S01.E04: More, or Less

[pbutler111]

18 hours ago, SWLinPHX said:

That's a direct rip off from "Mommie Dearest", right down to the outfit she was wearing and her seated at the head of the boardroom table with empty space between her and the others.  It's obvious Murphy was a huge fan of the movie growing up and that he wanted to recreate that almost as much as the other classics he portrayed.

I'm wondering if that particular incident was taken from an account by someone who was at the meeting, which is why it shows up in both the movie and the TV show.

[psychoticstate]

2 hours ago, enoughcats said:

An example of the Joan Crawford I wouldn't have recognized is this one, who played opposite Cary Grant

Eyebrows as a time line?  Who knew?

Sadly, Joan and Cary Grant never appeared in a movie together.  This pic was probably taken while she was filming This Modern Age, when she was briefly blonde.  Regardless, it's a stunning photo. 

[annzeepark914]

44 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I do remain amazed at how good Susan Sarandon looks.  I don't know if she's had anything done, but she looks incredible for 70.  She looks substantially better than Bette Davis did in her 50s. 

Oh yeah--she had something done.  She used to have eyes that seemed to bulge (can't think of the proper term--Barbara Bush has it too). A few years ago I saw a photo of Sarandon & was amazed that her eyes looked normal.  But she can still pull off the Bette Davis "look", correct & pert deportment & all.

I keep thinking I've seen the actress playing Aldrich's wife before but I looked her up (Molly Price) & don't recognize anything she's been in.  She just looks like someone I've seen on TV or the movies.  Re: Joan Crawford's miserable life & shortcomings--I'm just attributing it all to what happened to her in her childhood (right out of a Charles Dickens novel).  The attempt to seduce men in her life (even the odious Jack Warner!) goes back to being sexually abused by her stepfather.  So, even though I'm sick of seeing JC staggering around with her drinks in hand, I still feel sorry for the tortured soul who continues to do so many things wrong.

[txhorns79]

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I'm wondering if that particular incident was taken from an account by someone who was at the meeting, which is why it shows up in both the movie and the TV show.

I'm going to doubt that.  In the movie, she's telling the Board of Pepsi not to f*** with her, and how she'll destroy them and the company if they proceed with their plan to fire her from the Board of Directors.  Here's she's firing her talent agency for not doing a good job in finding her work.      

[BingeyKohan]

3 hours ago, Auntie Anxiety said:

She's supposed to be Joan Blondell. And I think she's doing a pretty good job of it. Blondell was very sassy.

Like the original poster I too saw a little Shelley Winters this week (but that could be because the overall plot hinted at the advent of the 'psycho biddy' genre and I already knew Winters played a role in that) But if I keep Grease-era Joan Blondell in mind watching Bates' performance then that's who I see. Either way I continue to find the 'interviews' superfluous. 

[Growsonwalls]

Here's an audio interview with Bette. I love it. Her laugh is so infectious and she has such spirit and sense of humor.

[qtpye]

11 hours ago, annzeepark914 said:

Oh yeah--she had something done.  She used to have eyes that seemed to bulge (can't think of the proper term--Barbara Bush has it too). A few years ago I saw a photo of Sarandon & was amazed that her eyes looked normal.  But she can still pull off the Bette Davis "look", correct & pert deportment & all.

As good as she looks now I am going to go with drinking unicorn blood or having a painting in the attic that ages for her.

[pbutler111]

17 hours ago, enoughcats said:

An example of the Joan Crawford I wouldn't have recognized is this one, who played opposite Cary Grant

Eyebrows as a time line?  Who knew?

Funny, I was just thinking last night, while watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, how much I hate the latest eyebrow trend.  These really heavy, blunt-ended, pronounced brows look okay on some women -- especially larger women -- but on a tiny person, like Kyle Richards, it just looked kind of ridiculous.  Hopefully the next trend will be everyone doing what suits their own face instead of everyone trying to do exactly the same thing, whether it suits him/her or not.

[MyPeopleAreNordic]

On 3/27/2017 at 0:07 PM, A Boston Gal said:

 I know it's been said before, but damn...Susan Sarandon looks freaking AMAZING at 70, even counting the fact she's probably had work done. Makes me wonder what Bette might have looked like in her fifties if the same level of quality surgery was available back then.

Seriously. If I ever come into a bunch of money, I'm going to find out who Susan Sarandon's plastic surgeon is and spend a good chunk of change for their services. 

[illini1959]

21 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

 I honestly think her performance is just Kathy Bates playing herself. 

I agree, and I like Kathy Bates a lot.

Was Olivia De Havilland that blonde? Earlier she wasn't, but maybe later she was. I just recall her being brunette.

[sugarbaker design]

She was that blonde in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.

[Milburn Stone]

On 3/27/2017 at 0:15 PM, benteen said:

I was just reading about Bette's guest shot on Perry Mason.  This was the first of four episodes of the show where a guest actor (or in this case actress) filled in for Raymond Burr as he recovered from surgery.  Based on what I've read, your opinion about her work on it seems to be the general consensus as her performance is described as awkward and as if she read the script for the first time.

I think I remember reading somewhere that even though the guest-actor thing was done out of necessity (because of Burr's surgery), there was some thinking that Bette's guest shot could serve as the pilot of a whole spin-off series.

Or maybe that's just what I thought while watching it. It had that feel.

In either case, no.

Edited March 30, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[GreekGeek]

On 3/28/2017 at 1:25 PM, Joimiaroxeu said:

Loved that last scene between Mamacita and Pauline. Mamacita seemed like a brilliant woman. Odd that she would put up with Joan's nonsense when she probably could've done much better, even in the pre-women's lib days.

It was a nice scene, but also a sad one. Mamacita's research was impeccable, but her conclusions were wrong. The 70's were not the era of a big comeback for "women's pictures", just because women outnumbered men in the population. In fact, they're often considered the nadir of good roles for women, and the biggest directors of that era--Scorsese, Coppola, etc.--were all men.

[Milburn Stone]

5 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

It was a nice scene, but also a sad one. Mamacita's research was impeccable, but her conclusions were wrong. The 70's were not the era of a big comeback for "women's pictures", just because women outnumbered men in the population. In fact, they're often considered the nadir of good roles for women, and the biggest directors of that era--Scorsese, Coppola, etc.--were all men.

I know. You have to wonder if Ryan Murphy is knowingly, cynically pandering to viewers whom he assumes have no knowledge of history. You could hope that he intends Mamacita to strike the audience as sadly, ironically wrong, because he knows the audience knows better than her; that would be honorable. But I have a feeling he is depending on the audience not knowing better than her, because it makes for a good storyline, and that's not so honorable.

Edited March 30, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[enoughcats]

The pictures of the real Mamacita and her history and her return to Europe to me make Murphy's Mamacita all but totally fictional.  But that's not for this thread.

[qtpye]

http://tomandlorenzo.com/2017/03/feud-style-more-or-less-episode-4-fx-costume-analysis-tv-reviews/

I will leave this here.  Tom and Lorenzo's style analysis of the show is brilliant and something I highly recommend for fans.

Edited March 30, 2017 by qtpye

[sugarbaker design]

4 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

But I have a feeling he is depending on the audience not knowing better than her, because it makes for a good storyline, and that's not so honorable.

Respectfully disagree, Murphy has to know cinephiles of all ages are watching this show and besides, you don't have to be a film expert to know that 'women's pictures' never made a comeback.  That's what made that scene so heartbreaking, Mamacita's prediction never came true.

[theatremouse]

I thought it intended as an intentional, direct contrast to Joan's response to Pauline, which was essentially "oh honey, don't be so naive, enjoy the good thing you've got and don't fuck it up", to have Mamacita basically say, "don't give up, this should happen, if you keep pushing". Plus if Mamacita did have loyalty to Joan, it makes sense for the character to want to keep the door open with a writer who literally just wrote a movie for Joan. If by some miracle Pauline's career moved forward, Mamacita potentially unburned that bridge.

That history didn't turn out the way she predicted was, I think ,intentionally drawn attention to for our benefit, and is sad if the math she quoted were true, but the audience doesn't require awareness or lackthereof that the prediction was wrong for the scene to make sense for both characters.

[caracas1914]

While I'm no huge fan of some of Ryan Murphy's writing, I have no issue with the fabrications in the storyline, because let's face it;  most stories based on real life persons have a lot of embellishments.  So for example, we know there was no such interview with Olivia DeHaviland and Joan Blondell, we know that Joan no longer had the HW Brentwood house when WHTBJ was filmed (she had long moved to the Manhattan penthouse apartment) , Mamacita in real life was different than as portrayed in the series, etc, etc.

None of that matters if the storyline is entertaining and consistent internally.

Whether Mamacita was a closet feminist or not in real life is irrelevant, my issue with this story is it's tiresome to drag out Hedda Hopper as having such power to trick the women into being adversaries, or somehow comparing the fictional Pauline as a symbol for women not getting their fair shake.  What is odd to me is trying  to make parallels with sexism vis a vis Joan/Bettte in their careers as movie stars/actresses,  Joan and Bette were in one of the few professions where women did have some genuine clout and power, at least for a time. So to me Joan explaining why women were not directors after the silent era seemed like such forced dialogue.  Her character until then didn't seem the type to give a fuck and give that kind of diatribe.

Bette and Joan were two strong women with very distinct personalities, so it's not surprising they clashed.  AT this point, the constant trying to squeeze the story into some feminist position paper with them as victims just doesn't seem compelling to me. It's been dragged out.   Within the story some things don't make sense, if Hedda had as much power as it's implied, it certainly didn't help Joan get an Oscar nomination.   

On a positive note, I feel Susan Sarandon has been getting better in her portrayal of Bette, and this episode she nailed a couple of scenes the essence of Better almost perfectly.   Lange I think in the less sympathetic, drunken stupor has almost lost my interest of Joan as a character, she seems almost boring.

Joan was a force of nature , and I feel Lange could give the character a little more umphh..

but as I've mentioned before, Lange just can't seem able to portray a larger than life star wattage Diva character that well.

Edited March 30, 2017 by caracas1914

[Petunia13]

"That Guy" Toby Huss who played Frank Sinatra will always be Artie the Strongest Man... in the World my little Vikings. 

[ennui]

I haven't seen this full episode yet, and am surprised to learn that it is not On Demand. Only the first two episodes are On Demand. 

In addition, repeats are in the wee hours. 

[chitowngirl]

9 hours ago, ennui said:

I haven't seen this full episode yet, and am surprised to learn that it is not On Demand. Only the first two episodes are On Demand. 

In addition, repeats are in the wee hours. 

Hmm. My On Demand has all the episodes listed.

[enoughcats]

On another thread, JudyObscura found this which shows that that lovely portrait was manipulated to be better than real life.

Some of it's common dark room techniques (and maybe a choice of paper), but there are some laugh lines removed as well as a neck smoothing. 

 

https://petapixel.com/2014/10/17/beauty-retouching-early-1900s-portrait-actress-joan-crawford-thats-photoshopped/

[Milburn Stone]

An uncanny echo of the events contained in this episode: Susan Sarandon was on Colbert last night promoting Feud, but I haven't seen Jessica Lange anywhere!

[SWLinPHX]

On 4/1/2017 at 8:32 AM, Milburn Stone said:

An uncanny echo of the events contained in this episode: Susan Sarandon was on Colbert last night promoting Feud, but I haven't seen Jessica Lange anywhere!

Would be ironic, but not true:

 

 

 

[ABay]

Lange was on LSSC  March 15th.

[atlantaloves]

Susan S. has absolutely had her eyes done, and her neck, her neck...it is flawless...she is such a beautiful unusual looking woman. She was so lovely on the Colbert show.  I adore her, and want her plastic surgeon for my old neck NOW. Very well done slight "work" -- not that awful botox face. Lange could use a tiny bit of work, but that's okay, cause I love her too. It's a joy to see somebody in hollywood with flabby arms...snort snort! Yahooooooooooo!

[Milburn Stone]

On 4/2/2017 at 2:28 PM, SWLinPHX said:

Would be ironic, but not true:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There you go, spoiling my irony with facts.

[Black Knight]

On 3/28/2017 at 0:22 PM, iMonrey said:

I don't think the show has any intention of trying to "redeem" Crawford's reputation. I agree Davis comes off better but that may be due to the fact that Ryan Murphy is apparently an obsessive Bette Davis fan and cares much less how Crawford comes across.

Murphy's very clear in this interview about his intentions re: Joan Crawford: He admires what she did for her friend William Haines and wants to show there was a lot more to her than the Mommie Dearest portrayal.

Also notable is how much more screentime has been devoted to Crawford than Davis.

[Phoebe70]

I think Mamacita needs her own series.  I'd watch it :)

[millennium]

On 3/28/2017 at 5:35 PM, txhorns79 said:

If you ever saw the Jennifer Aniston movie, Rumor Has It, Kathy Bates has what amounts to an extended cameo, and I think she plays a variation of the same character in that movie that she does here.  I honestly think her performance is just Kathy Bates playing herself. 

That's all Kathy Bates has ever been able to do.   Wildly overrated as an actress, IMHO.

[aradia22]

What I liked about the beginning of the episode was that it wasn't a fall from grace or Crawford and Davis crawling in the muck at rock bottom. It was more of a pedestrian ignobility which is not something you expect when you're talking about a Hollywood story. Joan was right to walk away from her rather useless talent agency (they weren't even trying to find her parts) where Bette seemed less justified just because she'd gotten a junior agent.

I LOVED Pauline going to Mamacita with her own script. I was going to comment on the "tradition of women directors" but the show did it for me later on when Joan explained why she was rejecting the script. Great job, show. The cost argument + sexism (men are better at leadership, fiscal responsibility) sounds pretty fair. I mean, it makes sense given the attitudes at the time. I haven't done a lot of reading on the subject to hear any other theories. 

I'm a sap but I teared up the tiniest bit when the audience started rushing over to Joan for her autograph after the movie. The genuine joy on her face. It was a lovely moment of triumph that had nothing to do with awards or career success. I'm not sure about the real Joan but at least for the characterization of the Feud version, I felt like Lange really conveyed the joy she took in her audience. Maybe it's not as lofty as doing the work for the art of it but I thought it was a nice flip to the movie star antics they've been showing. She might have been trained to care too much about her appearance but she's also gracious to the public. Her reaction to hearing about a "woman director" was interesting. They seem to be crafting Crawford as not as bad as Hedda (complicit in perpetuating negative stereotypes about women and fueling infighting) but as still benefiting from a patriarchal system in such a way that she couldn't really be a feminist. She's gotten by on her talent and drive, yes, but also on her looks and her sexuality. And her wants aren't entirely out of step with the dominant systems of power except (it seems) for the ways they're trying to push her out now that she's reached a certain age. 

"My last chance isn't going to be your first." Damn, that's a good line. I'm sure it was harsh for Pauline to have her ambitions dashed but I can't say I blame Joan when she's also acting from a place of desperation. Where she had nothing to lose, Joan was down to her last shot.

Lange playing drunk Joan was perfect. It was both sympathetic and hilarious when she was cursing at Warner.

I don't know why the show keeps perpetuating this lie that Davis gave some brilliant performance in Baby Jane. 

I like the choice to make Sinatra an even whinier baby or "suntanned man-child" than Bette or Joan. But then I've never liked Sinatra.

The conversation with Mamacita and Pauline in the diner wasn't the most organic thing in the world but eh... if only, right?

Remember when you could take phones off the hook?

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At the commercial break after her song, I was so hoping I'd find Davis' song on Youtube and yes! Sarandon did a pretty good job of getting her movements own. Loved that 60's sound to it... groovy man! 

Thanks for that. Sarandon is doing a better job as Davis in these later episodes. But it's hard to capture that level of... Well, it's not ineptitude but she makes Rosalind Russell look like Patti Lupone. 

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Speaking of Ol' Blue-eyes, couldn't they have found an actor that looked remotely like Frankie?

EDIT: Turns out the actor playing Sinatra was Toby Huss.  Regardless, he just wasn't Sinatra, in look or sound.

Well, he did have blue eyes and the accent was sort of there. I didn't see a huge resemblance but maybe if you imagined that Sinatra had lost a ton of weight. Considering Kathy Bates and Catherine Zeta Jones, I'm not going to complain about accuracy when they at least got someone with a passing resemblance who bothered to sort of do the voice.

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The more I see actual footage of Bette and Joan, the more impressed I am with the casting of Susan and Jessica.  OMG, they both embody those women, imo.  

I really like Lange's work here but I have to stay away from real clips of Joan. She had more of a vulnerability and a hauntedness in her eyes towards the end of her film career. Lange is a little too tough. There were also pretensions of femininity but if you watch clips of her, Crawford's are different from what Lange is doing. 

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Oh by the way way up in the threat somebody asked if the next Betty Davis' movie to come out was Dead Ringer, you were right. It is a corker. Great cast and story, I highly recommend it. She is so evil in this film playing twins, but you still root for her. I bet I have seen it 20 times over the years! And, she looks fabulous as well. Terrific supporting cast and she gets to be a little sex pot with Peter Lawford. It's a real thriller, I totally recommend it, maybe they have it on netflix, it's on TCM all the time.

I have to disagree. Dead Ringer is bearable but only if you're determined to get through the entire Bette Davis catalogue. It's been a while but it's definitely... one those movies you don't have to give all your attention to. 

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I think that Pauline approached Joan because Joan used to be a dancer and her script centered around a dancer. 

I had this thought as well. Joan had great legs and was a decent tapper in her early movies. I think there was some dancing in Torch Song but even I, as a Joan fan, could not sit through that movie.

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I think Davis, Crawford, Hepburn, etc., lasted longer because they were willing to fight for what they wanted. 

I like Hepburn too, but to a lesser extent than Crawford (it's possibly just because I can't bring myself to watch the Spencer Tracy movies... not into him). But based on things I've read, they could definitely do a show with Hepburn portrayed as more of Feud's version of Crawford if you get my drift.

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 Joan worked very hard to keep her figure all her life and at the time of Baby Jane she was till slim and fit enough to play a dancer.  It makes me feel bad for Joan that Jessica Lange, who has become thick through the middle, has been chosen to play her. 

Actually just last episode when Lange was in the black slip (feeling lonely without anyone but Mamacita in the house) I was thinking that she's still got a great figure.

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A review I read called it something like "Showgirls meets Black Swan."

Haha. I would so watch that. 

[enoughcats]

Have you heard of Frances Marion, and her famous quote 

Quote

I've spent my life searching for a man to look up to without lying down,

She was a major screenwriter and early producer.  And she overlapped both Davis and Crawford. Back then everyone knew everyone and some of them even vacationed in Europe together.

There's a really neat video made about her "Without lying down" and much more detailed book that is almost too meaty for my level of interest. (I had to stop reading when it started talking about her and her husband's mansion...massive mansion....that was recently bought and bulldozed by a cyber billionaire.)

https://www.amazon.com/Without-Lying-Down-Powerful-Hollywood/dp/0520214927/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1494553343&sr=8-15&keywords=francis+marion

[CherithCutestory]

On 3/27/2017 at 4:30 PM, caracas1914 said:

Most of the  male stars  from the 30's and 40's with a few exceptions got reduced to secondary character roles by the sixties, or retreated to making Westerns.

I guess the handful of exceptions who remained leading "stars" were Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne and acting wise Spencer Tracy, who got the bulk of his nominations in the 50's and 60's.

Bette Davis got her first Oscar nom (and win)  in 1935 for "Dangerous" and the last nomination in 1962 with  "WHTBJ", which is a span of 27 years;  again other than Spencer Tracy, no other male star from that era achieved that longevity.

Joan Crawford had starring roles from the late 20's  in the silent era and again was the co star of a big hit in 1962 for span of about 35 years. 

So the series continuously even in this episode treating them like "victims" in a feminist pseudo tract gets tiresome, when both Bette and Joan were incredibly strong driven women.  Jack Warner treated them like crap, but apparently he treated everyone like that.  A series like "Madmen" showed sexism in a more matter of fact way than Ryan Murphy hitting us over the head trying to fit every situation in those terms.

I think the difference between the two which this episode does point out is that Bette could enjoy the process, had a self deprecating sense of humor of the whole crazy show business: whereas Joan was more preoccupied with defending what she had (stardom) or working to regain it.   Joan is reduced to a rather pathetic figure per this episode, petty and small.   

I agree with most of this. But it is a little misleading. Many of the leading men of their era had died. Clark Gable's last role before he died was as a love interest to Marilyn Monroe. If Joan or Bette had a role seducing Montgomery Clift or Tony Curtis it would have been played as pathetic and sad ala Sunset Boulevard.

I do think women generally have it worse than men in Hollywood. Obviously. No woman could have had Cary Grant's later career. Or even Humphry Bogart's (who only became leading male status when he was older.) However, it is true, that Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, especially, aren't the best examples of the disparity. Bette Davis's career was similar to or exceeded many of her contemporary male actors, really. The quality of roles may have gone down and she may have gone onto TV but she was never out of work. However, Bette Davis was a much better actor than most of her contemporary male actors and no woman would ever have been allowed to still be sexy the way male actors were.

Also bad examples of this? Joan Blondell (who worked pretty steadily) and Olivia de Haviland (who basically had the luxury of working when she felt like it.)

The overall phenomenon they are describing was true. But really none of their examples are spot on. And it got much worse through out the 70s and 80s.

Bette Davis had the famous line about Joan being a movie star and she being an actor. And Joan, herself, had suggested the same thing (how Franchot Tone saw Bette Davis as an amazing actor but never a woman, unlike herself.) I think the difference between the two is that while it is no picnic for either to be aging in the industry. It's much, much easier to be an aging actor than an aging movie star. An aging actor can still act. An aging movie star can never be as glamorous as they were when they were younger.

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He didn't exactly tell Joan she had no talent but ridiculed her talent compared to Bette.

As much as an asshole as Warner was, I did like this nod to the real situation re: Bette Davis at Warner Bros when Joan entered. They mentioned the law suit and his thinking she was a "c***" in the first episode. But their relationship went much deeper than that. They stayed with each other long after that lawsuit. Jack Warner stuck with Bette and fed her great scripts long after other studios (like MGM) would have sent her out to pasture. It was a complicated relationship. They never really dug into it. But I like that they alluded to it, at least.

I wish we could have gotten his feelings on Olivia de Haviland...

Edited May 14, 2017 by CherithCutestory

[aradia22]

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I agree with most of this. But it is a little misleading. Many of the leading men of their era had died. Clark Gable's last role before he died was as a love interest to Marilyn Monroe. If Joan or Bette had a role seducing Montgomery Clift or Tony Curtis it would have been played as pathetic and sad ala Sunset Boulevard.

Or maybe a Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone? Though Vivien Leigh was still in her late 40's (I think) and beautiful in that movie.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

This episode made me wish I could watch a spin off of Harriet, Mamacita, and Pauline being awesome!

[atlantaloves]

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone was and is still perfection and made a big star out of Warren Beatty to boot. May I suggest the remake of that movie with Helen Mirren which was made for HBO.  I think I actually found it years ago on Netflix and it is even better than the original, which is hard to do. See them both, totally different takes on the Tennessee Williams  script. (Ann Bancroft plays the countess, who could ask for anything more!)