Feud, episodes 5 and 6, review: Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange make even the dull scenes worth watching
The fifth and sixth episodes of Feud (BBC Two) were shown contiguously, and the fifth was such a screamer that whatever came next was bound to disappoint. In the first of the double bill, the simple opening caption “1963” will have had Old Hollywood aficionados purring, for this was the year in which the Joan Crawford and Bette Davis feud of the series’ title reached its apogee at the Oscars. The real-life story is so wickedly delicious that all writer and director Ryan Murphy needed to do was to tell it straight.
What happened was that Davis was nominated for Best Actress for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, while Crawford, her co-star, wasn’t. Anyone who’s been watching Feud will know that up to now Crawford has, largely, been the punchbag both for Hollywood misogyny as well as Davis’s well-aimed jabs. This time, though, she outflanked both by wheedling her way in to the Academy Award ceremony as a presenter and then “offering” to collect the award for the actual Best Actress winner, Anne Bancroft, on her behalf as she was absent. Thus, Joanie got the Oscar without actually having won it, while Bette Davis stood in the wings beyond speech with rage.
I said the story was delicious, but even so, six episodes in, Feud would be getting monotonous if it was just a protracted catfight. Luckily, in Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange as the leads, you get something worth watching in even the dullest scene.
In episode six, there were quite a few of them, as studio boss Jack Warner coined the appalling new genre of “Hagsploitation” horror flicks in which ageing female stars were demeaned on screen for the audience’s amusement.
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Compared to 1963 Oscar night it was bound to pale, and yet Lange in particular is so magnificent at those pained expressions of just clinging on for dear life, the street fighter in the ball gown, that no five minutes of Feud has been without something to cherish. Credit goes to Murphy for giving screen time to others than just his leads, in particular to the wonderful Jackie Hoffman as Crawford’s stony-faced vassal Mamacita. You’d call Mamacita comic relief, except that there’s no relief on the horizon for Joanie as her tragic swandive continues.