The Bad and the Beautiful

Overview

This film shows via flashback the stories of three famous movie people whose lives were forever changed by their association with a manipulative, ruthless movie producer. The three come together at the producer's request; he wants them to work together on mutually hated Jonathon Shields' newest big-budget production.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/10/2020
UPC:	0883929712274
Original Release:	1952
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:58:00
Sales rank:	32,901

Special Features

Feature-length Turner Classic Movies documentary Lana Turner... A Daughter's Memoir; Scoring session music cues; Theatrical trailers of this and its sequel, Two Weeks in Another Town

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Kirk Douglas	Jonathan Shields
Lana Turner	Georgia Lorrison
Walter Pidgeon	Harry Pebbel
Dick Powell	James Lee Bartlow
Barry Sullivan	Fred Amiel
Gloria Grahame	Rosemary Bartlow
Gilbert Roland	Victor `Gaucho' Ribera
Leo G. Carroll	Henry Whitfield
Vanessa Brown	Kay Amiel
Paul Stewart	Syd Murphy,Lila
Sammy White	Gus
Ivan Triesault	Von Ellstein
Kathleen Freeman	Miss March
Jonathan Cott	Assistant Director
Marietta Canty	Ida
Lucy Knoch	Blonde
Steve Forrest	Leading Man
Perry Sheehan	Secretary
Francis X. Bushman	Eulogist
Robert Burton	McDill
George J. Lewis	Actor in Screen Test
William 'Bill' Phillips	Assistant Director
Madge Blake	Mrs. Rosser
Stanley Andrews	Sheriff
Dorothy Patrick	Arlene
Kaaren Verne	Rosa
Peggy King	Singer
Ben Astar	Joe
Bess Flowers	Joe's Friend at Party
Dee Turnell	Linda
Harold Miller	Actor
Alyce May	Actor
Frank Scannell	Actor
Dabbs Greer	Actor
William Tannen	Actor
Sarah Spencer	Actor
Barbara Thatcher	Actor
Sharon Saunders	Actor
Erin Selwyn	Actor
Norma Jean Salina	Actor
Kathy Qualen	Actor
Jay Adler	Mr. Z - Party Guest
Barbara Billingsley	Evelyn Lucien, Costume Designer
Marshall Bradford	Man Outside Club
Hadda Brooks	Piano Player
Louis Calhern	Georgia Lorrison's Father,Voice on the Recording
Robert Carson	Casting Director
Janet Comerford	Bobby-Soxer
James Conaty	Party Guest
Lillian Culver	Real Estate Woman
Alexis Davidoff	Priest
Sandy Descher	Screaming Little Girl on 'Cat Man' Set
Phil Dunham	Pawn Broker
Steve Dunhill	Cameraman
James Farrar	Publicity Man
Ned Glass	Wardrobe Man
William Green	Hugo Shields
Chris Olson	Amiel's Boy
David Raksin	Composer

Technical Credits

Charles Schnee

Vincente Minnelli	Director
Charles Schnee	Screenwriter
John Houseman	Producer
A. Arnold Gillespie	Special Effects
Warren Newcombe	Special Effects
Eric Alden	Stunts
Douglas Shearer	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

Vincente Minelli's self-reflexive, highly stylized profile of a charmingly manipulative producer (Kirk Douglas) seeking a comeback is one of the most cynical and enjoyably trashy films that Hollywood has ever made about itself. Appearing during the height of noir, when the movie business was taking a more jaundiced view of itself in films like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Big Knife (1955), the film employs many of the stylistic and narrative techniques of Citizen Kane (1941) in portraying a similarly ruthless figure, yet turns Welles' theme inside out, presenting its back-stabbing protagonist as a charming rogue. Originally based on George Shaw's story, Tribute to a Bad Man, a thinly veiled take on Broadway producer Jed Harris, a tyrant whose evil nature was so familiar to theater folk that Laurence Olivier based his characterization of Richard III on him, it eventually mutated into a film a clef on well-known Hollywood players, with David O. Selznick the likely model for Douglas' Jonathan Shields. Its three acts are structured as a triptych of flashbacks in which Douglas attempts to seduce each of the three talents he discovered -- director Barry Sullivan, actress Lana Turner, and writer Dick Powell-- into returning to help him jump-start his moribund career, despite the way he's damaged their lives. As their stories unfold they reveal the energy, charm, panache, and high spirits of their former boss along with his shameless conniving, outright theft, and part-time pimping. But the perspective of the film, which he dominates completely, is that of an ex-Nazi who says, "Sure the Fuhrer was a bastard, but damn, he made things happen." Douglas has rarely been better, seizing every moment onscreen as if it were his last, and Gloria Grahame is excellent as the highly distracted writer's wife. Composer David Raksin's lush, harmonically inventive score is also among his most evocative, but the star of the film is Vincente Minelli.