Alright, just finished watching it (thanks bono_212 and LemonMelon), so I'll give a few quick thoughts. First off, Joan Crawford is a fox! damn. I'm not one to go in for older women, but she was hot.
I was surprised by how much Misery borrowed from this film. Aside from the obvious helpless-person-in-a-wheelchair theme, there were some more subtle things. The way Blanche would take her legs out of the wheelchair to close the foot pedals, the way she had to dragged herself up against the wall by the telephone, the typewriter, even the way that the first person to realize what was going on and was in a position to help was suddenly and violently killed from behind; All very reminiscent of Misery.
The director also, as mentioned by someone else, seemed to borrow heavily from Hitchcock. If I'm not mistaken, one of the reasons this film got made was because of the success of Psycho. One scene in particular that caught my eye was right after Blanche realized that Jane had given her a dead rat for din dins. As Blanche is manically wheeling around the room, the camera switches to an overhead angle very much like the scene in Psycho near the end when Bates, dressed in his mothers clothes, runs across the upstairs hallway to stab Arbogast. Anyone else notice that?
I found the set design to be very well done. Blanche's room had a very airy, bright, clean feeling. The rest of the house, especially the area at the bottom of the stairs, being Jane's 'domain' so to speak, had a very cluttered, contrasty, almost crypt like atmosphere. I thought it was a nice touch.
Apart from that, I'd agree that it was a bit on the long side and was starting to lose me by the end. I did like the Edwin character; a charming jackass