FEUD: Hagsploitation

April 10, 2017 8:10 AM - Season 1, Episode 6

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? launched a new genre of movies featuring former grand dames of cinema in horrible, degrading roles. Such as Joan Crawford as an ax murderer in Strait-Jacket. Jack Warner, his studio starting to falter and in need of a new hit, brings Bob Aldrich back and tries to get him to reunite Crawford and Davis - all for reduced salaries. Aldrich manages to coax the stars to agree to work together again, but he takes the picture to Warner's nemesis, Darryl Zanuck, instead.

Meanwhile a ghost out of Joan's past appears - her brother, who's looking for money shopping around a "stag film" she once did. Hedda advises Joan to just admit it to her, to control the story, but Joan denies it all.

posted by dnash (8 comments total)

Cameo from John Waters! Playing a very John Waters style director!

My memory might be wrong, but in the first scene with Bob and his wife I was thinking haven't ALL their scenes together been in that bedroom? Always in nightgown/pajamas? So I was a bit surprised when later - ta da! - they're out at a restaurant! She finally got to wear clothes. And then that turns into the scene where she asks for a divorce.

Bob "getting his balls back" in Warner's office was pretty fantastic.

I have to say, as bad as smoking is for you, and as reasonable as it is that people are rarely shown smoking in today's TV and movies - watching Lange and Sarandon wield their cigarettes so masterfully makes you realize what an evocative set of gestures and mannerisms it can be. Weapons, crutches - all their characters' neuroses concentrated into a little burning stick in their fingers.
posted by dnash at 8:27 AM on April 10, 2017 [1 favorite]

Cameo from John Waters! Playing a very John Waters style director!

I wanted to take a walk before we watched this last night and then it started and it was obvious what it was opening with and I had to wait.

I have no problem with taking liberties for certain things, so I don't really have a problem with the fact that Crawford's brother died in 1963, so the whole idea that she was using Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte money to pay him is a re-write. (I have a bigger problem with Crawford's issue with women directors as a concept a few episodes back as she'd been around long enough to when women did that more often than they did in the later days of the studio system.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:16 AM on April 10, 2017

This article about the the John Waters cameo that talks about how Ryan Murphy got the idea because he just kept seeing Waters's name come up when he was researching William Castle (and that Waters was, of course, in the audience for one of the Straight-Jacket road shows) is just aces.

I cannot believe how much sympathy I continue to have for both women as this all unfolds. The system is stacked against them obviously, but they do keep shooting themselves in the foot as well, and that fall-out is effecting everyone whether it be each other or the folks they are throwing stuff at (literally and figuratively). But Lange and Sarandon just keep squeezing out my absolute sympathy.

I wish the Emmys had a "cast award" like the Screen Actors Guild and other awards shows do because this would be my favorite so far this year far and away.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:18 AM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Also that whole speech from Hedda, where her recent heart attack leads her to reflect on her life, and all the lives she's ruined and in the end: “And I felt… good.” Like for half a second you think maybe she's going to show a little compunction or conscience about making a living as a gossip-monger, but no. And then it turns out she's even willing to sell out her friend over a sex film scandal.

I wish the Emmys had a "cast award" like the Screen Actors Guild and other awards shows do because this would be my favorite so far this year far and away.

Yes. I mean, last week's Oscars ep definitely had me thinking "what happens if it's Lange vs Sarandon for the Emmy?"
posted by dnash at 11:23 AM on April 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

"Without a doubt, the greatest showman of our time was William Castle. King of the Gimmicks, William Castle was my idol. His films made me want to make films. I'm even jealous of his work. In fact, I wish I were William Castle."

- John Waters, in his delightful book Crackpot
posted by roger ackroyd at 9:31 PM on April 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

>Yes. I mean, last week's Oscars ep definitely had me thinking "what happens if it's Lange vs Sarandon for the Emmy?"

The other should accept for her -- everyone who has seen the show will be screaming!
posted by Catblack at 5:43 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]

My father had a copy of this, which includes stills from The Casting Couch. I don't remember Crawford being named in the captions,thoughI had read Mommie Dearest at about the same time.
posted by brujita at 9:21 AM on April 11, 2017

>Yes. I mean, last week's Oscars ep definitely had me thinking "what happens if it's Lange vs Sarandon for the Emmy?"

The other should accept for her -- everyone who has seen the show will be screaming!


It's really too bad none of the other actresses who were nominated that year are still alive because then one of them could surprise take the stage....though Angela Lansbury was nominated for Best Supporting Actress that year...and now we're just all living inside my fantasy world.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:56 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]