

The film was supposed to be followed by a TV series called What Ever Happened to… but when the film’s box-office proved disappointing, the idea of a TV series was dropped.

Film Historian Richard Harland Smith provides excellent commentary on the Kino Lorber release.

Films about Alzheimer’s Disease such as Away From Her and Still Alice place their focus on the individual suffering from the disease. In Elizabeth Chomko’s What They Had, the emphasis is on the caregivers, the daughter, son, and husband of the afflicted woman.

Hilary Swank gets top billing as the daughter living in California with power of attorney over her parents living in Chicago. Michael Shannon is her brother who has the day-to-day responsibility of caring for the parents. Robert Forster is the father who is recovering from a heart attack. Blythe Danner is the mother whose memory is fast departing her. When she goes out in the snow in the middle of the night and her husband is unable to find her, he calls the son who calls the daughter against his wishes for fear that she will use her power of attorney to have his wife put in a care facility.

Swank comes with her teenage daughter (Taissa Farmiga) in tow, leaving her husband (John Lucas) behind. Shannon wants his mother placed in the care facility while Forster wants her to stay with him. Swank puts off making her decision, returning home where she finally confronts the fact that she and her husband are in a loveless marriage.

Chomko, primarily a television and theatre actress, is making her writing and directorial debut with this incisive drama which showcases the performances of its four stars.

Two-time Oscar winner Swank (Boys Don’t Cry, Million Dollar Baby) and two-time nominee Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Nocturnal Animals) are both excellent as is never-nominated Danner (Hearts Beat Loud), but the standout is one-time nominee Forster (Jackie Brown) who gives a career defining performance as the exasperated husband and father.

What They Had is available on standard DVD only.

This week’s new releases include The Old Man & the Gun and the Criterion Blu-ray release of Notorious.