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ASIN : 6301965620
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In The Bad and the Beautiful, Kirk Douglas plays a tyrannical, manipulative producer fallen on hard times. To get back on his feet, he asks for help from three Hollywood giants whose careers he helped launch--a director (Barry Sullivan), an actress (Lana Turner), and a writer (Dick Powell). Unfortunately, they all hate him. Flashbacks explain why. Douglas had been close to all three at different points in his career: He and the director started out together making B-movies, he gave the wayward actress her first starring role, he turned the novelist into a successful screenwriter. Then in one way or another he stabbed each of them in the back, though not always deliberately. The script has a lot of backstage clichés, but Vincente Minnelli's sharp, energetic direction, the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, and the topnotch performances--particularly Douglas and Gloria Grahame, who won an Oscar for her sweet role as the writer's cheerful Southern wife--flesh out the clichés with cutting details and convincing bile. Caustic, starry-eyed, and slyly funny, The Bad and the Beautiful is a strange and skillful blend of "If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere" pluck and poisonous cynicism, one of the great movies about making movies. --Bret Fetzer
Customer Reviews
Soapy, but entertaining (2003-10-21)  This is a slick and enjoyable wallow by Hollywood about Hollywood, which succeeds despite Lana Turner's performance (she was not a good actress and ended up trying much too hard as a result). Gloria Grahame specialized in creating vivid supporting characters but never got her full props -- if you're impressed with her work here, check her out as Ado Annie in Oklahoma or in any number of excellent films noirs, including her unforgettable role as Lee Marvin's girl in The Big Heat. Kirk Douglas was born to play nasty connivers; he could go over the top at times but in a movie like TBATB, that just adds to the fun. Also deserving of mention is the superb score by David Raksin, another of Hollywood's best who never got much recognition beyond Laura (the one score everyone knows). Raksin, unlike expat European classical musicians such as Korngold, Waxman, Herrmann et al. was a pure Hollywood product, cutting his teeth working on Charlie Chaplin shorts and helping to pioneer film scoring as an art form. Raksin's TBATB score perfectly sums up the emotional throughline of the story, and the gorgeous main theme stays with you long after the film's done.
BAD OR BEAUTIFUL? - THERE'S BOTH ON THIS DVD (2003-05-25)  "The Bad and The Beautiful" is one of those great, gritty tales of Hollywood told with ultra-chic glamor and sophistication. Kirk Douglas is a has-been producer whose hard luck has cost him some serious alliances in the industry. The star, Lana Turner, the screenwriter, George Murphy and the director, Dick Powell are the people done wrong. Walter Pigeon is the man in the mogul's chair, trying to get Kirk his last big break. Plenty of on-screen chemistry, tension and great casting make this film an outstanding drama.Warner Home Video's DVD is both bad and beautiful in terms of its picture quality. We get a very nice, smooth looking transfer with much of the film grain and age related artifacts cleaned up. But there are moments where edge enhancement, shimmering and aliasing are so bad, you just can't help but get distracted away from the fine performances taking place underneath all that digital mess. When the image is free from these anamolies, contrast and black levels are superb. The audio, mono, is potent, powerful and masterfully recreated. EXTRAS: Lana Turner: A Daughter Remembers, is the brilliant documentary featured on TCM. It's intense, investigatory and blindingly original, following Turner's rise from starlet to superstar. Also, isolated music cues and the film's original trailer.BOTTOM LINE: The actual film print, for the above mentioned reasons, is disappointing, though it looks better than it ever has before. Regardless, I still have to recommend this disc, if for nothing else, the documentary on side two. Now if the Warner wizards could only get a firm handle on their bit rate. Hmmmm!
A great Hollywood film about Hollywood.. (2003-05-20)  This is perhaps my favorite Hollywood movie about Hollywood. All the actors from the sublime Barry Sullivan, to the eurodite Dick Powell, to the glamorous Lana Turner, to the amazing Kirk Douglas, give teriffic performances. It's a shame that only Gloria Grahame received an oscar. The film is about a Director (Sullivan) a movie star (Turner) and a writer (Powell). All three are gathered so that they can be asked to make a motion picture for a producer (Douglas) who's fallen on hard times. In turn, each describes his or her experience with Douglas' character while waiting for him to call. Even though Douglas made each of them a success in his or her field, each one was hurt by Douglas and had a falling out. To me this film is analogous to boxing, one cannot become a sucess at it without receiving a bloody nose. I love the way the film ends ambiguously. No need to wrap things up, let the audience decide.
THORNS AND ROSES, HOLLYWOOD STYLE..... (2002-12-08) An ambitious wanna-be producer walks all over everyone to get to the top and then needs their help when he hits the bottom. Kirk Douglas as Shields the producer is just fine. Those he uses and abuses include Lana Turner as a drunken tramp he turns into a star, William Powell as a homespun writer Shields gives the Hollywood treatment---inadvertantly causing the death of the writer's wife (a marvelous Gloria Grahame, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar) and Walter Pidgeon as a big time producer who gives Shields his first big break. The film is told in flashbacks as a now destitute Shields starts contacting these people looking for support. He made some of them what they are now---but at a costly price to their souls. Film ends with the question "will they or won't they?" Douglas plays Shields as a charming jerk who'll stab you in the back in a heartbeat to get what he wants. Turner is good and has a great scene where she completely freaks out behind the wheel of her car after discovering what a lowlife Shields really is, nearly killing herself and God knows who else. And Grahame is delightful as Powell's Southern fried wife who perhaps is a bit too helpful and winds up a victim of Shield's plot to keep Powell under his thumb. Supposedly a who's who of real life Hollywood stories, the film is just plain enjoyable for the performances and looks great on DVD.
Bad and the Beautiful (2002-12-01) The finest movie on Hollywood. Lana Turner is magnificent and too beautiful to be believed. Intelligent and sophisticated. Gloria Grahame is also brilliant. Makes me sad to see the work that used to be done.
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