Robert Aldrich's classic of the chilly grotesque, with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford a convincingly gruesome twosome as faded stars living together - and hating each other - in a gloomy mansion.

Davis, a former child star, is sinking into an alcoholic madness that fuels her jealousy of her more successful sister (Crawford), now confined to a wheelchair after a car crash.

Getting nuttier by the minute, Davis decides to revive her career. She hires a pianist (a nice performance from Victor Buono) and begins rehearsing her old numbers.

One of the film's most grotesque images is the sight of Bette dressed up as a little girl mawkishly singing 'I've Written a Letter to Daddy'.

All this time she's got her sister locked in a room upstairs. When the maid releases her, Davis goes crazy... Aldrich keeps a tight rein on the action and his two high-powered stars and produces a thriller filled with Gothic menace.

Liberally laced with suspense, this is one you should enjoy.