The Bad and the Beautiful

The Bad and the Beautiful
Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Vincente Minnelli
Produced by	John Houseman
Written by	George Bradshaw (story "Tribute to a Badman") Charles Schnee
Starring	Lana Turner Kirk Douglas Walter Pidgeon Dick Powell Barry Sullivan Gloria Grahame
Music by	David Raksin
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	December 1952 (U.S. release)
Running time	118 min.
Language	English
Budget	$1,558,000 (estimated)

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) is a MGM melodramatic film which tells the story of a film producer who alienates all around him. It stars Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, and Gloria Grahame. Originally the title did not include "beautiful", which refers to Turner, who was eventually given top billing. Douglas played the "bad" man.

The film was written by George Bradshaw and Charles Schnee and directed by Vincente Minnelli. It won Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Gloria Grahame), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White and Best Writing, Screenplay. Kirk Douglas was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role. As of 2007, The Bad and the Beautiful holds the record for the most Oscars won by a movie (five) that was not nominated for Best Picture.

In 2002 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

[edit] Plot

In Hollywood, screenwriter James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell), movie star Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner), and director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan) each refuse to speak by phone to Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) in Paris. Movie producer Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon) gathers them in his office and begs them to help Shields out.

The backstory of their involvement with Shields unfolds. Shields is the son of a notorious old filmmaker who had been dumped by the film industry. He was so unpopular that his son has to hire "extras" to attend his funeral. Shields is determined to make it in Hollywood. The three associates each become successes through Shields, and each is betrayed by him.

In a flashback, Shields partners with aspiring assistant director Amiel, whom he meets at his father's funeral. Shields gets into a high-stakes poker game with Pebbel. He intentionally loses a lot of money to him so that he can talk Pebbel into letting him work off the debt by making low-budget films for him. Shields and Amiel learn their respective trades and their movies do well. Amiel decides that he is ready to film a project he has been nursing along, one that he knows will make his name. Shields pitches it to the studio and gets a much larger budget to work with. However, Shields agrees to let someone with a more established reputation direct it.

Next, Shields encounters alcoholic small-time actress Lorrison, the daughter of a famous actor Shields admired. He builds up her confidence and gives her the leading role in one of his movies, over everyone else's objections. She falls in love with him; he lets her think that he feels the same way in order to get the performance he needs from her. But after the smash premiere that makes her a star overnight, she finds him with a beautiful bit player named Laila (Elaine Stewart). Shields drives Lorrison away, telling her that he will never allow anyone to have that much control over him.

Finally, there is Bartlow, a contented professor at a small college. Shields wants to turn his bestselling book into a film and have him write the script. Bartlow is not interested, but his shallow Southern belle wife, Rosemary (Gloria Grahame) is, so he agrees to do it for her sake. When they go to Hollywood, Shields is annoyed to find that she keeps distracting her husband from his work, so he gets his suave actor friend Victor "Gaucho" Ribera (Gilbert Roland) to keep her occupied. Freed from her interruptions, Bartlow has no trouble finishing the script. However, Rosemary runs off with Gaucho; they are killed in a plane crash. Later, when Shields accidentally reveals his meddling, Bartlow leaves too.

Shields finally directs a film himself instead of just producing it, but botches it. Everybody does his or her part admirably, but the result is a mess. Shields' stubborn refusal to release it leads to his bankruptcy.

The film comes full circle back to the beginning. When all three of his former friends reject Shield's offer again, Pebbel sarcastically agrees with them that Shields has "ruined" their lives: they are all now at the top of their professions. As they start to leave, Pebbel is still talking to Shields; they are intrigued by what they hear and eavesdrop on another phone while Shields describes his new movie as the film fades to the credits (featuring a faux "Shields" logo).

[edit] Cast

There has been much debate as to which real-life Hollywood legends are represented by the film's characters. Jonathan Shields is thought to be a blending of David O. Selznick, Orson Welles and Val Lewton.^[1] The Georgia Lorrison character is the daughter of a "Great Profile" actor (like John Barrymore) but also includes elements of Minnelli's ex-wife Judy Garland.^[2] The director Henry Whitfield (Leo G. Carroll) is a "difficult" director modeled on Alfred Hitchcock, and his assistant Miss March (Kathleen Freeman) is modeled on Hitchcock's wife Alma Reville.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References