Customer Reviews

The Bad and the Beautiful [VHS]

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(5)
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Based on Charles Schnee's the 1951 "Ladies Home Journal" short story "Tribute To A Bad Man". The movie title was changed to include MGM's Leading Blonde siren, Lana Turner.

MGM provides us with the best ensemble cast in Hollywood; Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas - Oscar Nominee, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame - Oscar Winner, Best Supporting Actress, Gilbert Roland & Leo G. Carroll, under the brilliant direction of Vincent Minnelli.

"The Bad (Kirk Douglas) And The Beautiful (Lana Turner)" winner of 4 Oscars in 1952. Best Supporting Actress - Gloria Grahame, Best Screenplay - Charles Schnee (Outstanding melodrama), Best Black & White Cinematography (Fantastic DVD transfer, clear & detailed) - Robert Surtee & Best Art Direction (the movie is primarily shot on Hollywood sets which are beautifully done).

Summary: About a steamy story of a ruthless 18 year rise & fall of a tyranical & manipulative Hollywood movie Tycoon Jonathan Shields (Douglas - Oscar Nominee). Told in a "flashback" from multiple perspectives ( from the point of view of 3 friends seduced & betrayed by him. The director (Sullivan), the Actress (Turner) & the Pultizer Prize winning writer (Powell) & his star struck wife (Grahame - Oscar). How he back stabbed, used, lied & double crossed them on the way to the top. On his way down needing their help & how Hollywood classic successes, failures & pay backs evolve.

Outstanding value, this 2 sided DVD Full Screen (before WideScreen)Black & White (Oscar Winner for Best Cinematography) presentation provides us with an OUTSTANDING DVD transfer of "The Bad And The Beautiful" (Side 1). All the many extras are on Side 2; A very informative chronological 90 minute Documentary / Biography "Lana Turner.... A Daughter's Memoir", Scoring Session Music Cues (nice addition), Theatrical Trailers & Production Notes. A very nice Hollywood package.

The Bad and the Beautiful is a commentary on Hollywood. It is considered to be a film noir because it is told in flashback with voice over and it involves imperfect characters. However, there is more of an element of soap opera than there is of film noir outside of the stereotypical pieces.

Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) is a movie mogul, a producer who like most big businessmen stepped on as many people as he could to get where he wanted to be. First was a friend, a director (Barry Sullivan) who he teams up with to make B pictures. There are obvious parallels between him and Val Lewton. Next was a woman, the daughter of a great star who feels she will never live up to his reputation (Lana Turner). Shields helps her to become a major star, but with consequence. Last is a writer (Dick Powell), a man who lived happily with his southern belle wife (Gloria Grahame) at home and stumbled upon success. Shields brought him to Hollywood to be a screenwriter for him, but also got rid of his happy distractions.

The performances are wonderful. Douglas is in top form, a slimy, manipulative man who charms his audience to like him despite all he has done. His best scenes are those with Turner, who is questionable here. She begins playing a woman whose acting isn't up to par and it seems she feels she should play everything at that stage badly. Her lines seem artificial and forced, and instead of appearing innocent, she seems whiney and melodramatic. Later, when her character learns to act and is transformed by love, Turner is wonderful! She creates a peak of intensity in each scene that never becomes boring. Perhaps she did this for effect, as it is obvious Turner was a good actress, but it does not come across as obvious. Only a person who really thought about the part would understand, and most people will not do that. Powell plays his part in a deadpan, which some people will like and some people will not. As there are many people in the world like his character, it is certainly appropriate, but it is also hard to warm up to such a person. He is however in great contrast to Douglas and Grahame, the only Oscar winning performance in the film.

There are plenty of allusions to real life movie people, but not all of them are obvious. It is fun to try to guess who is playing who and how much of the story is truth.

Also included on this DVD is a documentary about Lana Turner. It features plenty of footage with her daughter Cheryl Crane including some strange reenactments about her childhood. Also interviewed are Jackie Cooper, Robert Stack, Evie Wynn Johnson, Del Armstrong, Kirk Douglas, Glenn Rose, and Juanita Moore. Clips from her first movies, Ziegfeld Girl, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Homecoming, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Merry Widow, Peyton Place, Imitation of Like, and Madame X are shown. It talks about her husbands, friends, life in films, and the impact her daughter had on her life. It isn't outstanding, but it is a sufficient look at the actress and a great supplement for the film.

These men knew their business, helped artists realize their talents, and made money for their studios, but many less powerful people were hurt or crushed along the way... The ensemble acting breathes life into this theme and makes an already realistic script seem that much more real...

From its opening shot to the final fadeout, "The Bad and the Beautiful" is a harvest of riches for movie fans who dote on behind-the-scenes atmosphere and all the other elements of the movie world...

The sound stages, the dressing rooms, the Beverly Hills mansions; the "B" pictures in the making, the screen tests, the sneak previews; the Hollywood funeral, the Hollywood party, the Hollywood premiere--all were on display in what is probably the most detailed study of the dream factory ever presented on film...

The film is filled with magnificent characters and set-pieces... Minnelli directed it with exact pacing, shading the scenes and developing the complicated stories and characters so that they neatly fitted into a fascinating puzzle... Technically, the picture is perfection; the dialog is compelling and the settings are particularly interesting to those who are curious about Hollywood studios and how they function... The music score by David Raksin is a masterpiece of its kind...

The casting is almost beyond questioning: Pigeon and Sullivan are exactly right as the producer and the director, and Dick Powell strikes the right key as the easy-going, pipe smoking writer...Lana Turner, then at the height of her glamorous appeal, clearly knew what she was about in painting a movie queen, and Gloria Grahame won an Oscar for her pretty but intelligent young wife...

For Kirk Douglas it was a tour de force acting... The role of Jonathan Shields is one of the most stimulating ever handed a Hollywood actor--not only as a distinguished, dramatic vehicle but as an opportunity to reveal the character of the kind of film producer actors know but do not love...

I know now where Martin Scorsese originally got his passion for the film business. Had I seen the Bad and the Beautiful when I was in my teens, maybe.... I...., well, anyway.

It's a wonderfully told (mostly in flashback) story of a driven young producer Jonathan Shields (Oscar nominated-Kirk Douglas) and his relationships on his way to the top with an actress (Lana Turner), a director (Barry Sullivan), and a writer (Dick Powell).

Scorsese mentions this film more than once in his "A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies", which I wholeheartedly recommend.

Charles Schnee's screenplay won the Academy Award. Beautiful black and white photography by Bob Surtees, who also won the Oscar.

A treasure to find in your local video store. An evening well spent at the movies.

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.

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.

I had a chance to watch "The Bad and the Beautiful" last night and I came away with mixed impressions. Overall I thought it was a pretty good movie. Where I felt it came up short was in the character development and comparison. Yes, this is the story of a driven man, Jonathon Shields (played by Kirk Douglas), and how he rubs everyone else the wrong way. It means to show that their anger and resentment overshadowed the many positive ways he affected their lives. That makes for a good outline for a movie. However, two of the other four characters had wanted to do things their way and were primarily mad at Jonathon Shields for having it his way. The other two characters, played by Lana Turner and Dick Powell, were people who would not have risen as high as they did without the drive and determination that Shields instilled in them. I found it hard to sympathize with either of the other four for because of that. Actually, the characters of interest were those played by Gilbert Rolland and Gloria Grahame. They were opposites in their own way; one living life on the edge and the other coming wide-eyed out of a small Southern town into the wilds of Hollywood. Their brief scenes were the proper seasoning the rest of the cast failed to bring. I guess that explains Grahame's Best Supporting Actress Oscar in her rather brief appearances. It wasn't so much how well she played her role but how well that role played against the other roles in the movie.

Hollywood likes to make movies about Hollywood. "The Bad and the Beautiful" is one of the better such productions (although it is no "Sunset Boulevard"). The best acting is that of Kirk Douglas who was great so long as he didn't lose his temper. It may seem to be about a world that's completely different from our own. However, most of us may have had a person in our past like the character of Jonathon Shields. Personally, I'm re-evaluating my opinion of my 5th grade trombone instructor.

WOW. Short review: Just watched it on VHS and got online immediately afterwards to order it on DVD. Not only that, this is the movie that's tempted me into finally making the plunge into Digital Projector purchase. This movie deserves to been seen on the biggest screen possible. The cast is fantastic, but hey, you already know that. Viva Minnelli!

Oh, and this movie's also responsible for the first ever review I've written for Amazon. Cheers, GB

Maddening story of a no scruples Hollywood producer,using everyone for his own benefit. While most see this film as an indictment of the film industry, I tend to liken it to big business on a grander scale, or to Washington politics. Anyway, there's so much gall and charm built into Douglas' personna that even those he's hurt the most seem willing to give his final "pitch" over a long distance phone call a listen. Gloria Grahame won an Oscar for her portrayal as Dick Powell's sexy wife, and don't overlook Pidgeon's role in keeping the various egos of the cast somewhat under control. Flashbacks are used effectively, and Minnelli's direction is excellent. Yet, this film seems to be getting less attention yearly, probably due to black and white photography. Too bad, because this is a "hidden classic". Go find a copy!

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.