What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?

What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?
Theatrical release poster
Directed byLee H. Katzin
Bernard Girard (uncredited)[1]
Screenplay byTheodore Apstein
Based onThe Forbidden Garden
by Ursula Curtiss
Produced byRobert Aldrich
StarringGeraldine Page
Ruth Gordon
Rosemary Forsyth
Robert Fuller
Mildred Dunnock
CinematographyJoseph Biroc
Edited byFrank J. Urioste
Music byGerald Fried
Production
companies
Palomar Pictures Corporation
The Associates & Aldrich Company
Distributed byCinerama Releasing Corporation
Release dates
  • July 23, 1969 (1969-07-23) (New York City)
  • August 20, 1969 (1969-08-20) (wide)
Running time
101 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1.7 million[2]
Box office$3.2 million[2]

What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? is a 1969 American neo-noir thriller film directed by Lee H. Katzin with Bernard Girard (uncredited), and starring Geraldine Page, Ruth Gordon, Rosemary Forsyth, Robert Fuller and Mildred Dunnock. The screenplay by Theodore Apstein, based on the novel The Forbidden Garden by Ursula Curtiss, focuses on an aging Arizona widow who hires elderly female housekeepers and cons them out of their money before murdering them.

The film's title is a reference to the 1962 horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which was also produced by Robert Aldrich. Both films are considered part of the psycho-biddy subgenre, in which a formerly glamorous and now older woman has become psychotic.[3]

The music score was by Gerald Fried and the cinematography by Joseph F. Biroc. The film was funded by American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Palomar Pictures Corporation, and The Associates & Aldrich Company, and distributed by Cinerama Releasing Corporation.

  1. ^ Silver 1995, p. 318.
  2. ^ a b "ABC's 5 Years of Film Production Profits & Losses", Variety, 31 May 1973, p. 3
  3. ^ Zoladz, Lindsay (March 16, 2017). ""Psycho Biddies," Then and Now". The Ringer.