NFR Project: “The Bad and the Beautiful”
Dir: Vincente Minnelli
Scr: Charles Schnee
Pho: Robert L. Surtees
Ed: Conrad A, Nervig
Premiere: Dec. 25, 1952
118 min.
It’s another in that grand tradition of “Hollywood is hell” movies which Hollywood loves to tell. It purports to tell the real backstage story of the dirty business known as show. In this, it’s a kind of Citizen Kane-esque tale, told by three people who were screwed over by the central character.
Three prominent Hollywood types – director Fred (Barry Sullivan), starlet Georgia (Lana Turner) and writer Bartlow (Dick Powell) – convene in film producer Harry’s (Walter Pidgeon) office. They are pitched to support a new project from washed-up producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas, playing his usual charismatic rotter). They refuse, and each of them thinks back to their interactions with him. These flashbacks constitute the story.
Shields is an unscrupulous man who will do anything to get his films made. After we get the lowdown on what he’s done to them, we have no problem with their lack of enthusiasm about working with him. Yet at the end, they are listening to his proposal.
Shields was supposedly based on Hollywood producer David O. Selznick. Director Minnelli makes a backhanded tribute to the ins and outs of Tinseltown, turning a movie about an unpleasant person into a poisonous valentine to the business.
The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Magical Mestro.
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