Love Bette Davis and Joan Crawford? Here’s 6 movies you can watch online right now
Hollywood’s fiercest dueling divas are in fine form here at Warner Archive!
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a bit of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford fever sweeping us here at Warner Archive! After all, no rivalry has ever quite captured the public’s fascination as the feud between Hollywood legends Joan Crawford and Bette Davis:
But as much fun as it is to dig deep into their rivalry, nothing comes close to the enjoyment of watching them tear up the screen.
Warner Archive is proud to present its Bette Davis & Joan Crawford collection, just in time for the weekend! From silent film to pre-code to noir to suspense — here are 6 movies starring Hollywood’s iconic dueling duo you can’t afford to miss, streaming right now on Warner Archive. If you don’t have a subscription yet, no problem! Join now AND receive a FREE Roku with your annual subscription.
Ok. Let’s put on the gloves and let the games begin:
6. West Point (1927)
Ahhh, West Point. The pride of America, the home of glorious tradition — unless, of course, you’re a hotshot plebe named Brice Wayne. (That’s Brice Wayne, not Bruce.) For him, West Point is just a backdrop to personal glory. William Haines stars as Brice and Joan Crawford plays the girl he loves in a comedy-drama about a brash young gridiron hero who puts himself above the corps, learns a bitter lesson in team spirit and charges into the Army-Navy game for a chance to redeem himself.
Crawford was just 23(ish) when she made this silent comedy drama opposite her good friend (and the first ever openly gay actor in Hollywood) Haines, so pay close attention to their tremendous on-screen chemistry — it was just as tremendous off-screen.
5. Jimmy the Gent (1934)
James Cagney and Bette Davis star as a less-than-scrupulous private detective and the woman he loves — who has just left him for an even less scrupulous employer. Jimmy Corrigan (Gagney) is jealous when his operative and sweatheart, Joan Martin (Davis), goes to work for Charles Wallingham (Alan Dinehart) because Wallingham seems to have much more class than Corrigan. But Corrigan discovers that Wallingham is just as crooked as Corrigan.
Directed by Warner Bros legend Michael Curtiz (of Casablanca fame, to name but one) Jimmy the Gent clocks in at a lightning quick 67 minutes — just one of the many earmarks of a truly good pre-code movie!
4. Hollywood Canteen (1944)
The real-life Hollywood Canteen was Tinseltown’s ultimate morale booster for our brave men and women during World War Two. Founded by Bette Davis and John Garfield, our service personal were the stars of the Hollywood Canteen, where Hollywood’s finest did service to them — as bartenders, waiters, bus boys and dance partners. Canteen emcees Davis and Garfield turn out to be matchmakers to a serviceman (Robert Hutton) who falls for movie star Joan Leslie. (Yes, she plays herself. The film is an addictively fun musical variety show, mixing real-life stars with pure movie romance and plenty of wartime propaganda.
Of course Davis and Crawford are famous for their roles in Robert Aldrich’s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, but even they don’t appear in the same scene together, Joan Crawford does make a cameo in Hollywood Canteen.
3. The Damned Don’t Cry (1950)
Even though she’d long been the ultimate movie star, by the early 1940s Joan Crawford’s star had begun to fade. But thanks to an Oscar-winning tole in Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce, she started a new career path as a fierce film noir femme fatale.
She stars in 1950’s The Damned Don’t Cry as a strong-willed woman who leaves the drab existence of her family life to take up with a gangster and soon learns the error of her ways. It’s a man’s world. Bu Ethel Whitehead learns there’s only one way for a woman to survive in it: be as tempting as a cupcake and as tough as a 75-cent steak. In the first of three collaborations with director Vincent Sherman, Joan Crawford brings hard-boiled glamour and simmering passion to the role of Ethel, who moves from the wrong side of the tracks to a mobster’s mansion to high society.
2. Dead Ringer (1964)
The fact that the poster reads ‘for people who loved Baby Jane’ tells you a lot about the plot. Twenty years ago, twins Edith and Margaret Phillips (Bette Davis, in a dual role) both loved the same handsome, wealthy man. Margaret won the competition when she falsely claimed to be pregnant. Now Edith, envious of her recently widowed sister’s life and wealth, decides to exact revenge. She murders Margaret, and assumes her identity. But can she play the role well enough to fool suspicious police sergeant Hobbson (Karl Malden) and handsome, gold-digging playboy Tony Collins (Peter Lawford)?
Dead Ringer is directed by Bette’s Now Voyager co-star, Paul Henreid (he was a prolific TV director during the 50s and 60s, this being one of his few theatrical films) and features a superb musical score by the great Andre Previn.
1.The Star (1952)
In The Star, Bette Davis plays Margaret Elliot: an aging Oscar-winning movie queen who’d had it all: fame, fortune…men. But she hasn’t had a role in a movie for years. Her husband has left her, taking their daughter (Natalie Wood), and her agent can’t get her a part. The people Elliot had long believed were her friends abandon her when they learn she is penniless. Only Jim Johannson (Sterling Hayden), an actor who once worked with Elliot and who has always loved her, stays with her.
As if Bette Davis’ role isn’t delicious enough, the backstory is even better: the script was written by a close friend of Joan Crawford’s, and it was no secret that Davis’ role was based on Joan Crawford herself. MEOW!
For more on Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, read on! And watch more of our favorite dueling divas at Warner Archive! The perfect classic movie companion is now available on your desktop, iPhone, Android and Roku. Join now and receive a FREE Roku with your annual subscription:
