Commentary

Key Question For FX's 'Bette And Joan': Who Cares?

You’ve heard of shaggy dog stories? Well, get ready for a who cares story, as in: Who cares if Bette Davis and Joan Crawford had a feud?

This is the feeling you might get if you watch “FEUD: Bette and Joan,” a new eight-part limited series coming to FX this Sunday that must have sounded great on paper. But on film? Not so much.

About 10 minutes into the first episode, I realized I wasn’t really getting on board the Bette Davis-Joan Crawford “FEUD” bandwagon.

By the time the first hour was over, I was never able to make myself care about them or this big miss of a TV series. Sure, I could have watched another episode or two, since FX generously provided five.

But I also could have watched paint dry or the grass grow to achieve the same effect, which you might describe as a feeling of detached boredom or even drowsiness.

advertisement

advertisement

“FEUD” tells the story of Davis and Crawford, two stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age who are past their prime in 1962 when they are cast to co-star for the first time in a new movie that became a horror classic, “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” Davis was 54. Crawford was 58.

Based on a novel of the same name that came out in 1960, “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” is about two reclusive sisters living in a rundown house in an older section of Los Angeles. 

One sister, played by Davis, was famous long ago as a vaudevillian child star named Baby Jane Hudson. In the present day of 1962 in the movie, she is clearly and unequivocally insane. Davis’s portrayal of her is justifiably legendary.

The other sister, Blanche -- played by Crawford -- is wheelchair-bound. As such, she is susceptible to various forms of abuse at the hands of her sister.

The abuse is verbal, physical and psychological. In one of the movie’s most famous scenes, Jane serves Blanche a rat for dinner. It’s a great movie. Coincidentally, it was on TCM just last night.

As played by Jessica Lange, Crawford is depicted as the more sympathetic of the two stars. The portrayal goes against expectations, since the Joan Crawford of the popular imagination is more like the one played so famously by Faye Dunaway in “Mommie Dearest.” As a result, Lange’s softer interpretation of Crawford is a disappointment. She doesn’t look a thing like Crawford either.

Susan Sarandon (seen in the photo above) plays Davis as icier and meaner than Crawford, but the portrayal doesn’t quite get you to the real Bette Davis.

Sarandon looks marginally more authentic as Davis than Lange does as Crawford, but Sarandon can’t seem to achieve the sneering, hard, imperious facial expressions you would expect her Davis to have.

The two lead performances miss their mark, and not by a little but a lot. They don’t draw you in or rivet your attention, which then allows your eyes to wander distractedly over this show’s various sets, props, furnishings, clothes and automobiles. These elements faithfully re-create the era, but they’re not enough to sustain one’s interest for an hour, much less eight of them.

Lange and Sarandon are supported by an A-list cast, including Alfred Molina as Robert Aldrich, director of “Baby Jane”; Judy Davis as the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper; Stanley Tucci as movie mogul Jack Warner; Catherine Zeta-Jones as Olivia de Havilland; and Kathy Bates as Joan Blondell.

These portrayals are almost all hollow, superficial caricatures. None of them ring true. This whole limited series plays like an elaborate fantasy cooked up for the benefit of its executive producer, Ryan Murphy, a TV hitmaker who produces “American Horror Story” for FX (and also was the producer behind “Nip/Tuck,” and “Glee” and “Scream Queens” on Fox).

Like “American Horror Story,” Murphy intends to make a series of these limited “FEUD” series for FX, which apparently can’t say no to him.

A second “FEUD” is already in the works about the marriage of Prince Charles and the late Diana Spencer. It’s an odd choice since their story would not really seem to be a “feud” at all, but more of a terrible marriage, and one that ended tragically with her death in an awful car crash.

This would hardly seem to be in the same category as a “feud” between two aging movie stars on the set of a low-budget horror film in 1962. Here in 2017, it would seem difficult to find many people who care about how Bette Davis and Joan Crawford felt about each other.

What’s next after “FEUD: Charles and Diana”? Pat Nixon and Mamie Eisenhower?

“FEUD: Bette and Joan” premieres Sunday (March 5) at 10 p.m. Eastern on FX.

4 comments about "Key Question For FX's 'Bette And Joan': Who Cares? ".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Steve Beverly from Union Broadcasting System, March 3, 2017 at 1:23 p.m.

    How about Vivian Vance and William Frawley?

  2. James Brosnan from Viacom, March 3, 2017 at 5:21 p.m.

    Seriously, this is a review? Read the NYT review if you want to understand this show, you are riduculous.

  3. Chuck Lantz from 2007ac.com, 2017ac.com network, March 3, 2017 at 5:27 p.m.


    For some odd reason this mini-series reminds me of the "Last Page of the Internet" 
    http://hmpg.net/

    ... since it seems that this "Feud" series is a clear signal that Hollywood writers have finally run out of ideas. 

  4. Chuck Lantz from 2007ac.com, 2017ac.com network replied, March 3, 2017 at 6:20 p.m.


    A serious question: Does being "riduculous" involve waddling while making quacking sounds? 

Next story loading loading..