With its March 5th premiere date just around the corner, Ryan Murphy’s next powerhouse limited series at FX, Feud: Bette and Joan, released a batch of promos and clips on YouTube. The new material follows on the heels of an official trailer, a preview of the the Saul Bass-inspired opening credits sequence, and other bits teasing the Susan Sarandon-Jessica Lange double-header. Yet the latest additions, which feature Sarandon’s Bette Davis and Lange’s Joan Crawford competing with monologues and poses, dig into the meat of the pair’s infamous rivalry.
“Bette Davis looks old enough to be my mother,” Lange’s Crawford thinks to herself while preparing in front of a large vanity. “And so dreadfully overweight.” On the other side of the massive contraption, Sarandon’s Davis retorts “Crawford has slept with every male star at MGM, except Lassie.” (That’s funny because, though the dogs hired to play Lassie were male, the character was actually female. Get it? Guys?)
Two more promos, titled “Descent” and “Divan,” present the same or similar jabs between Davis and Crawford in different settings. Like “Vanity,” these particular clips aren’t from the show itself, but that doesn’t matter as Lange and Sarandon wonderfully capture the animosity the two actresses famously displayed toward one another.
The clips from Feud, on the other hand, are downright frightening. Like the pair’s brief trade of threats in “Dressing Room,” or Lange’s horrifying, fast-paced walk as an angry Crawford in “Warning.”
Feud: Bette and Joan premieres March 5th on FX.
