![]() Davis is one of the most easily imitated of performers-pretty much anyone can do her-but Sarandon settles for acting tough and impatient and emphasizing the “t” in all of her words as Davis did. Sarandon is likely to be criticized for not imitating Davis’ voice and mannerisms more fully and expansively. Feud is a series in which it is obvious that everyone involved did an enormous amount of research to get things as accurate as possible, even down to having Davis and Crawford discuss the fact that they had both wanted to do a movie of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome in the 1940s-but had wanted to play the same part of young servant girl Mattie. To get Bette on board for their project, Joan flies out to see her on stage in Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana.ĭavis was unhappy with the supporting role she had in that Williams play, but she proudly bowed to the audience when she would get her entrance applause every night, a detail that is exactly depicted here. Aldrich and Crawford had worked together previously on Autumn Leaves (1956), which was one of her best films and one of her very best and most imaginative performances, and so they already have some director-actor chemistry going. Rough-and-ready auteur Robert Aldrich (Alfred Molina) is unhappily shooting the sexy Biblical epic Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) when Joan gives him a copy of the novel What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? by Henry Farrell. (Mamacita’s real name was Anne Marie Brinke, and coincidentally her maiden name was Hoffman.) Joan explained in her priceless book My Way of Life (1971) that she called her German maid Mamacita because she had just returned from a Pepsi tour in Rio de Janeiro and had heard “cita” there a lot. It seems Joan can’t pay her gardeners, but Mamacita has told them that “It’s an honor to trim Miss Crawford’s bush,” and kudos must go to New York cabaret curmudgeon Hoffman for delivering this loaded line in such a serious and deadpan way. “No, no Mamacita, nothing Sapphic,” says Joan as she eyes a book called Chocolates for Breakfast with two women on the front. Searching for a comeback role, Crawford sends Mamacita out to get some books with women on the cover, and then things get briefly campy-comic. The writing in their first scene might be less blunt, but we can’t have everything. The pleasure in Ryan Murphy's shows so often comes from his dream-like casting, and it doesn’t get any dreamier or tastier than the sight of the equally gifted and idiosyncratic Lange and Davis sharing the screen together. (Crawford had sold her house in Hollywood by 1961, but this fictionalization allows the series to give her a solid home base.) Two scene-stealers are introduced: Joan’s dour Teutonic maid Mamacita (Jackie Hoffman) and the powerful gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Judy Davis), who favors wacky hats. We see Crawford in her Hollywood domicile getting a massage and worrying over wrinkles. Crawford had denounced Monroe after a sensationalized Photoplay dinner in 1953, and she continued to make negative remarks about her until Monroe’s death in 1962. “I got great tits too, but I don’t throw them in everyone’s face,” she mutters to herself, and Lange uses her lowest, most guttural vocal tone here, which really gets across Crawford’s lethal bitterness in this period. After the death of her fourth husband, the Pepsi executive Al Steele, Crawford was drinking more than ever. The scene shifts to the 1961 Golden Globes as Marilyn Monroe ascends to the podium and Lange’s Crawford sits at a table and drinks with her man of the moment (Reed Diamond). We also see Susan Sarandon’s Davis in the scene on the staircase in All About Eve (1950), striking a pose and moving those outsized Bette Davis eyes. As she speaks, we see Jessica Lange’s Crawford holding a gun in a scene from the thriller Sudden Fear (1952), and Lange uncannily captures the warrior-like way that Crawford held her facial muscles in this period, especially in her overly made-up mouth. At the end of the credit sequence the two female figures weep hearts next to each other, a sign that Feud is going to delve into their pain as well as their strength.Ĭatherine Zeta-Jones’ glacial Olivia de Havilland is tasked with providing exposition that is framed as some kind of documentary being shot at the Oscars in 1978. These formidable women are seen in the credits as puppets being manipulated by a large man with a cigar, followed by a lit cigarette that sheds Oscar statuettes instead of ashes. Graphic and colorful Saul Bass-like credits set the lavish, retro tone of Feud: Bette and Joan, the Ryan Murphy series about the rivalry between classic Hollywood stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
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