Previously... And the Winner Is (Pt 1)
-Wait up for me boys. Tonight I'm bringing you home a baby brother.
by Nathaniel R
Picking up where we left off... and, to quote, Mamacita (the delightfully dry Jackie Hoffman) "pick up the pace, it's Oscar day!"
In the second half of Feud's best episode, after watching Joan & Hedda swaying voters away from Bette Davis and arranging for Joan to both present (Best Director) and accept (Best Actress should Bancroft or Page win), it's time for Oscar night. A whole army of hair and makeup people swam Chez Crawford...
This episode has so many beautiful shots of Crawford's spotless home that it's practically an FYC ad for the Emmys in art direction. Joan gets the idea to be pure silver on the golden night -- silver hair, silver jewelry, silver gown -- from Oscars most honored costume designer Edith Head (sadly not a character on the show, despite being a "character," if you will).
We watch Ms Crawford having makeup and hair done. I need to consult my makeup artist friend about this scene. It's cool to watch and I'm guesing they did research for it because the technique and tools look period specific.
Okay, full confession: I watched this scene like five times. I'm possibly obsessed with it.
And, a truth, Joan did look utterly fabulous that night even if she was at her most vindicative as there are always thousands of photos to prove such things from each year's Oscar ceremony.
So many flashbulbs sacrificed their lives that night.
Once Joan is putting on the finishing touches, George Cukor (John Rubinstein), one of Hollywood's all time greatest director-of-actresses, arrives to pay respects. Cukor directed Crawford & Shearer in The Women (1939) one of their very best and that's just scratching the surface of the iconic star turns he guided from virtually every A list movie queen during the studio system.
-There's something I need to say to you and you need to listen: don't do this...
Joanie, you're bigger than this.-No I'm not.
She calls him Mr. Cukor and he calls her Joanie. Was that formality/informality was true about their relationship? It doesn't feel false per se, just noticeably strange.
(One of the reasons I object to Feud's portrayal of Joan Crawford is that it makes all of her longterm Hollywood relationships feel highly implausible. Who would work AND socialize constantly with such a depressive drunk monster?)
Next we get a scene where Bette Davis confesses to Olivia de Havilland that she holds one of her Oscars in bed when she's lonely. Stars are so nonchalant about what they do with their Oscars in interviews that these "exposes" in biopics or tv specials also play like fan fiction -- we hope movie stars care as much as we movie fans. To quote Bette/Susan
God, that's sad.
A recreation of the arrivals at the Oscars in black and white. Lots of actors doing cameos of then famous names that won't mean much to many viewers at home. But when Bette/Susan and Joan/Jessica arrive we switch to color and fiction/reality intermingling.
Love this bit.
Reporter: Your Baby Jane co-star is nominated for Best Actress tonight? Who did you vote for.
Crawford: The Winner.
THE SHADE OF IT ALL.
Joan turns the green room into her own hosted soiree. She makes insulting small talk with Patty Duke who's just become the youngest ever winner of the Oscar for The Miracle Worker (in a leading role which was deemed supporting... commonplace now of course even with movie stars but in earlier decades that was only totally expected when it involved under age actors.)
Remember when Quvenzhané Wallis brought a "puppy purse" to the Oscars at 9 years of age? Well, Patty actually brought her puppy IN a purse.
Okay, so I hate to nitpick. No, no. I am totally okay with nitpicking in this case. It doesn't take much research at all to know that Joan Crawford loved dogs. And here we see the only dog scene in the entire series and it involves Joan bitching out another actress about loving her dog? ARGH. This show can't even gift even one iota of endearing human qualities to its Joan... only her evil and her misery. In this way the show remains super boring. It could still be an intense catty battle show with a little three dimensionality to the portraits!
From here on out, the episode is super intense. The dialogue free stare down when Bette enters the Joan-usurped green room is breath-catching
As is that long mostly dialogue free backstage tracking shot when Joan escorts David Lean to the press room through seemingly endless hallways full of Oscar night bustle.
It's all a long way of building up a remarkable amount of suspense and tension for the Best Actress announcement. Even though everyone with any knowledge whatsoever of movie history knows that Bette Davis lost, it feels like a nail-biter nonetheless... or perhaps like a carcrash that you can't look away from.
Waiting for Best Actress. The tension is unbearable. And the Winner Is...
Bette Davis getting the wind knocked out of her, gasping for air and Joan Crawford's triumphant evil catwalk to the stage and back again is just unbearably intense really.
the recreation
the real night
IF YOU'VE BEEN WATCHING FEUD WITH ANY PEOPLE WHO DON'T CARE ABOUT THE OSCARS, SPILL: DID THEY GAG ON THIS EPISODE? (We have heard that such people exist though we don't like to think about them.)
After the event Bette gets drunk with friends, and furiously snaps at them. She wanted it so badly. Meanwhile Joan returns to her home, as champion of her own evil game. But the camera and staging suddenly revealhow hollow and short-lived that feeling will be for her.
The loneliness of glamour and the emptiness of golden idols are exposed in this final slow zoom out from Feud's very best episode.
Did you also think this Feud's finest hour?