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Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

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• Barbara Stanwyck was originally sought for the role of Jewel Mayhew which eventually went to 'Mary Astor (I)' . It was to be Astor's last film.
  
  
• Mary Astor's last film.
  
  
• Joan Crawford took sick and was hospitalized as filming began (see above) so scenes were shot around her, but when it became evident that she would have to be replaced, her role was offered to Katharine Hepburn and Vivien Leigh. Hepburn didn't return the studio's call, while Leigh declined, saying, "No, thank you. I can just about stand looking at Joan Crawford's face at six o'clock in the morning, but not Bette Davis." Eventually, Robert Aldrich flew to Switzerland and convinced Olivia de Havilland to step in.
  
  

• When Miriam Deering (Olivia de Havilland) is preparing to close up the house in anticipation of moving out, she is packing a box which is stenciled "Sam Strangis Storage & Transfer, Baton Rouge, LA.". Sam Strangis was the assistant director on this picture.
  
  
• Loretta Young was also offered the role of Miriam when Joan Crawford became ill but turned it down, saying the role was totally wrong for her.
  
  
• Until his death in 1959, Joan Crawford had been married to Alfred Steele, the president of Pepsi-Cola. In an effort to spite her co-star, Bette Davis installed a Coca-Cola machine on the set.
  
  
• Song lyrics heard over the opening titles: "Chop chop, sweet Charlotte / Chop chop till he's dead / Chop chop, sweet Charlotte / Chop off his hand and head / To meet your lover you ran chop chop / Now everyone understands / Just why you went to meet your love chop chop / To chop off his head and hand."
  
  
• Although she was replaced by Olivia de Havilland midway through production, Joan Crawford (then on the Pepsi board of directors) was notorious for demanding that product placement shots of her company's soft drink appear in all her pictures of that era. Perhaps to spite her, there's a shot of a rival Cola-Cola truck barreling through town just before Miriam sees Jewel Mayhew on the street.
  
  
• Weather and travel delays, as well as Joan Crawford's departure, forced director Robert Aldrich to cease location filming and move to a $200,000 replica of Houmas House at Fox Studio's Soundstage 6.
  
  
• When the taxi pulls up with cousin Miriam inside and stops at the foot of the steps, if you look closely before Miriam gets out you can just for a split moment see it is fact Joan Crawford in the back and not Olivia de Havilland. You can't see Crawford's face but you can tell it's her by the black dress and dark sunglasses that she is wearing. When de Haviland as Miriam is seen in the taxi before she arrives she is wearing a white hat and her clothing is light colored.
  
  
• The painting of young Charlotte is of Bette Davis in her role as Julie in Jezebel (1938).
  
  

• SPOILER: The film was shot at Houmas House Plantation and Gardens, outside the towns of Darrow and Burnside, Louisiana (just south of Baton Rouge). The home and grounds are open to tours, and the tour guide points out several bits of trivia pertaining to the film on the tour, including the bedroom where Bette Davis slept while filming and the spot where her character pushes the potted vase onto Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotten.
  
  

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