What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? : What's up with Edwin?

He seemed a bit loopy toowhy the fake English accent too, to appear more distinguished?

That was Hollywood's 1962 version of what a homosexual was. That wasn't a British Accent, although 'is ol' mum was British. He was putting airs on. Listen to him with his mother and then with Jane. Two totally different voices.

Peter Lawford was told by the Kennedy family not to do this movie (he was supposed to be Edwin) because the character was homosexual. That is why Victor Buono got the part.

much more creepier with the whole relationship with Buono, Davis and Jane's attraction to Edwin thing, tho.

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Swing away, Merrill.Merrill, swing away

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One interesting point on Edwin, I've always thought, was that he came to the house based on the newspaper ad, not knowing what he'd find.

When he realizes that Jane probably has money and she's delusional about him in a romantic way, he plays along. It's all very subtle in his facial expressions and body language. You could see the wheels turning.

Had he not been scared off by seeing Blanche held prisoner, he would have become Jane's gigolo. Of course, he needed the money.

Buono was only 24 (looked much older) to Davis' 54. (That DOES conjure up some rather disturbing mental images!)

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That wasn't a British Accent, although 'is ol' mum was British.

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Note: Actress Marjorie Bennett (Edwin's mom) was Australian. I just read that recently. I always mistook her accent for British as well.

Interesting. As you might have read in another post, i might be uneducated, so I couldn't tell the difference between the accents. LOL.

I was aware of the fact that she was Australian. Never caught the accent as Australian, tho.

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Swing away, Merrill.Merrill, swing away

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She might have been Australian originally, but she was using an English accent in the film. It certainly wasn't Aussie.



You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment.

Being Australian, I could hear the Aus. The way she pronounced certain made me wonder if she was in fact Aus - I wasn't suprised when I found out. She gave faking a British accent her best but those flat vowels gave her away!

It clearly was a British accent, of course different from his normal accent since presumably he was born or grew up in America. Don't you remember how he tells Jane he's English? I just assumed it was to appear more posh or something.

It was just a proper way of speaking, don't you remember him speaking in the house with his mother - it was atrocious and American as can be.

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Swing away, Merrill.Merrill, swing away

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He didn't say British to me either

He sounded English with his mother to me - the difference is that she's obviously as common as muck, and when he's at home, so is he. It's not his mother's broad Cockney, but it's a lower-class accent.

When he's boasting about his Shakespearian father, then he's trying to sound the way he imagines a distinguished actor might sound.

~~Igenlode

Gather round, lads and lasses, gather round

Edwin's mother is very much a "Hollywood" Cockney; if you want to hear the real thing, listen to Irene Handl or Barbara Windsor.

Still, she plays her part efficiently enough. The irony here is the obvious contrast between Edwin's social pretensions (whether motivated by a mere desire to impress the gullible (such as Jane) for possible financial gain, or by some "gay" notion that they confer cachet and style) and the squalid reality of his lowly origins. (The clearly class-marked differences of English accents make this contrast easier to bring about.)

Actually, it is not that unusual (or, at least, it wasn't fifty or so years ago) for an American actor to adopt the inflexions of British Received Pronunciation, and Buono (like another larger-than-life thespian, Orson Welles) does so with some success. After all, the late Jonathan Harris made a career out of such imposture! However, they would probably not pass as English in England without some kind of cover story (fifteen years working for the family company office in Toronto, or somesuch)

I've seen this film dozens of times and never noticed the two different accents. D'oh!






"Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"

Not only is Victor Buono brilliant in the part of Edwin, he gets to say the funniest line in the whole movie. After his mother gives him an earful about the Hudson sisters' sordid past and how Jane was found in a hotel room with a strange man after the accident, Edwin shouts at her "Isn't that how I was conceived?"

Well, his ".WHAT QUAL-AY-FIC-ACTIONS..????" was a pretty good imitatin of his mother.

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Swing away, Merrill.Merrill, swing away

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I thought Edwin was playing a part because the truth is he was a loser with no job, no education and living with mommy. Who is going to hire someone like that?

Edwin is somewhat pathetic. Waiting for Mum to come home with groceries while he fiddles with the piano and listlessly looks for work. He affects an English accent because while we know that by making him effete and somewhat effeminate it was code for "he's gay," he is also lazy, and wants people to think he is far more in the world than he is - he even invents a theatrical pedigree for his unknown father. I love how his mother drives him bonkers, as his "seckertery." That's actually how they spell it in the closed captions!

English MA: Symbolism/my life. Truth vs the world - Boudicca of the Iceni