Directed by Vincente Minnelli. Written by Charles Schnee
What’s wrong, what’s great, and what’s tragicomic about Hollywood is writ large in Vincent Minnelli’s The Bad And The Beautiful, the story of a movie producer who rides roughshod over his collaborators in his ascendency and then feels hard done by when it comes back to haunt him.
It tees itself up as a comeuppance for this scheming, ruthless, conniving, manipulative and shameless sonofabitch, suggesting that Tinseltown does possess one iota of self-awareness and accountability, only to dash cold water on that notion, even going as far as suggesting the self-righteous creative types are no better, just hypocrites to boot.
It begins with three illustrious Hollywood stars, a director, an actress, and a writer, all snubbing phone calls from a certain Jonathan Shields. They’re then summoned to a meeting with an old, well-liked, and affable producer, who implores them to reconsider, and go to work on a movie produced by Shields. It has the air of pleading, and they’re not buying it.
Minnelli then slides into flashbacks and tell three stories about how Shields (in the demon boy scout guise of Kirk Douglas) comes up through the ranks alongside a wannabe director (Barry Sullivan), saves an actress (Lana Turner, vulnerable, open) from bit part purgatory and lifts her into stardom, and finally, makes a university professor (Dick Powell) one of America’s most celebrated writers.
Shields sounds great! Wonder why all these transformative relationships turned so sour?
The Bad And The Beautiful is about Hollywood, a story Hollywood loves to tell in all its vainglory. It features gross betrayal, cynical decisions, emotional havoc, abuse of power, and fatal consequences. It’s scandalous and overwrought in the way stories about creative types can be, as Hollywood conflicts offer the intrigue of looking past the shiny veneer it usually presents, with a helping of grand drama.
Charles Schnee’s script names no names, but it’s hard to not assume there are plenty of real people wedged between the lines weeping over lost fame, drinking themselves to death, lambasting Hollywood while gladly cashing its checks. It’s not black and white morality, it’s more dark gray and black.
If “the bad” of the title refers to its characters, the “beautiful” refers to Minnelli’s direction, which is striking and at times stunning. Minnelli’s movie is equally about the craft of moviemaking, showing us the industry as a factory of both sausages and dreams, base entertainment and prestigious art.
That’s on the screen. Behind it, Minnelli is an artist in his own right, putting up compositions and sequences that prove cinema’s power of illusion. Few films are as convinced of cinema’s ability to tell a story as The Bad And The Beautiful, and few films back up their belief like this, almost daring anyone to deride movies as a lesser art.
As Shields, Kirk Douglas has enough gravity to rein in the sun. That pearly smile and big mouth has a predator’s weapons and appetite in plain view, and I’m not sure he blinks once. Yet, he’s also charming, and able to project enough self-awareness that you may let your guard down around him and buy what he’s selling.
It’s a vivid portrayal of the sharks that find their way to the top of the food chain, and Shields’ tunnel vision and dogged determinism without regard for the consequences suffered by others makes him an all-time character who’s not just of the times or of the movie industry. Right now, there’s some guy just like him, clad in a Patagonia vest and Alo sneakers, pitching VC companies on some AI solution that’ll burn down the rainforest and unemploy thousands in a never-ending prayer to value generation.
But that’s beside the point. With The Bad And The Beautiful, Hollywood tells us it investigated itself and found no evidence of wrongdoing, except maybe caring too much about the business of moviemaking. Then all the producers got together and awarded the movie five Oscars, mostly for its below-the-line artistry, and they weren’t wrong.
Mikkel Frederiksen 