Before I dive into the finale of Feud, I thought y’all might enjoy this quote about the show from Olivia De Havilland who is 100 years old and living in Paris.
“I have received your email with its two questions,” De Havilland told the Hollywood Reporter in an email. “I would like to reply first to the second of these, which inquires of me the accuracy of a current television series entitled Feud, which concerns Bette Davis and Joan Crawford and their supposed animosity toward each other. Having not seen the show, I cannot make a valid comment about it. However, in principle, I am opposed to any representation of personages who are no longer alive to judge the accuracy of any incident depicted as involving themselves. As to the 1963 Oscar ceremony, which took place over half a century ago, I regret to say that I have no memory of it whatsoever and therefore cannot vouch for its accuracy.”
When things began to get more and more depressing about two seasons ago, it seems like the interest in discussing this show fell off. I’ve been recapping American Crime, which airs at the same time as this series and it is particularly distressing about the traumas occurring each day in this country. Every week the handful us who tune in to American Crime are hoping for someone’s stuggle to have a happy ending. Instead we get dead teenagers, drug overdoses, street justice, abusing the hired workers, and crooked groups that are supposed to help. There is one more week of that series and we have finally realized there is not going to be a pretty bow on that series. I don’t think we will have one on Feud either.
We start with the discarded Joan, sad and alone in her downsized apartment, with no Mamacita to boss around for company. This entire episode will focus on the mistreatment of women in Hollywood and how once beauty fades they are no longer a viable commodity. I suppose their glamorous lives make the fall more dramatic, but it is certainly not a plight lived only by movie stars. It’s the plight of women everywhere. The day comes for all when the dress doesn’t fit and social engagements are a bigger chore than simply staying home and scrubbing the floor. Then you do what you can. You get a dog, and if you are lucky, Mamacita returns to you, at least on a part-time basis.
And then your health goes. In Joan’s case she has severe gum disease, and needs dentures. She will not consent to dentures, it would make her look like Martha Raye, for christsake! The young dentist points out that at her age she needs to be worrying about her health, than her appearance. To which she replies, “I’ll stop worrying about how I look, when they dip me in formaldehyde.
Against everyone’s advice, Joan takes a small part in a low rent horror movie. It’s truly horrific. She requires cue cards and liquor. Lot’s of liquor. She’s also writing a lifestyle book via audio tape. It’s pretty depressing as well. The intertwining of the two projects serves to ratchet up the sadness.
Bette isn’t much better off. BD meets he mother for lunch. She remains married to her older man and has two boys. Her husband has gone home with the boys after Bette supposedly beat one of the boys for crying while in her care the previous nights. BD tells her that she needs to stop drinking and get herself together and then if she wants to see the boys she can visit them at their farm as long as she is supervised.
Then Bette who apparently turns down nothing at all during this time is the guest of dishonor at a Dean Martin roast. Why do people ever agree to this? She hasn’t had a drink in three weeks, but I have a feeling one is in her near future.
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, they do. Bette finds out at the same time we do that Joan has cancer. Even worse, Mommie Dearest is being written about Joan while she is fighting cancer. It seems the two adopted daughters loved Joan very much.
Since I am not familiar with the subject of this series, I was hopeful, expecting really, that the title of this episode would be about a reconciliation between Joan and Bette. I felt like Bette, who we see calling Joan and then hanging up before speaking, would at episode’s end show up to visit with Joan. And the title line would be delivered by one or the other of them.
Alas, what we get is a dream scene. Joan dreams that Jack Warner and Hedda Hopper, and Bette Davis are all in her apartment reminiscing about old times. There is a candelabra, martinis, and everyone is playing cards in their most elegant gowns, hair and makeup beat to the gods and back. It starts out with a lot of laughter from Hedda and Jack, but when Bette materializes she urges Joan to tell Hedda and Jack what they did to her. They don’t even pretend to care.
Hedda and Jack disappear to make drinks. Bette and Joan are left to themselves. They make up with each other and decide to have a glass of champagne. Joan calls for Mamacita, who arrives to find Joan hallucinating.
I’ve gotten up several times while writing this recap. I’ve open the window, I’ve closed the window, I’ve made coffee, I’ve taken the empty container of coconut milk to the trash can. I realize now that I am finding excuses to take a break from this episode. I had heard it was difficult to watch. But this is really depressing. Especially on the second, drab, rainy day in a row. I’m fifty-nine minutes in and it look there is a lot of time, around twenty minutes left. I am praying that the end is all teaser for some other program. Because I can’t take another twenty minutes of this.
She died a week later. Someone please tell me that Bette didn’t say that horrible quote about Joan.
Bette goes to visit her disabled daughter and regaled her with false memories of her life.
The worst part of the Academy Awards, and there are plenty of bad parts these days, but the worst part is the In Memorium segment. We endured that segment of the 1978 season where Joan was on the screen of a brief second or two in between a bunch of men.
/fin
I have been waiting for you to recap because after I watched this last night I felt so so very sad. These two women would have made amazing allies. They were both so fascinating and vulnerable. They probably understood one another better than anyone else.
Hollywood makes me so angry. For their false facade of caring about issues and human rights blah blah blah. They are the worst offenders. In almost every way. Women, Children, the environment, drub abuse, so on and so on. Things were bad for women back in the day of Bette and Joan but I don’t think they are better now or any different for that matter.
I thought this show would be fun and campy, and it was. It was also heartbreaking and beautiful. I will miss these two.
I heard they were doing Di and Charles next. Not thinking I would be watching that. But we will see.
Thank you TT beautifully done!
Between the women on Atlanta rehashing the same old crap, American Crime and then feud, my usual fun Sunday viewing was shot to hell. Could Feud have been anymore depressing?? It started upbeat with the zippy Raindrops are falling on my head to This is the End by the Doors. That kinda says it all. Joan’s sad showbiz end in that horrific inane Trog. The only laugh I got all night was seeing the guy dressed as Trog. I literally laughed out loud. Also It was funny when Joan’s agent told her about The Missing Link , later changed to Trog. Joan tells him Oh I would be playing a scientist, how I wanted to play Madame Curie. Uh no Joan this role is not anything like that. No Shit. Yikes what a comedown. Dressing in that old VW can, sharing makeup with Trog. OMG. That scene when a drunk Joan puts on the Trog mask. Too much. I read recently that they really did not hate each other and that the feud was mostly press-driven. I want to believe this. I hope that quote about Joan’s death by Bette was not true, it was so cruel. I did not miss the irony of Bette saying Joan wanted Faye Dunaway to play her in a movie. Play her she did in Mommie Dearest about 5 years after Joan’s death. I loved that pic at the end of Joan and Bette in their chairs on set smiling like great friends. I wanna remember them just like that. Now excuse me I go have a good cry. Just damn.
Great post! Fay Dunaway in Mommie dearest…ugh!
No, Bette did not say that quote about Joan; and certainly not directly to the AP.
I believe that line originated from the late, great Charles Pierce. (“I’m not a drag queen. I’m a male actress.”) His Bette routine was the best out there for years, and that line – which is hysterically funny in the right context and with the right delivery – has become a standard with queens who do Bette routines.
It’s a line from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Baby Jane/Bette Davis delivers it in the movie, and it is heartbreaking in that moment.
Uh, there seems to be some confusion. I’m not talking about the “could have been friends” line. I’m talking about what they had Bette saying to the AP after Crawford’s death.
It always varies a little each time I hear it, but it’s usually, “My mother always told me to speak good of the dead. Joan Crawford is dead. Good!”
If you haven’t gone cabaret-ing and seen a good drag queen Bette Davis routine, you haven’t lived. Unfortunately, Charles Pierce has moved on to the great hereafter, but there are other good ones out there. There’s a guy named Christopher Peterson who does Bette/Barbra/Liza/Judy/Lucy and others in a quick-change show. He is INCREDIBLE. His Judy was so dead-on is was almost eerie. Anyway, if you have a chance to see him, GO. You will love it. I remember him delivering that line as Bette and my friend and I were practically on the floor, we were laughing so hard.
But back to FEUD. I was surprised they had Bette saying that in a serious moment, since it’s for so long been a punchline for the Davis impressionists.
I’ve really enjoyed this series. It was campy and mostly fun, and brought to life a book I read a few years ago (“The Divine Feud”) about this rivalry. I’m glad it focused primarily on their professional rivalry, rather than the resentments both held onto over men they’d supposedly stolen from one another. From the anecdotes I recall in the book, the series hasn’t had to exaggerate much.
I read Charles and Diana are the subject of Season 2 for Feud too, and already written it off as a disaster. American screenwriters have a uniformly dismal record when it comes to understanding Britain, royalty, or the variations in British accents, so it’s sure to be painful viewing (for Brits, at least).
The episode title “you mean all this time we could have been friends?” is from Whatever Happened to Baby Janes – it’s from one of the last scenes of the movie.
I would say more but I don’t want to spoil it (can you spoil a 1,000 year old movie?).
You should start watching my 600 lb life. For some reason it’s riveting. And nobody ever dies, except maybe once, I can’t remember. And BEST.OF.ALL, you’ll feel downright slim!
Pro Tip: DO NOT watch the shows where they remove the excess skin.
You’re all welcome.
The quote is from what ever happened to baby jane.
Wow. This episode surprised me. I didn’t expect to get so emotional. Joan’s hallucination scene was heart-rending… I couldn’t control my tears. Two women who were so talented, talented in such different ways that there was no need to compete. They obviously had a mutual respect for one another…They could have been strong together but ego gets in the way. Same old story in today’s world. Is it really worth it in the end
I almost had a tear twice, once with the mask and once at the hallucination. And I don’t emote. Ever. I am cold and heartless. It was a lot.
I believe she did say that quote, I remember reading it years ago, before Feud.
As A Gay who used to be the handsome man-about-town but has just turned 30 and started balding and developing a little paunch, I am totally relating. I’m having my own Joan Crawford moment right now. #Sisters
Anyone catch an entertainment show yesterday? Interviewed both Jessica and Susan..Interesting.
No Peachy but I wish I had. Their work on Feud has been tremendous!!
“You mean all this time we could have been friends?” is the important, ironic line in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. It’s also the succinctly-put theme of the whole series, really.
The theme of this episode, I guess, was “getting old really sucks”. They skipped ahead a few years after Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, but that’s OK. I imagine seeing Joan film I Saw What You Did and Berserk! wouldn’t have added anything to the narrative.
From all I have read, the depiction of the circumstances/conditions in making Trog was pretty accurate. As I’ve commented here before, it was a sad conclusion to a long and distinguished career, especially for one of Hollywood’s truly greatest stars.
Trog was Joan’s last feature film, but it wasn’t her last screen appearance. She’d go on to do a couple of television projects: In 1969, she did the pilot of “Night Gallery” and was directed by a new, green kid named…Steven Spielberg. Then in 1972, she did an episode of “The Sixth Sense” which holds up pretty well today. It was her actual last project.
There is something I wish they’d included as a counterpoint to all of the sadness and loneliness. In 1973, the publicist John Springer did a series at Town Hall in NYC with “Legendary Ladies of the Screen”. He’d show clips/highlights from the films of a legendary star and then interview them live on stage. Myrna Loy was one, I think Sylvia Sidney was another. Despite her shyness and insecurity, Joan agreed to do one and be interviewed.
When it was time for Joan to come on stage, the packed-to-the-rafters crowd gave her a long, thunderous, standing ovation. To the audience, Joan tearfully remarked, “I never knew there was so much…LOVE“. It was a real triumph for Joan, and I imagine, a badly needed one at the time.
Thanks for sharing that, eric. A sweeter end than Trog. Was that in Divine Feud? I can’t remember.
I think so. But it’s been forever since I’ve read that book. I got it as a Christmas gift 25-ish years ago and I remember devouring it in one sitting. I also remember it being crammed full of hilarious anecdotes that they could have included (at least a few of) in this series to lighten it up! It was much less camp than I expected. (Example: Joan to Rock Hudson: “Just close your eyes and pretend I’m Clark Gable!”)
My copy was long ago borrowed/lost/stolen/whatever. One of these days I’ll probably buy another one. I highly recommend it to anyone whose interest was piqued by this series!
This was heartbreaking. I cried through the entire hour and twenty minutes.
Heart piercing.