- Awards
- 19
Pretty good viewer review of MOMMIE DEAREST... (with 3 million views!!)
Last edited:
- Awards
- 19
This is not The Warner Bros. era (well, except for FLAMINGO ROAD) but, screw it -- Crawford sings...!
Last edited:
- Awards
- 8
As the years have gone by, my opinion of Joan (as an actress and star) have only increased. Given my mood, she might just be my #1 favorite of the Golden Age. There are a few reasons for this but perhaps the biggest is how Joan had clearly defined eras of her career. Among her peers, I think only Dietrich is similar in having thematically consistent epochs. Davis' focus was variety; she wanted to play as wide a range of characters as possible, but that means her career lacks the cohesion of Crawford's. (Outside of Davis' run as a 60s Scream Queen.)
Which begs the question: did Joan know what she was doing, or was this just happy coincidence? She was very savvy about her career, but did she predict Madonna by decades in creating image defining career arcs?
Which begs the question: did Joan know what she was doing, or was this just happy coincidence? She was very savvy about her career, but did she predict Madonna by decades in creating image defining career arcs?
Last edited:
- Awards
- 19
I was thinking something similarly myself: Crawford's career pieces have aged awfully well. I recently realized that I own more films of Crawford than I even do Bette's. (And more than I do Stanwyck or Hepburn). Many of Joan's MGM work I've sidestepped, and I shouldn't have.
Bette Davis had variety, "versatility" by Golden Age standards. But Bette was no Meryl. Davis ultimately slipped into monstrously-monotonous self-parody. And the viewer can tell, at least with the passage of time, that Bette's bark was clearly worse than her bite.
Crawford, on the other hand, was an ongoing spectacle of psychiatric dysfunction that repeated with nearly every movie, her will to survive and persevere front-and-center at all times, punctuated with noir lighting.
Bette was "the bitch" of Hollywood and, as such, seemed the scariest when I was a kid; Crawford, I found just slightly boring.
Today, Davis' routine seems thin and tinny and a bit pantomimed (even in her best pictures). She's sometimes a lazy actress. But Joan Crawford works harder, is in the moment more thoroughly, and resonates deeper and darker now.
Bette's shtick is entertaining, a tornado of momentary fury. Yet it's Joan who seems to have emerged from a bog, with layers of pathology and lies, lasting trauma and infernal torment.
Public sadist, private masochist; public masochist, private sadist...
Last edited:
- Awards
- 8
Joan's MGM films have their flaws -- but she is not one of them. I went through some of her MGM cycle a few years ago and was consistently impressed by her. She was dynamic and vibrant; not even Gable could eclipse her. No film demonstrates how well Crawford's acting has aged than GRAND HOTEL. While Garbo and the Barrymore's acting looks antiquated, Joan's performance still feels fresh.
As a longtime Crawford (onscreen) defender, I have been gratified by the recent rehabilitation of her professional image. The most unfortunate impact of MOMMIE DEAREST was the decades-long poo-pooing of Joan's work; as if being a (probably) terrible mother had to mean she was also a bad actress.
The biggest drawback to Crawford's career is that she didn't often get great material. No one was better at elevating trash than Joan, but it's a shame she had to carry so many movies entirely on her shoulders. And sometimes even when she had good material, she wasn't ideally cast. My hot take: I'd swap Stanwyck's and Crawford's noir defining roles, Crawford in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Stanwyck in MILDRED PIERCE. Maternal warmth -- as one can imagine -- wasn't Joan's forte, but Stanwyck could be genuinely warm and sympathetic on screen in a way that neither Crawford nor Davis could be. My mind reels at the thought of Joan as a femme fatale, while she was at the cusp of sexy and flinty.
Perhaps my most controversial Old Hollywood opinion has long been that Davis is overrated; her reputation has been self-perpetuating. Some roles (EVE; JANE; CHARLOTTE) made perfect use of her drag queen flamboyance and in THE LITTLE FOXES at least she shrewdly underplayed; but I find much of her screen work to be overwrought and stagey.
Last edited:
- Awards
- 11
I've said it before, and I will say it again -- When she's on her A-Game, I prefer Crawford to Davis, Hepburn, and Stanwyck. I enjoy all of these ladies and their films, but Crawford just might be my favorite of the Diva Quartet. MILDRED PIERCE is one of my favorite classic films, and I enjoy her in SUDDEN FEAR, HUMORESQUE, POSSESSED (1947), GRAND HOTEL, BABY JANE, and many other films. Her MGM Cinderella tales are better than one might expect, especially when you're in the right mood, and I must give Crawford credit --- she changed with the times. Her goal, as she said, was to find a film with "audience identification", and she transitioned many times throughout her four decades in Hollywood.
Here, you have me quite intrigued. My mind is now racing with just how well these two ladies would do had they swapped roles.
She was quite good in many of her early MGM films, and does come across more naturalistic in her acting style today than she did when the films were new. It's funny how views change over time. Which, to be fair, GRAND HOTEL is almost 100-years-old.
I enjoy Davis in almost everything I've seen her in. To each their own, but her theatricality is part of her charm for me.
- Awards
- 19
Although casting Missy and Joan against type was part of what distinguished those two roles.
If Stanwyck had done MILDRED PIERCE (and they wanted her for it) it might have just been another STELLA DALLAS: Bab's endless self-sacrifice for her daughter.
But I would be curious about Crawford playing the overt killer in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Stanwyck brought a certain effective sleaze-factor to the role, but how would Joan have played it?
"Odd, but real," the two actresses' friendship was described.
I think it's a matter of degree. Bette has conceded, with criticism of her being too hammy, that the audience should get a little theatricality for their buck, a bit of larger-than-life stuff.
But I have sometimes wondered, with the script and direction Hepburn received in LION IN WINTER, what would Stanwyck, Crawford and Bette Davis have done with it?
Hepburn was the least insecure of the four stars. Would Bette have underplayed it in her acknowledgement that it was a terrific script, or would she have just hammed it up as she did in her two ventures into Queen Elizabeth... Stanwyck might've have serviced it better than people might think... But what would Joan Crawford have done with Eleanor of Aquitaine and a better script than she ever saw?
Could Swanson have done it?
- Awards
- 8
I don't think "against type" resonates much with me; I think actors generally have their lanes and work best when they stay in them. Call it the Olivia in CHARLOTTE conundrum - yes, the revelation that Olivia was the villainess was a bigger surprise than if Crawford had played the role but, once past that shock, it's just Olivia giving an Olivia performance and being slightly miscast. Joan might have been more obvious but, I think, more effective.
I'll admit, MILDRED PIERCE isn't one of my favorites. I appreciate that it earned Joan her Oscar and, more importantly, put her on her Warners-noir path that led to topnotch trash like FLAMINGO ROAD. I mean, it's a nifty film of course, but even with Crawford's steeliness it's still just long suffering mother to a brat soap and I think Stanwyck's sympathy would have been just as effective.
But Joan never playing a slutty, scheming noir vamp is a massive miss. Stanwyck, of course, went full throttled sleezy seductress in DOUBLE INDEMNTY; I think Joan would have skirted between phoney-baloney victim and scheming monster. If not INDEMNTIY, I'd be just as fine with her in THE MALTESE FALCON. Mary Astor was a delight overall, but she has never really worked for me in that role. Joan was immensely alluring in the 40s and, as good as some of her films here, I don't think any of them fully tapped her flinty sexuality. She needed one femme fatale to her credit.
- Awards
- 8
An interesting perspective, and I could agree to a point. Barbara Stanwyck's Victoria Barkley was capable of being strong, yet loving to her family
- Awards
- 19
Oh, interesting. I really like her in that. What do you see as Astor's deficiencies?
- Awards
- 8
Admittedly, the shallowest of reasons: I just don't think she was alluring enough. I get that Mrs. O'Shaughnessy was meant to be a tremulous damsel more than a sexy vamp, but Astor just seemed too mature and character actressy. It's like putting Eileen Brennan in CHINATOWN.
- Awards
- 19
Olivia later thought she had been cast against type in CHARLOTTE to negative effect, but I think that sentiment was a result of the criticism all these Golden Age actresses received over doing the '60s shockers. They were all terribly status-conscious, and Olivia not least of all. (Listening to de Havilland's elaborate rationalizations for why it was "okay" for Hattie McDaniel to have beaten her for the supporting Oscar for GWTW, is quite exhausting).
As I've said, Olivia's breezy contrast to Bette worked pretty well for me. But I'm still curious about how Joan's darker countenance -- really, darker than Bette's -- might have altered the end result for CHARLOTTE, as well. Joan's malevolence would have been more direct than in BABY JANE, and she would have been able-bodied as well, both cousins on equal footing in a way they were not in BABY JANE.
It might have made CHARLOTTE even creepier than it already was. I just wonder if it might've thrown off the balance it achieved with Olivia, and whether that might have been a minus in some ways.
Who knows? But after her box office success a few months earlier with godawful STRAIT-JACKET (which I still remake in my head whenever I see it, and, at the very least, have a desperate need to A.I. sweeten it significantly --- my knowing full well that some fans probably prefer it bad, if they even ever notice it was bad), Joan probably felt she had the clout to walk off of the last A-list film she would ever do... Although it sounds like Bette really was pretty rough with her on the CHARLOTTE set, turning the crew against her, cutting down her role, etc.. But would a director as skilled as Robert Aldrich really permit Crawford's part to be as gutted as Bette is alleged to have done??
At any rate, Joan self-destructed again: the BABY JANE Oscar-race shenanigans (whatever the details actually were) and causing CHARLOTTE to be almost shelved, had to have hurt her with the studios... At least, Bette's antics didn't waste the banker's money.
Too dark in a back of a dark closet kind of way?
Last edited:
- Awards
- 8
I don't want to seem like I'm entirely trashing Davis. During her peak years, from the late 30s to about 1950, I think she was great. Yes, I think Crawford's naturalism in those years has aged better than Davis' theatricality but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate Davis' work during those years. She mostly made florid melodramas during those years, so florid acting was appropriate.
Outside of those peak years, I think Davis' work is much spottier. It's funny to me that she was so resentful for not winning an Oscar for OF HUMAN BONDAGE because I think her performance is awful; overblown, tatty and with the worst British accent this side of Dick van Dyke. And much of her later work was misguided. I watched A WATCHER IN THE WOODS a few months ago -- a perplexingly bad movie -- but was shocked at how hapless Davis' performance was; she seemed like she wandered onto the set and had no idea what was going on.
There's a reason why Hepburn usually gets ranked above Davis in "best of" lists, even though Davis was unquestionably the reigning queen during Hollywood's Golden Years: when you look at their careers as a whole, Hepburn runs laps around Davis. Honestly, I think even Crawford does.
Oh, ask me a week from now and I'll be back to thinking Olivia was the better of the two options. It's one instance where I wish we could have both. And, in about a decade, we might just be able to tell AI: "Give me HUSH ... HUSH, SWEET CHARLOTTE with Joan Crawford".
Last edited:
- Awards
- 19
I will always blame the teenaged actress cast in that -- she threw the movie's karma off unsalvageable.
Who did she boink to get this role??
Both Hepburn and even Crawford can be "in the moment" in a way Davis almost never is. Screaming seems to be her biggest skill, and when she tries to do anything else, Bette borders on "bad actress" pretty closely.
And then they give you Joan Fontaine by accident.
- Awards
- 8
I say this with no exaggeration: that was the worst performance I have ever seen. Pia Zadora seemed like Meryl Streep compared to that actress. And, yes, I think the entire movie was thrown off kilter trying to accommodate the leading lady. Even old pros Davis and Carroll Baker seemed flummoxed.
Last edited:
- Awards
- 24
All I want is replacing Donna Reed with BBG on "Dallas". And NOW.
- Awards
- 19
What if they screw up, like they might with nuclear bombs, and the A.I. inadvertently removes Bel Geddes from the show entirely? And it's now just all Donna Reed, 24/7?
- Awards
- 8
I pondered this a bit. As much as I wish Crawford and Stanwyck had grander opportunities in the 60s, I can't see either of them in LION. Too American, too contemporary; I don't think either made many period films other than Westerns.
Davis in LION is more interesting. Her New England background got her closer to the Transatlantic vibe that, for Americans at least, could pass as British. Ultimately though, I just can't see anyone else other than Kate as Eleanor of Aquitaine. It's not her best movie, but it's the movie that made best use of her: fast paced repartee and patrician snootiness.
I do wonder, though, how Davis would have fared in some of the heavier dramas Hepburn tackled: A LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT or SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER. I personally don't think Hepburn was well suited to heavy drama, but I also think Davis' reputation was a versatile, serious actress is overstated. She was as much a personality as Hepburn even if she superficially changed a bit. Hepburn herself commented on such vis a vis Davis, "Show me a woman who isn't a personality and I'll show you a woman who isn't a star."
- Awards
- 19
Happy 123rd Birthday, Joan Crawford!
- Awards
- 11
Trying to picture Bette in SUDDENLY, LAST SUMMER is intriguing. I've only seen the movie once, but I do tend to feel (as of now, anyway) that Bette might've played the role a little better. Personally, I think Brando should've played the doctor instead of Clift, but he was Taylor's buddy, so he got the job.
I agree with your assessment here. Hepburn was not well-suited to heavy drama. In fact, from what I've seen, I can almost say she was almost bad at it. Hepburn excels in lighter drama and especially in romantic comedy. Davis, on the other hand, was in her element when it came to the soapier melodramas, but wasn't very good at comedy. Crawford, too, wasn't good a comedy, but come across very well in melodrama. I suppose that just leaves Stanwyck as the multitalented genre-shifter.
I wonder if we'll ever know Crawford's true birth year. I know she widely cited 1908, which seems quite unlikely. I'm inclined to go with 1903 or 1904.Happy 123rd Birthday, Joan Crawford!