Hagsploitation

Feud 1×6

& Jack Warner: Quick, Biff...
    Bart: Bart.
    Jack Warner: What is it about these hag movies that people love?
    Bart: I don’t know, my-my mom says that they’re kind of degrading.
    Jack Warner: Bingo. Degradation. That’s what it is.

& Jack Warner: You take some movie queen of yore, who was once too beautiful to screw us and you make her suffer. Tearing down your idols. It’s very satisfying for an audience. Don’t you think, Bob?

& Jack Warner: Goddamn it! I created this genre! Hagsploitation! It even has its own word! And you know who came up with that?
    Dennis: The New York Times?
    Jack Warner: No! Me!

& Hedda Hopper: If I am finished, and the sum of my life’s work is tallied, am I satisfied? With reams of gossip?
    Joan Crawford: Oh, how can you say that? Look at all the careers that you have launched. Mine included.
    Hedda Hopper: I didn’t muse on the careers I’d nurtured. I thought about the ones I destroyed. The reds, the queers, the whores, the cheaters and dopeheads. The ones who cursed me, sued me, offed themselves. And I felt... good.

& Hedda Hopper: All right, Joan. But just remember... It’s always better to cooperate.

& Jack Warner: Let me explain something to you, all right? Goldwyn is finished, Mayer is dead, and Selznick is just one pastrami sandwich away from a coronary. But Jack L. Warner still runs Warner Brothers. And incidentally, how many brothers do you see standing in this room?
    Robert Aldrich: You’re the only one, Jack.
    Jack Warner: That’s right. I’m the last goddamn dinosaur.

& Jack Warner: I need a miracle. I need another goddamn Baby Jane.
    Robert Aldrich: And it’s called What Ever Happened to Cousin Charlotte?
    Jack Warner: That’s a great title. I love this title.
    Robert Aldrich: Because it’ll remind people of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
    Jack Warner: Mm-hmm.

& Robert Aldrich: I am not working with them again together, never again.
    Jack Warner: You can’t work with them? Wha...
    Robert Aldrich: They hate each other! Besides, they’d never agree to it.
    Jack Warner: Bobby, if you think it’s twilight for us, it is midnight for them. They are gonna do your Charlotte picture. And you know what? They’re gonna do it for less. And you know what else? So are you.

---

& Joan Crawford: ...And now she’s doing television? I mean, really, is that a face America wants in its living room at dinnertime? I don’t think so.

& Robert Aldrich: ...But we did some good work together, the three of us!
    Bette Davis: Did we? I’m not so sure.... I’m seen as a joke now. A white-faced ghoul.
    Joan Crawford: I let myself be overshadowed, pushed aside.
    Bette Davis: A grotesque caricature. That’s the way I’m going to be remembered.
    Joan Crawford: I outlasted Garbo, for Christ’s sakes. Now I’m going out as a dowdy matron?.. The answer’s...
    Bette Davis: No.

& Joan Crawford: I have never been lucky.

& Jack Warner: Every studio is struggling to find their own hag horror picture. And we got the two original hags.
    Robert Aldrich: The winning combination.

& Jack Warner: What are you saying? You shopped my picture around to other studios?!
    Robert Aldrich: It’s my picture, Jack. And now, Zanuck’s.
    Jack Warner: You can’t work for Zanuck. We have an agreement.
    Robert Aldrich: No, no, we don’t. But I do have a contract with Zanuck. Oh, and I’m not working for him, we’re partners. I have full autonomy, final cut, and some respect.
    Jack Warner: Respect is cheap. And you tell Zanuck I’ll sue... Fuck you!

& Jack Warner: You fu... give me... give me back my cigar.
    Robert Aldrich: I didn’t come here for your cigars.
    Jack Warner: No, what’d you come here for?
    Robert Aldrich: I came here to get my balls back. You hear ’em clanking?

& & Bette Davis: I want a promise from you.
    Joan Crawford: What?
    Bette Davis: When we go in there, we present a united front. ... The only way we’re going to get what we want is to speak with one voice, preferably mine.

& Robert Aldrich: What’s wrong with it?
    Bette Davis: A couple of guys arguing in a study? We have an illicit love affair, we have a Louisiana plantation to play with, and our introduction to Charlotte is a goddamn oil painting.
    Joan Crawford: I agree with Bette. And I was also wondering, do we really need all these ellipses? «Only Charlotte,» dot, dot, dot. I mean, wouldn’t a comma be more appropriate? Even a semicolon.

& Bette Davis: What I see is... is chopped off hands and bloodied stumps. But where are the good character scenes? Where are the meaty monologues?
    Joan Crawford: Yes, and does the syntax concern anyone else here at the table? I mean, Louisianians speak with a kind of music all their own.

& Bette Davis: Don’t get me wrong. I am not opposed to blood and guts, all right? I mean, Shakespeare, for Christ’s sake, he had a woman eat her sons in a pie, but there is a fine line between art and trash, and that line is plausibility.

& Bette Davis: .... And change the goddamn title!

& Joan Crawford: If you’ve any decency, you’ll agree. There’s enough there to purchase whatever it is you think you have.
    Hal: You mean my personal copy of Velvet Lips?..

& Joan Crawford: Come on, Hal. The film.
    Hal: There is no film, Billie. You said so yourself.

& Mamacita: There are many pleasures still to enjoy. New friends. You are invited to parties all the time...
    Joan Crawford: I can’t show my face without having a picture to discuss. If I’m not working, I might as well be dead.

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