S01.E08: You Mean All This Time We Could Have Been Friends?

[candall]

Compared to Lange, I thought SS did a much better job making me see the character and forget the actress.  I never looked at "Joan Crawford" and didn't see Jessica Lange.  Come on, people, at least try to do those astonishing jet black eyebrows justice!

 

Although the series made multiple references to Joan's harsh beginnings, I was stunned to read that squib about F. Scott Fitzgerald dubbing her the ultimate flapper.  Flapper?!  Now there's an image I've never associated with the late great Joan Crawford.

Edited April 24, 2017 by candall

[henrysmom]

Quote

Although the series made multiple references to Joan's harsh beginnings, I was stunned to read that squib about F. Scott Fitzgerald dubbing her the ultimate flapper.  Flapper?!  Now there's an image I've never associated with the late great Joan Crawford.

It is a silent film, but if you get a chance to see Our Dancing Daughters I highly recommend it.  You can totally see what Fitzgerald meant about Crawford with her performance in that film.

[benteen]

What a depressing hour of television.  Really well-acted and well-done but depressing.

[Dev F]

1 minute ago, txhorns79 said:

According to Vanity Fair, she knew her daughter was shopping around a book, and expected it would be bad.  Her last will was done in 1976, but it isn't clear what was changed.  Christina may have already been disinherited before her mother ever knew she wrote a book.

I was just about to link the same article, which does seem like decent confirmation that Joan knew about the book and that it wouldn't be flattering. Though I'm pretty sure the show fudges the details: Joan says that her publisher offered to let her review the bound galleys, which would mean the book had already been edited and set into type like a year and a half prior to its release. Even given the extended publishing schedules in the era before desktop publishing, that seems unlikely.

So, the episode . . . There was a lot about it I really liked, especially the way they handled Joan's waning years, but they hit the big thematic points way too hard, especially the moment where the documentarian's female assistant has some seemingly arbitrary intuition about what the last scene of the series should be. And considering we already heard the "You mean all this time we could've been friends" line in an earlier episode, did they really need to slap the whole thing on the finale as a title? Seems like you could've just called the episode, say, "All This Time" and gotten the point across a little less intrusively.

The episode also suffered from the same character inconsistency I've been complaining about in the last few episodes: it gives us extremely intimate access to Joan Crawford's most private moments, but Bette's private moments tend be couched in terms of accusation and speculation. Did Bette really behave inappropriately with BD's children? Who's to say? It's just BD's word against hers! Well, gee, you just presumed to present us with Joan Crawford's personal hallucinations, so clearly you could take a stand on how a real-world event went down if you so chose!

[Earmuffs Mom]

4 hours ago, GreekGeek said:

I'm glad people liked the dream sequence. Some consider dream sequences lazy writing, but I generally enjoy them.

I thought it was well-done and true to what terminal cancer patients experience.  A few weeks before my dad died of lung cancer, he called me to tell me about his day, which included a very vivid description of a car chase he had been in as a teenager.  I think the hallucinations/remembering are very common for terminally ill people.  That being said...

4 hours ago, mochamajesty said:

During the dream sequence I thought she had actually died and the scene with her would end with Joan's body discovered by Mamacita.

Me too.

[sugarbaker design]

18 minutes ago, benteen said:

What a depressing hour of television.  Really well-acted and well-done but depressing.

It left me moved, not depressed.

Although, I was hoping for a brief scene of Joan substituting for a sick Christina on Secret Storm.

[UsernameFatigue]

27 minutes ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

 

Not me. I think Lange had the advantage of plenty of reference material. But maybe the Emmy people will pull some shenanigans so they won't have to compete in the same category. BLL was adapted from a book while Feud wasn't.

Wouldn't they have to create a whole new category to do that? The Emmy for best limited series/movie doesn't differentiate as to whether it is original or adapted. Even the Oscars doesn't care where the best actor/actress etc. is concerned, the Oscar goes to the writer. So don't see how/why the Emmys would create a category for best actor/actress in an original limited series and another for adapted limited series. 

[enoughcats]

36 minutes ago, henrysmom said:

Quote

Although the series made multiple references to Joan's harsh beginnings, I was stunned to read that squib about F. Scott Fitzgerald dubbing her the ultimate flapper.  Flapper?!  Now there's an image I've never associated with the late great Joan Crawford.

It is a silent film, but if you get a chance to see Our Dancing Daughters I highly recommend it.  You can totally see what Fitzgerald meant about Crawford with her performance in that film.

At the beginning of this clip, the Charleston is joyful.  Remember this Joan!

[DisneyBoy]

1 hour ago, Blakeston said:

I've never heard anything before watching this series that would suggest that Christina was taking Mommie Dearest to a publisher before Joan died. I think that was an invention of the show, to give Joan a way to react to it.

This is one of my big gripes with the show - far too much of it was done in this way for these very same reasons. More than half the time I felt like I was watching the characters react to things because Ryan Murphy knew us here in 2017 would want to know what they thought of this or that.

I wouldn't have minded if much of the show took liberties with the facts if it was at least well constructed, but I don't think it ever quite got there. It was mildly diverting and this final episode was certainly quite affecting but I found so much of the dialogue artificial or intended to be crowd-pleasing. As you've all pointed out it was very much slanted towards Crawford more than Bette Davis and I'm not entirely sure why. Did Ryan Murphy want to sort of redeem Joan Crawford a bit after the whole Mommy Dearest fiasco? Was Bette Davis the less interesting of the two women?

I'm especially disappointed that this is all we'll get of Susan Sarandon playing Bette Davis. I doubt she'll return to the character at any point in the future... and yet I find myself wishing she would.

Wouldn't it have been so much more interesting to see Sarandon playing Bette Davis in a movie filmed over the course of two decades? Sarandon still looks very young here so I'd almost rather they start filming a movie about Bette Davis now and then 10 years down the line finish it off so she could more convincingly play the elderly actress.

Did Joan stay on the board of Pepsi Cola until she died? I'm a little surprised they didn't try and wrap that subplot up. Also, Mamacita was an invented character, correct? I remember from the bonus features on the Mommie Dearest DVD that the woman who played her lifelong maid in that movie knew Crawford actually had many maids over the course of her life.

I watched some Mad Men this weekend to sort of get past my frustration with Feud and I find myself wishing some of the writers from Mad Men had worked on Feud. This feels like a really tragic missed opportunity to me. Does anybody else feel that way? I mean, when are we ever going to get another show or movie focused purely on the Epic Bette/Davis Joan Crawford Feud? I will feel like reading a Wikipedia entry on exactly what happened is more entertaining and accurate...

[poeticlicensed]

I found the ending sad, but I also saw that it wasn't all terrible for Joan or Bette. Joan had her peculiarities and yes, she was vain to the extreme, but she had close friends and some family. I read the story where  her grandson was interviewed and he ha only nice things to say about Joan. And it seemed like she was close to her twin daughters. I was very taken aback that she decided not to get treatment for cancer. Did she really have her molars removed to make her face look thinner? That's just crazy. 

I didn't think that Bette's story was a emotional as Joan's. Bette seemed like  a "carry on" kind of woman.  

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, TimWil said:

One nitpick-why were the documentary maker, Aldrich's assistant, Victor Buono and Joan Blondell backstage at the Oscars? No reason for them to be there except Murphy wanted them there as a sort of tacked on curtain call.

They were never not there. The idea (which only became clear in the finale, which was a surprisingly valid way to handle it--a reveal, if you will) is that all the interview footage we've seen going back to Episode One was filmed backstage at that 1978 Oscars. 

There was a big shoutout to Citizen Kane in the documentarian's response to failing to get Bette Davis on camera: "I guess now we'll never know what was behind it all," or whatever he said. Very much like the reporter's remark at the end of Kane, "I guess now we'll never know what Rosebud was." And then, just as Kane reveals to us [spoiler alert :)] the sled in the furnace, Murphy reveals to us the photo of the two in their canvas chairs on the set, and the scene of high hopes for congeniality that began it all.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[GreekGeek]

1 hour ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

The Young and the Restless? Wonder what that call out was all about?

It might have been a reference to Christina Crawford's soap opera role, which Joan took over when Christina was sick. The show was The Secret Storm, though.

[poeticlicensed]

36 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

Although, I was hoping for a brief scene of Joan substituting for a sick Christina on Secret Storm.

I'm actually glad they didn't go there. It would have been OTT camp. I noticed that Ryan Murphy took care to not go deeply into the Christina/Joan debacle, other than in passing mentions here and there. I was actually grateful, as that seemed like a big old rabbit hole. I think Murphy wanted to avoid  the series being labelled Mommy Dearest 2.0. 

[Joimiaroxeu]

31 minutes ago, UsernameFatigue said:

Wouldn't they have to create a whole new category to do that? The Emmy for best limited series/movie doesn't differentiate as to whether it is original or adapted. Even the Oscars doesn't care where the best actor/actress etc. is concerned, the Oscar goes to the writer. So don't see how/why the Emmys would create a category for best actor/actress in an original limited series and another for adapted limited series. 

Yes, they would have to create a whole new category. That's why I used the word "shenanigans". It seems unlikely but categories have been created (and retired before).

Quote

I watched some Mad Men this weekend to sort of get past my frustration with Feud and I find myself wishing some of the writers from Mad Men had worked on Feud.

Interestingly, the 1959 movie "The Best of Everything," set in Manhattan and co-starring Joan Crawford as an office queen bee, was one of the inspirations for Mad Men. There was even an early episode where Don was shown reading the Rona Jaffe novel the movie was based on.

[sugarbaker design]

8 minutes ago, GreekGeek said:

It might have been a reference to Christina Crawford's soap opera role, which Joan took over when Christina was sick. The show was The Secret Storm, though.

I don't think so, Davis was a huge soap opera fan.  After a long, twisty storyline on The Edge of Night, BD sent a telegram to their writers, commending them on a job well done.

[Blakeston]

19 minutes ago, DisneyBoy said:

Also, Mamacita was an invented character, correct? I remember from the bonus features on the Mommie Dearest DVD that the woman who played her lifelong maid in that movie knew Crawford actually had many maids over the course of her life.

Mamacita was real. She went back to Europe in 1974, though - so she wasn't around at the end, as shown here.

17 minutes ago, poeticlicensed said:

I found the ending sad, but I also saw that it wasn't all terrible for Joan or Bette. Joan had her peculiarities and yes, she was vain to the extreme, but she had close friends and some family. I read the story where  her grandson was interviewed and he ha only nice things to say about Joan.

For what it's worth, Crawford's grandson Casey has praised Feud's depiction of her.

[Mumbles]

Quote

It was so sad watching what these two stars were reduced to.  

A fair comment on what we all saw last night. But the thing is, as many of you pointed out, it wasn't *all* terrible. Just to summarize the many astute comments by y'all, Bette continued to work into her 80s, and got an Emmy award for a TV movie she did with Gena Rowlands. She had a warm relationship with her son. She famously said, old age is not for sissies, and soldiered on into her 80s. She never pitied herself (I found her defiant comment about "we will all only get 30 seconds" in a memorial reel striking and I'm still digesting it.) It doesn't surprise me that in real life, Bette's ending was better than Joan's, because Bette just seemed to have a better support system, and seems to have had an easier childhood and healthier self-esteem (not being raped by your stepfather helped.) I wish this side of Bette's later years had been shown but that wouldn't have fit the narrative.

[poeticlicensed]

1 minute ago, sugarbaker design said:

I don't think so, Davis was a huge soap opera fan.  After a long, twisty storyline on The Edge of Night, BD sent a telegram to their writers, commending them on a job well done.

Soaps were hugely popular in the 60s and 70s. I remember watching them everyday with my mom when I got home from school. When I went off to college, lots of my classmates arranged their schedules around the soaps. Remember that the VCR wasn't commonplace in homes until years later. 

[Twopper]

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During the dream sequence I thought she had actually died and the scene with her would end with Joan's body discovered by Mamacita.

I am glad I am not the only one.  The reason I thought that was because Hedda Hopper had died about a decade before Joan, and I wasn't sure about Jack Warner (that was Jack Warner, wasn't it).  I realized it was a dream only when Bette Davis showed up, because I knew she outlived Joan. 

I was disappointed in this episode in many ways.  I thought the dream sequence was a bit too long.  I didn't think Joan would have walked out on a book signing.  And maybe I was so shocked by the story of the molar removal, I just couldn't get into the rest of the episode.  I spent my free time this weekend binge watching 3 Crawford movies--WHTBJ, Humoresque and Mildred Pierce---and during a scene in Humoresque I noticed how much Joan Crawford resembled my mother in the 40's  (Actually I guess my mother saw this movie and went out and had her hair done in the same style, but slightly shorter. My mom had wonderful cheekbones that she did not get by having her molars removed; she was also two decades younger than Crawford).  I watched this fairly late as I dvr'd it so I could ff through the commercial breaks.  I hated the ending with all its little summaries.  I am a fast reader, but they were almost too fast for me and I was glad I could pause it to read them. 

[AgentRXS]

Quote

I noticed that Ryan Murphy took care to not go deeply into the Christina/Joan debacle, other than in passing mentions here and there

I think Ryan is taking careful liberties on how he is portraying people who are still alive. No one likes a lawsuit. If Christina were dead, I'm sure he would have delved more into the topic. I also think that is why we won't be seeing Olivia deH vs Joan Fontaine until Olivia goes.  I also believe this is the reason B.D. Hyman got such a tepid portrayal, even though I'm sure Ryan is aware that she is BSC and was dying to really  delve into that.

[TimWil]

35 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

They were never not there. The idea (which only became clear in the finale, which was a surprisingly valid way to handle it--a reveal, if you will) is that all the interview footage we've seen going back to Episode One was filmed backstage at that 1978 Oscars. 

 

They wouldn't have all been in the Green Room backstage at the Academy Awards, though. It just wouldn't have happened. I realize it's a dramatic conceit but still.

Edited April 24, 2017 by TimWil

[stillhere1900]

Looking back on the real pictures of Bette&Joan, I wish that Susan S's hair had been styled more like Bette's.

IE :  Bangs

[psychoticstate]

2 hours ago, Blakeston said:

I've never heard anything before watching this series that would suggest that Christina was taking Mommie Dearest to a publisher before Joan died. I think that was an invention of the show, to give Joan a way to react to it.

This may have been answered so apologies if so but this was true.  Joan found out before her death in 1977 that Christina had written MD.  Joan had many friends in NY and in the publishing world (she had already published one book herself) and they alerted her to it.   It's speculated this is why she changed her will to disinherit Christina (which I think she did in October of 1976?) 

2 hours ago, Mojoker said:

In the movie "Mommie Dearest" it was made to seem that Christina Crawford's book came about after Joan Crawford's death, as a sort of tit-for-tat for Christina being cut out of the will. In tonight's episode of "Feud", of course, the book was depicted as coming out while Crawford was still very much alive. I'm not sure which fictionalized depiction of the truth is accurate here. Anyone?

Christina had written MD before Joan died in May of 1977.  The book was published in 1978.  Joan was offered a galley, which is an advance reading copy, in 1977. 

[Growsonwalls]

I think overall this series was incredibly well-done, but I did have a problem with how Joan and Bette were repeatedly portrayed as Victims of the System. It was a different time and place but I don't think either of them towards the end of their lives thought of themselves as victims. First of all the behavior of people like Jack Warner or Hedda Hopper was loathsome but actresses were accustomed to that and a lot more sleaze. They were all tough women, ready to Carry On despite it all. Bette was deeply hurt by B.D.'s book -- I think more hurt by that than by anything nasty Jack Warner or Hedda Hopper might have done. 

Also both of them would nowadays be characterized as alcoholics but again, I think drinking your sorrows away was just something that people in old Hollywood did. It was a fact of life. I think the writing for Susan Sarandon somewhat captured this stiff upper lip mentality but the writing for Joan didn't. 

[txhorns79]

Quote

I think Ryan is taking careful liberties on how he is portraying people who are still alive. No one likes a lawsuit. If Christina were dead, I'm sure he would have delved more into the topic. I also think that is why we won't be seeing Olivia deH vs Joan Fontaine until Olivia goes.  I also believe this is the reason B.D. Hyman got such a tepid portrayal, even though I'm sure Ryan is aware that she is BSC and was dying to really  delve into that.

I think the reality is that this was nominally a show about the feud between Joan and Bette.  Their personal lives play into the feud, but it wasn't meant as a rehash of Mommie Dearest, nor was it a venue to revisit all of BD's issues with her mother.   

Quote

Christina had written MD before Joan died in May of 1977.  The book was published in 1978.  Joan was offered a galley, which is an advance reading copy, in 1977. 

The book wasn't published until October 1978.  It seems odd that the galleys would already be ready nearly a year and a half before publication. 

[stillhere1900]

Soooooooo. Bette Davis had a daughter in a mental institute ?  

[Inquisitionist]

2 hours ago, Joimiaroxeu said:

Not me. I think Lange had the advantage of plenty of reference material. But maybe the Emmy people will pull some shenanigans so they won't have to compete in the same category. BLL was adapted from a book while Feud wasn't.

Source material doesn't matter for the acting categories.  BLL and Feud are both limited series, so Lange and Kidman are eligible for nomination in the same category.  Last year you had Sarah Paulson in the "based on real events and people's books about them" American Crime Story: The People v. OJ Simpson competing (and winning) against Kirsten Dunst in the wholly fictional Fargo (among others).

[Twopper]

Quote

Did Joan stay on the board of Pepsi Cola until she died? I'm a little surprised they didn't try and wrap that subplot up

No, in the early 70's she was kicked off the board due to changing leadership at the top.  From what I understand she retained her stock in the company.  At the time of Mr Steele's death, she had to pay back advances he had taken from Pepsi. 

I know they didn't go into detail about Mommie, Dearest, but I wondered if there was a subtle reference to it in an earlier episode when the twins complain about having to eat fish sticks, and she orders very rare steaks for them ( supposedly she made Christina eat raw meat, if I recall).

[BingeyKohan]

Re: Emmy categorization (although this may not be the correct thread) I wonder if BLL will compete in limited series, since they've tentatively announced plans (at least exploratory ones) for a second season, with the author brainstorming plotlines. It would seem if you're getting a second season with the same characters and setting you are not a limited series. hopefully that dealmaking will sort itself out in time for Emmy submission. i would not like to watch the faces of either Lange or Sarandon as they smile graciously and clap for Nicole Kidman.

[AgentRXS]

Quote

Also both of them would nowadays be characterized as alcoholics but again, I think drinking your sorrows away was just something that people in old Hollywood did. It was a fact of life. I think the writing for Susan Sarandon somewhat captured this stiff upper lip mentality but the writing for Joan didn't. 

Absolutely, but I don't think the attitude is limited to Old Hollywood. My grandmother is from their generation, and she reminds me a lot of Bette (which I guess is why I favor Bette IRL). They weren't raised to get into in-depth conversations with strangers (be it the press or a therapist) about their feelings. They were raised to just keep everything bottled up inside and move on ("No sense in rehashing the past" is what my grandmother used to say). My grandmother also was a heavy drinker for a number of years. I didn't understand back then, but I guess that's just how their generation were raised to cope with life's difficulties. Mad Men also touches on this.  Hell, Betty Ford's clinic didn't even open till 1982.....

[iMonrey]

I didn't really care for the dream sequence. I'm fine with Murphy using these kinds of gimmicks in American Horror Story but doing it with actual historical characters seems a bit tacky to me. Otherwise, I felt the ending was pretty good. 

I think it's interesting to learn that Christina was already shopping around a book before Joan died and she knew about it. At first I thought that was another thing Murphy just made up for the show, because I'd always thought Christina didn't write the book until after Joan died, and directly as a result of being cut out of her will. Maybe she changed the book after Joan died and made it more salacious to get it published. 

[caracas1914]

Well thus ends The Joan Crawford Story with guest star Bette Davis.

The funny thing is that the fantasy dream sequence was campy fun, I wish they would have scattered those throughout the series because as a dramatic historic cohesiveness SL the series was a mess (in fairness, inevitably like most bio flicks) and the victimhood portrayal of both stars became wearisome as the series dragged on.  

Camp isn't necessarily bad and when you had two larger than life stars the lightness would have been welcome, it could have been a lot of fun.   

[Mojoker]

4 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I didn't really care for the dream sequence. I'm fine with Murphy using these kinds of gimmicks in American Horror Story but doing it with actual historical characters seems a bit tacky to me. Otherwise, I felt the ending was pretty good. 

I think it's interesting to learn that Christina was already shopping around a book before Joan died and she knew about it. At first I thought that was another thing Murphy just made up for the show, because I'd always thought Christina didn't write the book until after Joan died, and directly as a result of being cut out of her will. Maybe she changed the book after Joan died and made it more salacious to get it published. 

If the book was in galleys, as they said in the episode, then it wasn't being shopped, it was a done deal, ready for publication.

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, TimWil said:

They wouldn't have all been in the Green Room backstage at the Academy Awards, though. It just wouldn't have happened. I realize it's a dramatic conceit but still.

Right, but the remark to which I was responding was along the lines of, "What a coincidence that all those characters should turn up in the green room at the end!" I was pointing out that it wasn't a coincidence. We didn't know until near the end of the final episode that all the documentary scenes all along were filmed at the 1978 Oscars, but indeed that's what we discovered.

As for the fact that it just wouldn't happen that they'd all be in the green room, here's another thing that didn't happen: the documentary itself! But in the show-verse, it served Murphy's purpose to imagine that it did.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[psychoticstate]

I ended up liking this episode although I wish it had been done in two parts since quite a bit was left out.  As others have mentioned, nothing on Crawford being on The Secret Storm or Night Gallery.  Nothing on Davis filming The Whales of August or releasing her own memoirs.  

While Joan did make no official public appearances in the last 4 or so years of her life, she still had friends that she kept in contact with by going to lunch, phone calls and correspondence.  The show definitely made it appear that she was completely alone, save for Mamacita at the end.  She had a Christian Scientist practitioner that visited with her every day as well as a nurse or someone that stayed overnight with her. 

I totally agree with the earlier poster who said that no way in hell would Joan get up and walk away from a book signing.  Absolutely not.  She valued her fans far too much.  I don't think she would have been offended by someone saying she was a survivor - - she might very well have agreed.  I also think she would have been appreciative that someone loved one of her films. 

I also want to say that the tidbit at the beginning with Pauline saying she saw Joan at LaGuardia with pancake white makeup on, in a wheelchair and drunk off her ass was unnecessarily cruel and not true. 

While I know that Bette never called Joan upon hearing about her suffering with cancer, I was really hoping she would.  Again, these ladies had so much in common and could have been allies, if not friends.

I like that Ryan Murphy did not assume that MD was 100% gospel truth and I did appreciate the scene with Joan, Cathy and Cathy's children.  According to Cathy's son, the sliding on the floors did really happen.  It wasn't mentioned in the series but he says they called Joan "JoJo."  

I appreciated that the afterwords mentioned how MD was denounced by many of Joan's friends, co-workers and her two youngest children.  I'm sorry that Murphy didn't see fit to include the same about Bette with regard to MMK although MMK never came close to disgracing Bette's legacy as MD did to Joan.

I also want to say that while some people (not necessarily people here) have felt disgusted over BD's book and BD for writing it, Christina appears to have escaped that same type of criticism.  BD is seen as terrible, horrific for writing that book about her mother while Joan is the one demonized for Christina's book.  Just saying. 

I am thankful that, as was mentioned in the afterword, more people have come around to watching Joan's films and seeing how talented she was (in some films, far more so than others.)  As Olivia (or was it Joan B.?) said during the 1978 Oscar tributes, Crawford contributed to the industry for 50 years and was only deigned two seconds . . . that's what is truly sad.  And that terrible MD tarnished the brilliant career she had, at a time when women were considered throwaways once they hit 30 or 35.  She and Davis kept kicking and fighting for their careers.  They should be admired and celebrated for that alone.

The episode did bring me to tears and I thought it was much better than the previous two.  Jessica Lange really brought it for this particular episode.  I hope, if nothing else, the show brings new appreciation to the work of Bette and Joan. 

[sugarbaker design]

3 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

We didn't know until near the end of the final episode that all the documentary scenes all along were filmed at the 1978 Oscars

Well, we didn't know for sure.  Since the first episode it was captioned '1978, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion'.  For years the DCP was synonymous with the Oscars, and with ODeH and JB in gowns, it just had to be at the Academy Awards!

[psychoticstate]

51 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

I think the reality is that this was nominally a show about the feud between Joan and Bette.  Their personal lives play into the feud, but it wasn't meant as a rehash of Mommie Dearest, nor was it a venue to revisit all of BD's issues with her mother.   

The book wasn't published until October 1978.  It seems odd that the galleys would already be ready nearly a year and a half before publication. 

I've heard that the initial version of MD was quite tame, maybe even boring and that Christina was encouraged to ramp it up and include something meaty and dramatic.  Maybe Joan was offered an earlier version?  Or maybe Joan was not offered an actual gallery at all but was simply told of the contents. I can't say for sure but it is know that Joan was well aware of Christina's forthcoming hatchet job before she died and that was thanks to friends she had that had seen Christina's book and/or proposal and knew very well what was she going to claim. 

42 minutes ago, Twopper said:

No, in the early 70's she was kicked off the board due to changing leadership at the top.  From what I understand she retained her stock in the company.  At the time of Mr Steele's death, she had to pay back advances he had taken from Pepsi. 

I know they didn't go into detail about Mommie, Dearest, but I wondered if there was a subtle reference to it in an earlier episode when the twins complain about having to eat fish sticks, and she orders very rare steaks for them ( supposedly she made Christina eat raw meat, if I recall).

I think too that Joan was forced into retirement at Peptsi because of her age.  Too bad the show didn't even give us one scene of that. 

With regard to the raw meat, Christina was encouraged to eat rare meat, as Joan did. She believed that once the meat was thoroughly cooked, the beneficial minerals and properties were lost.

[benteen]

4 minutes ago, psychoticstate said:

I ended up liking this episode although I wish it had been done in two parts since quite a bit was left out.  As others have mentioned, nothing on Crawford being on The Secret Storm or Night Gallery.  Nothing on Davis filming The Whales of August or releasing her own memoirs.  

Yeah, I was disappointed about this too.  I was reading how that her appearance on the Night Gallery TV movie (which later led to the TV show) was Steven Spielberg's first TV gig.  Crawford didn't want to be directed by him at first but changed her mind as she got to know him and he pretty much walked her through that shooting.  I read that he still kept in touch with Joan until her death in 1977.  But I guess that wouldn't have fit the "no one remembered Joan in the end" narrative.  Still, it would have been interesting to see.

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This is one of my big gripes with the show - far too much of it was done in this way for these very same reasons. More than half the time I felt like I was watching the characters react to things because Ryan Murphy knew us here in 2017 would want to know what they thought of this or that.

 One of my few complaints with the series has been this. 

Also, I found every seen with BD to do awful and the worst in the series.  I just didn't like those scenes for a variety of reasons.

[enoughcats]

1 hour ago, stillhere1900 said:

Soooooooo. Bette Davis had a daughter in a mental institute ? 

  A daughter with mental problems that were so severe that she required full time, professional care.

 

One other thing, this time about Joan Crawford.

If it were me, I would have ended this part of the JC episode with her giving away her beloved dog to a friend who really liked the dog two days before she died. 

Fade to black.

 Screen reads "Miss Crawford passed two days later.

 

e.t.a. But that would have been real life.

Edited April 24, 2017 by enoughcats

[Milburn Stone]

18 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Well, we didn't know for sure.  Since the first episode it was captioned '1978, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion'.  For years the DCP was synonymous with the Oscars, and with ODeH and JB in gowns, it just had to be at the Academy Awards!

Aha! Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't recall that caption. Makes it in some sense all the more dramatically effective that the series built to that setting in its final moments, although lacking the element of "reveal" that it had for those of us who didn't encode the caption.

Edited April 25, 2017 by Milburn Stone

[newyawk]

7 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

I wonder what Bette thought of MD.

 

According to Bette and Joan: the Divine Feud, by Shaun Considine, Bette was both appalled and amused by the book and (if I remember correctly) said something to the effect of "MY children would never do such a thing." Shortly thereafter, BD's book came out.

[Vixenstud]

2 hours ago, sugarbaker design said:

Although, I was hoping for a brief scene of Joan substituting for a sick Christina on Secret Storm.

Or her appearance as herself on an eppy of The Lucy Show.

[Mindthinkr]

I was taken aback at the scene when Miss Crawford's daughter came to visit her with the two grandchildren. The actress playing the part looked just like Heather Dubrow from RHOC!! 

[sugarbaker design]

Just now, Vixenstud said:

Or her appearance as herself on an eppy of The Lucy Show.

That is too funny, that episode just aired recently on one of those retro channels.  It opened with JC scrubbing floors!!!

[newyawk]

The show did not change my opinion of either woman. It was very interesting to see the behind the scenes stuff brought to life, but I've read enough by various authors on both women, including Bette's memoir (and I even found JC's  My Way Of Life in a military library once) to have a fairly good idea as to what they were probably like. 

I do think there is merit to Christina's book, it is not unusual for parents to treat one child abysmally different than other kids, especially if there is a substance or alcohol issue involved.  As mentioned elsewhere, Helen Hayes son did see Christopher's bed straps, and was told by Christopher that they were used every night.  It doesn't surprise me that the twins have no memory of the alleged abuse, a lot of it happened when Christina was young and they were even younger, and then Christina was shipped off to boarding school for much of the rest of her school years.

As much as I liked Bette, I think she was probably difficult to live with and there is likely a good amount of truth in BD's book. If you were overly sensitive, you probably wouldn't be able to handle Bette's personality and the alcohol didn't help. That said, a lot of us have parents with control issues and short tempers.  Parents are the cornerstone of the psychiatric profession. 

Feud was good entertainment.  But I think the Shaun Considine book was a much better source for what happened during that time frame.

Edited April 24, 2017 by newyawk

[Vixenstud]

2 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

That is too funny, that episode just aired recently on one of those retro channels.  It opened with JC scrubbing floors!!!

Very good episode and now that I think of it, that would have been a great scene to do....Lucy was famous for berating people to do lines, etc. perfectly and allegedly she really went to town on Joan, at one point threatening to have her fired if she couldn't keep up.

[mamadrama]

11 hours ago, Snookums said:

You know, Joan Crawford was in a little William Castle throwaway called I Saw What You Did, in 1965. Castle was the king of gimmicks and trashy quickies--he made movies like The Tingler and wired theater seats to shock patrons, he flew plastic skeletons on wires around the movie houses during House On Haunted Hill, stuff like that. Getting Joan was obviously the gimmick for this movie.

But she's SO GOOD. The film is a Psycho ripoff about two teenage girls making prank phone calls and they accidentally call John Ireland's character right before he stabs his wife. One thing leads to another and they decide to go see what he looks like (they don't know about the stabbing) and drive out to his house.

Joan plays John's next door neighbor/secret lover Amy, and she puts together what happened with the dead wife, but mistakenly thinks John is having an affair with the teen prank caller (she listens in on the call.) So when the teenager comes poking around she has this AMAZEBALLS scene where she's ranting and raving at her, yelling about how she's a little tramp and he's twice her age and to get out of here if she knows what's good for her.

And then, right when she's got the poor kid cowering in the car, she grabs the door to slam it and...pauses. Her face softens. "Look, honey," she says, sincerely, "You're too young." Then she SLAMS THAT DOOR and bellows "get outta here!" with a rage that tries to cover up that beating heart, and fails.

Every scene she's in, she's so great.

"I Saw What You Did" is an awesome movie. It got a remake in the 1980s, too (remake has Candace Cameron in a supporting role). I have the VHS copy of the original and they include the original trailer. What's so funny about the trailer is that it's almost 5 minutes long and is a Cliff Notes version of the entire movie. Spoilers abound! :-)

If you're interested in a movie about all the gimmicks used in the horror movie showings, then try out MATINEE. It has John Goodman and is loosely based on some of the antics used in the showings. 

Edited April 24, 2017 by mamadrama

[Arynm]

48 minutes ago, enoughcats said:

  A daughter with mental problems that were so severe that she required full time, professional care.

 

I read that she was also cut out of Bette Davis's will which I can't understand. I wonder what happened to Margo after her mother was not around to pay her bills? They were most likely substantial if she needed full time care. I hope a sibling took over paying for her.

Edited April 24, 2017 by Arynm

[txhorns79]

Quote

I read that she was also cut out of Bette Davis's will which I can't understand. I wonder what happened to Margo after her mother was not around to pay her bills? They were most likely substantial if she needed full time care. I hope a sibling took over paying for her.

My understanding is she had a trust set up for her, so there was no need to further provide for her in the will.  It wasn't as if Bette simply cut her off. 

Quote

Very good episode and now that I think of it, that would have been a great scene to do....Lucy was famous for berating people to do lines, etc. perfectly and allegedly she really went to town on Joan, at one point threatening to have her fired if she couldn't keep up.

 

I had read that Joan was intoxicated on the set, but pulled it together once they started filming.  You can see the episode on YouTube.  It's not the best performance, and Joan was playing herself. 

Edited April 24, 2017 by txhorns79

[Mindthinkr]

2 minutes ago, Arynm said:

I read that she was also cut of of Bette Davis's will which I can't understand. I wonder what happened to Margo  after her mother was not around to pay her bills? They were most likely substantial if she needed full time care. I hope a sibling took over paying for her.

It could be that Miss Davis knew that the 'system' would continue to pay all of her bills for her care after her death. Leaving it to the health care provider, well they would have eaten thru every penny in no time flat. Nobody to oversee the distribution of funds OR she would have to named someone as her executor who also would be entitled to a piece of the pie. She might have felt that she did all she could do for the girl while she was alive. Some people like to keep things equal between their children so she might have left her final tally to BD to compensate for all those previous years that she had done for the other daughter. Being dead she would feel no guilt.