Previously on Feud: Bette and Joan
1 "Pilot" 2 "The Other Woman" 3 "Mommie Dearest" 4 "More or Less"
-Do you have any comment on your co-star Joan Crawford being snubbed?
-Define "snub"!
by Nathaniel R
If you had told me at any point before Feud: Bette and Joan was announced to the world that there would one day be a TV show that spent a full hour recreating the drama of a single Oscar night, I would never have believed you. If that imaginative hurtle was cleared I would then preemptively call it the single greatest TV hour in the history of television. But here we are with Feud and the reality is, if not the fantasy, still the best hour of Feud as a series. The concept of the series has so far outpaced the reality of it that it's lapped by several times already. Which is to say that if you've been reading along you know that I don't love the show. So I'll turn over the finale 3 episodes to team members who are maybe enjoying it a bit more (with one last Feud-related post from me after the season has wrapped). Still, I can't not review this Oscar-themed episode. "And the Winner Is..." was entirely riveting even though all Oscar buffs had spoiler alerts in their DNA!
Oscar night made the episode so addictive and I'm so short on time that this week's review will be more of a Thoughts I Had... style rundown of each scene. And we'll have to do it in two part. Ready? Here we go...
This shot made me LOL
The episode begins with a newsreel that I can't imagine was accurate but it's still a ton of fun. The newsreel suggests that The Music Man was in a dead heat with Lawrence of Arabia and that Best Actress was the most competitive acting race. Hmmm, given that the race for Best Actor was a cliffhanger with Peter O'Toole's sensational Lawrence of Arabia debut (in the frontrunning picture) and Gregory Peck's career peak in To Kill a Mockingbird this seems unlikely.
But still the shade, the shade of of it all is divine, especially that shot of Katharine Hepburn's home (pictured above) when the newsreel announces that she won't be attending. No shit! She never did. Which is why it's kind of shocking that she won 4 times. Usually you have to want it -- but not so with Katharine and Woody Allen, two Oscar favorites who never could be bothered. Strangely, that only made Oscar want them more.
As it turns out I'm available to present this year. Either Best Picture or Best Director."
I don't know about this scene where Joan Crawford makes all sorts of demands of the Academy and they're like "no" but then they capitulate. Yes, Joan Crawford had a massive ego and was "difficult" but this is Hollywood where insanely famous actors with massive egos are not exactly in short supply.
Though she's right to aim for those prizes. Pity they didn't let her do Picture. (They never let the ladies do it!)
The title alone makes me want to shudder: Lady in a Cage.
Lady in a Cage! We were going to review that one during our Olivia De Havilland week and never got around to it. She did go on to make it of course.
In related news: Catherine Zeta-Jones finally gets a scene! She's no longer just the Feud script in vaguely humanoid theme-spouting form. I don't want to be hateful (there are so many bitches on this show that you don't need another one writing about it) but what has happened to CZJ? She used to be a better actress than this.
Some screen actors get better after a stage run but swear to goddess CZJ has been playing to the rear balcony ever since winning her Tony. She can't let any single line out without ACTING every word in it. She doesn't sound human at all. But that "my Joan is worse than your Joan" / "impossible" was a terrific moment nevertheless. If CZJ were great as Olivia we'd demand Feud: Olivia and Joan but as it is, this is plenty.
Her THIRD Oscar!
LOL. That's how emphatically I'd down a drink too if someone I thought was hopelessly overrated (like, oh, Jessica Lange) was approaching their third Oscar win, too. I feel you Joan!
Who do you think is her closest competition?
Hedda Hopper, the first Oscar blogger. But in all seriousness, Feud: Bette and Joan sometimes feels like fan fiction where Oscar nuts like us have written a script wherein everyone within Hollywood is also an Oscar nut and loves discussing it ad nauseum.
This scene is fun because Judy Davis has been slaying as Hopper for five episodes. Now she's concocted a horrible plan to deny Bette Davis a third Oscar because she's "vulgar" and is launching a smear campaign. The second reason it's fun is because of all the name-dropping. Hedda's phone call to Charlton Heston starts with some fawning over El Cid.
How I adore a man in a leather skirt!
Hedda and Joan also call Loretta Young, Cary Grant, and Doris Day... though we don't get to see the other end of these phone calls. All this work to upset the Davis train is too much for Jealous Joan...
I was the bigger star. My leading men were more attractive. My pictures made more money. And yet I was always made to feel inferior.
The writers of Feud are practically begging us to do a side by side "which is hotter?" comparison of Davis & Crawford's leading men, aren't they?
Hopper concocts a plot wherein Crawford will be the one to walk off the stage with the Best Actress Oscar. We don't know if this was actually Hedda's idea in real life but Crawford did accomplish this in one of the bitchiest Oscar shenanigans of all time. Since Geraldine Page and Anne Bancroft are the only possible upsets, Crawford asks them if she can accept on their behalf if they can't make it. But, both scenes play a little strangely.
Consider... GERALDINE PAGE (Sarah Paulson, yay!)
It's Joan Fucking Crawford!"
It's been a struggle to accept that Feud's characters are not the actual movie stars we've known and loved from old movies but affected modern fictions of them. Paulson works hard in this scene and she's always a pleasure to watch. But it's strange to pretend that Geraldine Page was some ingenue that didn't understand how the Oscars work. Sweet Bird of Youth was already her third Oscar nomination and she'd won two consecutive Best Actress Globes leading up to this Oscar night.
Still, Page's non-star carriage and character-actor stance feels right and her reaction to Joan's suggestion that she needs to get dolled up for the event is great.
If their lives depend on my glamour, I've got bad news for them.
But, again, it's hard to pretend that Geraldine Page was a naif. She had been semi-famous since the 1950s, albeit not an A lister like Crawford or Davis as she was more of a prestigious stage star. But Sweet Bird of Youth was her second consecutive nomination in Best Actress. She was no Oscar virgin.
Rip Torn and Geraldine Page were married five or so months after this Oscar season. Here's a photo of them from the following year so you can get a sense of how they looked back then - fairly good casting!
Consider... ANNE BANCROFT (Serinda Swan)
JOAN: So you're not mad at our little colony. I know they gave that Shirley Maclaine your part in Two for the Seesaw.
ANNE: Well, I heard that movie stank.
JOAN: To high heaven.
Here's where I admit that I am not as well versed in Anne Bancroft than I should be. So I didn't have any specific read on whether any of this felt authentically Bancroft. Are there any Bancroft fanatics reading that would love to sound off on this?
The scene as written and interpreted by the beautiful Serinda Swan, implies both that Anne actually thought highly of Joan Crawford's work in Baby Jane (which touches Joan but she doesn't say thank you), sensed how desperately Joan needed to hold that Oscar, understood that need to one-up Davis, and took pity on her because maybe she didn't care all that much about missing the Oscars to begin with and someone had to accept the damn thing.
Here's a pic of Anne Bancroft backstage at Mother Courage with Natalie Wood and Jerome Robbins (who co-directed Natalie in West Side Story (1961) and also directed Mother Courage. Bancroft had a lot of visitors in that run given how hot she was that year. Bancroft was 31 at the time and had already left her film career (unimpressive up until the 60s) for more artistic fulfillment on stage. The Miracle Worker's stage and screen success transformed her into a much bigger star. Which led us to The Graduate, Pumpkin Eater, and the Mel Brooks movies, and so on...
TRUE STORY: When I was watching Feud my DVR had only recorded half the episode. I was NOT pleased and let out a tiny pathetic 'Noooooo,' when I realized the next scene was jumping us right to Oscar night and I couldn't watch it! So in a way, this recap, cleaved right in the middle, is merely reflecting the drama chez moi.
Part two tomorrow!