The Bad and the Beautiful
Composite Score: 87
Starring: Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame, Gilbert Roland, Leo G. Carroll, Vanessa Brown, and Paul Stewart
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Writers: Charles Schnee and George Bradshaw
Genres: Drama, Romance, Hollywood
MPAA Rating: Approved
Box Office: $3.37 million worldwide
My take on Watching This Film:
The Bad and the Beautiful is the 1952 film from Vincente Minnelli, Charles Schnee, and George Bradshaw about a ruthless Hollywood producer and the people he walked over to attain success. The film was loosely based on a magazine article about a Broadway producer who had wronged an actress, a director, and a writer but was adapted to fit the Hollywood locale. The film takes a look at the career of fictional film producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) through the eyes of three former collaborators who found themselves on the receiving end of the negative fallout from his succeed-at-all-costs approach to filmmaking – director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), actress Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner), and writer James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell). Their run-ins with the now penniless producer chronicle his rise from nothing to greatness and back down to mediocrity as he sought to champion his family’s name in Hollywood after the untimely death of his much-maligned father, a movie producer himself. The film explores the nature of ambition, success, and the taxing venture that is working in Hollywood. It won five of its six Oscar nominations, including Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Supporting Actress for Gloria Grahame who played the southern belle wife of James Lee Bartlow, with its only loss in a nominated category being Best Actor, which Kirk Douglas lost to Gary Cooper for High Noon.
When it comes down to it, The Bad and the Beautiful takes a surprisingly scathing look at the less savory side of Hollywood, celebrating the success of movies while also looking at the ways that they distort the realities around them. For Amiel, the betrayal was simply a question of experience – he had never directed a film before and no amount of idealism was going to get him into the directing chair of a million dollar film even if it was his baby. For Lorrison, the betrayal was personal – realization that the love she thought she had found was in fact yet another façade to achieve a certain result. And for Bartlow, the betrayal was oddly impersonal – Shields never knew him well enough to know how much he loved the distraction of his wife while he worked, even if it did draw the process out. As the stories play out, we see the ways that betrayal builds success in both the life of Shields and the lives of those he left by the wayside, but we’re left with a question of whether any of it was worth it in the end. The film doesn’t condemn Shields, nor does it pity any of his victims, yet it also takes care not to celebrate or revel in any of his betrayals. We see the interplay of the humanity of the people on screen and the inhuman things that a desire for success can drive them to, and it raises the question of just how dehumanizing celebrity and parasocial relationships can really be. The film’s real downfall is its inability to deliver on any big climactic punches, settling instead for smaller moments of minor shock rather than any single moment of outrage or catharsis in its quest to avoid passing judgment. (There’s also the misleading marketing issue that the film isn’t really a romance, it just contains some romantic entanglements as plot devices, but that’s pretty par for the course for a 1950s studio film.)
While it lacks a punchy climax to bring all of its stories together, The Bad and the Beautiful succeeds at telling an excellent story with excellent characters that simultaneously rips and celebrates Hollywood without ever gilding anything with a sense of nostalgia or reverence, earning the film a place of greatness. Some might also take issue with the lack of serious love story in the film, but that’s not actually the point of the film, and if you can come looking for a good Hollywood tale, you’ll be heavily rewarded. Currently, you can rent this film on most streaming platforms if you’d like to check it out.
