Wicked Stepmother (1989)

Thanks for the memories!

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

As you probably know, Bette Davis walked off of "Wicked Stepmother" after just a week of filming, leaving writer/director Larry Cohen scrambling to rewrite his script and get the movie completed. While the end results make sense (sort of), what is really amazing is that Cohen not only managed to sell the completed movie to a major Hollywood studio, he made enough on the sale to make a profit. The movie simply isn't good, which is probably why the Hollywood studio barely released it to theaters. In her footage, Bette Davis not only looks and sounds extremely ill, she doesn't seem to give a darn about this project. The other actors come across somewhat better, but even they aren't able to generate laughs at any point in the movie. The screenplay they are stuck with simply isn't funny at all. The heavily rewritted screenplay also (perhaps inevitably) feels like Cohen is making things up as he goes along. It also doesn't help that the special effects are mostly pretty cheesy, even for an 1980s film. In short, the movie is a low point for Davis, Cohen, studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer, and everybody else involved with it.

Probably had Bette Davis been in better health and actually finished the film as planned Wicked Stepmother might have been a reasonably good black comedy about the occult. As it was with her walking out of the film for reasons of health I suspect we get both an incoherent story and only about 15 minutes of Bette Davis.As it was she could have and should have took her final cinema curtain call with the wonderful Whales Of August. It's not as bad a valedictory as Cuban Rebel Girl with her old fellow Warner Brothers player Errol Flynn, but it's still a mess. And Bette looked positively terrible in her scenes.Detective Tom Bosley is on the trail of a witch who ingratiates herself in a family, loots it and then does something to them for her amusement. In the case Bosley is on they're turned into puppetoons and are found in a shoe box.His quarry has moved on to another family and vacationing Colleen Camp and David Rasche come home and find that her father Lionel Stander is now married again to Bette Davis. Things start happening to all of them even their son Shawn Donohue as the witch switches back and forth from Davis to Barbara Carrera with Stander not noticing or figuring how lucky can an old guy get. Camp sees her family being torn away from her and she's not taking it lying down.Not only is this Bette Davis's farewell to the big screen, but also Evelyn Keyes who plays the owner of a shop on the occult who gives lessons in magic. Both Camp and Bosley get a crash course.Wicked Stepmother is funny in spots and the climax is nicely done, but maybe if some insurmountable problems hadn't occurred we might have seen a better film.

This film is nothing short of a criminal act! Was nobody looking out for poor, frail (almost dead) Bette Davis?? The filmmaker supposedly was trying to offer the legend what she wanted most, To work.. but I say that everyone who was involved with the making of this catastrophe that stood by and allowed an already dead Bette Davis to be shamed like this is GUILTY of a crime! A crime against everything that we classic film lovers and fans of Bette Davis hold dear. I realize that Bette walked off the film, some say because of her failing health, others say Bette (as sick as she was) knew that this steaming pile was beneath her. Whatever the reason I am glad that we can at least say that Bette walked off because this STAIN on her glorious career is as bad as I have ever seen! I almost turned it off after only 15min and then I forced myself to watch until the point that Bette walked off. If someone wants to see a Bette Davis film then I recommend they watch All About Eve or Now Voyager or The Letter... or if you want to see a "farewell" performance then watch The Whales of August which co stars Lillian Gish, Vincent Price, Ann Southern and Harry Carey Jr. In closing I just want to say that I am a film historian and preservationist at heart and I would NEVER think of making my next statement if I didn't feel it was the best solution, that being said I feel that this film should be erased from history.. All it does is tarnish the memory of one of the greatest actresses that ever graced stage or screen. Nothing whatsoever can be gained from viewing this film, if so I would not say that I feel it should be completely deleted. I don't expect everyone to agree with me but I hope that all of you Bette Davis fans that haven't seen this movie yet will PLEASE SKIP this one! Then for all the Bette Davis fans and classic movie lovers/buffs that have seen some or all of this excrement, don't remember Bette this way, she was so wonderful and full of life in All About Eve, remember her that way.If anyone involved in the making of Wicked Stepmother reads this - SHAME ON YOU!I am adding a list of what I consider "must see" films for film lovers so if you don't want to see my list stop here. Thanks!Here are a few of my favorite dvds that I recommend watching- -Citizen Kane - Orson Welles (1941) -Casablanca - MichaelCurtiz(1943) -The Third Man - Carol Reed (1949) -Seven Samurai - Akira Kurosawa(1954) -Touch of Evil - Orson Welles (1958) -Rules of The Game - Jean Renoir (1939) -Singing In The Rain - Stanley Donen (1952) -Vertigo - Alfred Hitchcock (1958) -Charade - Stanley Donen (1963) -Double Indemnity - Billy Wilder (1944) -Gone With The Wind - Victor Flemming/George Cukor (1939) -Lawrence of Arabia - David Lean (1962) -The Godfather - Francis Ford Coppola (1972) -Wizard of Oz - Victor Flemming (1939) -400 Blows - Francois Truffaut (1959) -The Grand Illusion - Jean Renoir (1937) -8 1/2 - Federico Fellini (1963) -The Seventh Seal - Ingmar Bergman (1957) -The Magnificent Ambersons - Orson Welles (1942) -The Red Shoes - Powell & Pressburger (1948) -Treasure of the Sierra Madre - John Houston (1948) -Gaslight - George Cukor (1944) -The Black Narcissus - Powell & Pressburger (1946) -The Maltese Falcon - John Houston (1941) -Now Voyager - Irving Rapper (1942) -Sunset Blvd. - Billy Wilder (1950) -The Big Sleep - Howard Hawks (1946) -All About Eve - Joe Mankiewicz (1950) -North By Northwest - Alfred Hitchcock (1959) -The Trial - Orson Welles (1962) -Laura - Otto Preminger (1944) -The Lost Weekend - Billy Wilder (1945) -The Lady Eve - Preston Sturges (1941) -Night of The Hunter - Charles Laughton (1955) -The Searchers - John Ford (1956) -On The Waterfront - Elia Kazan (1954) -Battleship Potemkin - Sergei Eisenstein (1925) -The General - Buster Keaton (1927) -Breathless - Jean-Luc Godard (1959) -Sweet Smell Of Success - Alexander Mackendrick (1957) -L'Atalante - Jean Vigo (1934) -Metropolis - Fritz Lang (1927) -Out Of The Past - Jacques Tourneur (1947) -The Lady Vanishes - Alfred Hitchcock (1938) -Mr. Arkadin - Orson Welles (1955) -Rear Window - Alfred Hitchcock (1954) -The Killers - Robert Siodmak (1946) -The Lady From Shanghai - Orson Welles (1947) -Ace In The Hole - Billy Wilder (1951) -The Thief of Bagdad - Michael Powell (1940) and if you are trying to discover something that you have never seen. Then do a search of any of the following directors and check out their work.-Orson Welles -Alfred Hitchcock -Powell & Pressburger -Billy Wilder -Ingmar Bergman -John Ford -Carol Reed -John Houston -Federico Fellini -Akira Kurosawa -Stanley Donen -Michael Curtiz -George Cukor -Elia Kazan -Jean Renoir -Frank Capra -Martin Scorsese -Victor Flemming -Jean Vigo -Howard Hawks -Francois Truffaut -Preston Sturges

This film wasn't THAT bad. I actually enjoyed it! Sure replacing Bette Davis with Barbara Carrera and THEN having them share the same body was not the smartest decision ever made in Hollywood, but it sure beats Ed Wood's solution to replacing Bela Lugosi in "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Also, it does get rather silly in the scenes toward the end. But there are some very clever scenes too, like the one involving the photograph of Lionel Stander's horrible first wife. The photograph is of Bette's rival, Joan Crawford. Colleen Camp, Tom Bosley, David Rasche, Seymour Cassel, Evelyn Keyes (!), Lionel Stander and even Barbara Carrera did wonderful in their roles. And Richard Moll was very funny in his small, but memorable, role as the inspector. But the true star of this movie is Bette Davis. She is wonderfully evil in the role of Miranda. She is so good at being bad. And even though it was not her best movie, she still is wonderful to watch. I think Larry Cohen did a fine job with this, considering all the trouble it ran into. Overall, Wicked Stepmother is an okay movie.** 1/2 out of ****