"Hollywood was capable of hurting me so much."

Today is the 40th anniversary of Joan Crawford's death. It seems like a good time to talk about Feud: Bette and Joan, which I've been wanting to do.

The Hollywood Reporter contacted Olivia de Havilland, the only person still alive who is portrayed in the series, to ask her what she thought about it. Here is her reply:

"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."

This sums up my own feelings about certain biographical pictures. I am very judgemental about the accuracy, to the point where I find it a distraction. I was all excited about The Tudors until I read that the writers combined Henry VIII's two sisters into one character. Nope! Never even started watching it. I tried watching the recent Masterpiece Theater series Victoria, but I couldn't really get into it, even though I couldn't spot any glaring inaccuracies.

Old bio pics I don't fact check as much. I've written about several of them that I enjoy. I don't know why it's only the modern ones that have me checking for accuracy. I debated about whether I wanted to watch Feud at all, and decided to give it a try. I ended up watching the whole series to see how it ended. I'm not sorry I did, but I don't think I would watch it again.

David Canfield wrote a review of the series for Slate and said that "Crawford [...] was [the] heroine." While I agree that the story spends the majority of its time with Joan Crawford, especially in the last episode, I would disagree that she's the heroine.

• Over dinner, Joan confesses that she seduced her own stepfather at the age of 11. Bette says she was a virgin until her first marriage in her mid 20's.
• Joan colludes with Hedda Hopper to not only spread nasty rumors about Bette during the filming of Baby Jane, but to try (and succeed) to deny Bette the Oscar for her performance. Meanwhile, kind Bette bails Victor Buono out of jail when he is busted at a gay porno film. (And if that scene is not based in some fact, it's just plain mean to Buono.)
• Joan drunkenly throws herself at director Bob Aldrich several times and is rebuffed. He then drives to Bette's house and hops into bed with her.
• While Joan is being humiliated during the making of Trog, reduced to changing her clothes in a van, Bette is lovingly visiting her mentally challenged daughter Margo at the institution where Margo lives.

I'm not sure there are any heroines in this story. I've read the book on which the series is based, Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud by Shaun Considine. Neither one of them comes off well in the book. While I think that while the Feud series tried to portray Joan more sympathetically on the surface, underneath was the same old malice.

On other topics of Joan, I also recently read My Way of Life and A Portrait of Joan. I can see why the lifestyle book is a "camp classic" today; it's way over the top. It's interesting that Joan spends so much time talking about how to hold on to your man, when she succeeded so well on her own for most of her life. I did like the little tidbits of personal things she herself enjoyed; I picked up a bottle of one of the perfumes to which she "remained faithful," Estee Lauder's Youth Dew. It smells amazing. I didn't expect the autobiography to be 100% accurate, but I did find her tone in both books to be kind of charming. It feels like you're sitting down and having a talk with her. And really, isn't that all any true fan could want?

Rest in peace, Joan. Your fans still remember you, which I think would make you happy.

DVR Catch Up

The last few weeks I have been watching and clearing out the movies stored on my DVR. Since I'm too lazy to devote a whole post to each one (plus, I just don't have that much to say about some of them), here's a quick list.

Fritz Lang's M - Considered by many one of the finest German films ever made, with good reason. Peter Lorre, in his first major role, is creepy and gross, in the best way. While the police chase this child murderer all over the city, the criminals band together (they're remarkably well organized) and end up catching him themselves. One of the best parts of the movie, I think, is the mock trial they hold. Lorre gives a long speech, pleading for his life and explaining that he just can't help himself. When he reaches the climax, screaming, "Wird nicht! Mußt! Wird nicht! Mußt!" I always get chills. (Translation: "Will not! Must!" although the subtitles say "Don't want to, but must!.") Check it out here.

And sweet dreams!

Third Finger, Left Hand - More or less your typical "boy meets girl, boy and girl hate each other due to wacky misunderstanding, boy and girl fall in love" comedy of the 40's. Myrna Loy and Melvyn Douglas are charming, as always.

Dr. Phibes Rises Again - Only my abiding love for Vincent Price got me through this. If the first movie, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, was a B movie (barely), this one was a Z. Plot holes big enough to drive a truck through, continuity errors galore, and just all around cheese. According to IMDB, a remake of Abominable is in development, to which I can only say: dear God, why?

The Emperor's Candlesticks - William Powell and Luise Rainer star as Polish and Russian secret agents, respectively. They are each tasked with smuggling documents to St. Petersberg and end up hiding them in a pair of candlesticks, each one having a secret compartment. There is some suspense as they chase each other across Europe, both trying to snatch the candlesticks from each other and eventually, of course, falling in love. Just when it looks darkest for them both, the czar of Russia pardons them and gives his blessing for them to get married. As often happens, with spies who fail their missions for personal reasons. Powell and Rainer are as usual: he's suave and charming, she's dainty and coquettish.

The Irish In Us - James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, and Frank McHugh play three brothers in a "typical" Irish family, with adorable Mary Gordon as their long-suffering mother. Olivia de Havilland also stars but is underutilized. Not much of a plot, and the love story leaves something to be desired, but it was kind of endearing just the same.

Big Hearted Herbert - A small B flick stuffed with character actors such as Guy Kibbee, Henry O'Neill and Aline MacMahon, this was a funny little movie. Herbert prides himself on being "regular folks," to the extent that when his daughter's fiance brings his upper crust family to dinner for the first time, Herbert huffs and puffs until they're thoroughly offended ("College men! Idlers! Loafers! Wasters! That's all colleges turn out nowadays!") . As payback, his wife Elizabeth and the children put on an exaggerated show of "regular folks" (read: country bumpkins) the next night when Herbert brings his biggest client home for dinner. In the end, of course, Herbert realizes the error of his blustering ways.

As you can see...

...I have been shamefully lax about updating this blog. Part of the reason is that I took a vacation from classic movies to watch most of the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which was recently released on DVD. I also plowed my way through all six seasons of Sex and the City, which I became addicted to instantly once I started watching. I also rented a few SNL "Best of" discs, namely John Belushi, Gilda Radner, and Dan Aykroyd ("You're spending the night with Fred Garvin, male prostitute!"). I will also admit, with much shame, that I rented Batman & Robin. Okay, don't judge me! I was curious to see the crazy villains. I didn't know the whole movie was going to be a big ball of cheese!

There have been a few classic movies scattered in there, though. (I had to stop taping them from Comcast for awhile as I was gathering more than I could possibly watch, and using up all the space on my dad's DVR.) As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I did rent Airport '77, if only to see how aging Hollywood legends would survive trapped in a plane at the bottom of the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle. Dun dun dun! I'm happy to report that Olivia de Havilland, Joseph Cotton and Jimmy Stewart all survived (well, especially Jimmy, since he wasn't even on the plane). Sadly, Christopher Lee did not make it, but he sacrificed his life for the greater good.

Back in October I watched Kim, mostly because it had Errol Flynn in it. Not as much Flynn as I was expecting, though, and I've never been a huge fan of curly-headed moppets, although Dean Stockwell did a fine job.

After that came Sin Takes a Holiday, which lasted only about five minutes, as it was a very poor transfer to DVD. I'm beginning to realize a lot of these old, old movies are in the public domain, which allows any rinky-dink production company (Macady, I'm looking in your direction) to slap them onto to a DVD. Which is a shame, because I think there should be some kind of studio control over how their movies are released. Then again, they probably wouldn't put the effort into restoring and/or releasing copies of every old movie they find in the vaults, so maybe it's a draw.

January 21, 2006 will be my third anniversary with Netflix. In honor of that, I'd mention every movie I've rented, but the list is so long it would bore you to tears. One early rental I will mention is The Cat's Meow, about the mysterious death of Thomas Ince on William Randolph Hearst's yacht in 1924. Because if there's anything that fascinates me more than classic films, it's modern movies about classic film stars.