Whatever happened to Baby Jane?
- Ian Grogan
Alternate:
Jane pushed Blanche down the stairs
Current:
Jane did not push Blanche down the stairs
Pushed down the stairs
The 1962 psychological thriller "Whatever happened to Baby Jane?" contains some pretty disturbing scenes, where two faded Hollywood movie stars, who are sisters, live together in a large creepy mansion. Many people remember one of them tipping the other from her wheelchair down the stairs, and it's been referred to many times in pop culture since - for example, in The Simpsons.
The problem? This isn't in the movie, and those who remember it as being there are experiencing the Mandela Effect.
There is a part where Blanche falls off the bottom step whilst reaching for a phone, but there's no way this would be confused with the dramatic one many people swear was in the original.
Residue: FEUD - Bette and Joan
FEUD is a TV series anthology, based on actual events, from FX which premiered in 2017. The opening sequence actually shows Blanche being pushed down the stairs - look for it at around the 45s mark:
Residue: The Simpsons
Keen Mandela Effect observers are well aware of the many uncanny references the show makes to the false memory discrepancies. It turns out this one is no expection - here's the clip making it perfectly clear they thought she was tipped down the stairs too:
Confused with another movie?
In the 1947 movie "Kiss of Death", Richard Widmark pushed a wheelchair bound woman down the stairs. Although it was made many years before Baby Jane, could people be confusing the two?
The dark atmosphere and setting of Baby Jane conjures up images of long stairways, wheelchairs and one character being horrible to another. So it might not be too much of a stretch, when remembering the "essence" of the movie, to connect all 3 by actually creating a scene which didn't happen.