Movie · 1952 · Drama, Romance · 1h 58m · NR · English
Curator score: 9.0/10 (17.9K ratings)
I took you out of the gutter... I can fling you back!
Overview
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
Ratings
Curator score: 9.0/10
IMDb: 7.7/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 80%
Metacritic: 86
TMDB: 7.3/10
Director
Vincente Minnelli
Production
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Cast
Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame, Leo G. Carroll, Gilbert Roland, Paul Stewart, Vanessa Brown, Elaine Stewart, Sammy White, Ivan Triesault, Lucy Knoch, Jay Adler, Stanley Andrews, Del Armstrong, Ben Astar, Barbara Billingsley, John Bishop
Curator Review
Verdict
A glossy, acidic Hollywood melodrama that doubles as a sharp self-portrait of the studio system. It’s stylish, emotionally bruising, and packed with sharp dialogue and vivid performances, especially for viewers who like their classics glamorous but unsentimental.
Best for
classic Hollywood fans
movies-about-movies viewers
fans of melodrama with bite
viewers who enjoy morally compromised protagonists
people interested in studio-era craftsmanship
Skip if
you want a warm or uplifting showbiz story
you dislike flashback-heavy structures
you prefer understated, naturalistic drama
you’re not interested in old Hollywood politics and ego
Overview
Vincente Minnelli turns Hollywood into a glittering machine that feeds on talent, vanity, and hurt. The film’s flashback structure gives each witness a different angle on Jonathan Shields, building a portrait of a man who is both magnetic and destructive, and of an industry that rewards exactly that kind of damage.
Worth noting
What makes it endure is the tension between its lush MGM polish and its ruthless view of the business. It’s a backstage drama, but not a nostalgic one: the movie understands that glamour is often just cruelty with better lighting. Kirk Douglas is forceful and slippery, and the supporting stories give the film real emotional range.
Bottom line
For viewers drawn to classic cinema that is self-aware, elegant, and a little venomous, this is one of the essential titles. It’s not sentimental about success, and that’s precisely why it feels so alive.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Colin the dude (4.5★) · 429 likes
It almost feels like even back then, Douglas was looking at his peers thinking, "I'm outlasting every last one of you pinheads. I'm hitting 100. I will be the oldest living legend someday."
theriverjordan (5★) · 265 likes
Movies are made on emotion, but Hollywood consumes only a cannibalistic diet of its own hatred. Any love in the mix, comes up only as a vomit of bile.
Slammed between two bright musical comedy masterpieces; “American in Paris” and “Band Wagon,” Vincente Minnelli created “The Bad and the Beautiful,” one of the most vitriolic and self-loathing films ever made about filmmaking.
“Bad” is tale told in three part flashback; the account of Kirk Douglas as an ambitious producer who… more
ScreeningNotes (4★) · 222 likes
"Don't worry. Some of the best movies are made by people working together who hate each other's guts."
A big studio exec calls a writer, a director, and an actor into his office to pitch them a gig with a big producer they all hate. The director had his pet project, his cinematic baby, stolen out from under him; the actor was negged into a romance with him, after which he cheated on her; the writer's wife died on his… more
Jordan Horowitz (5★) · 173 likes
An epic masterpiece every time. The best movie about movies I have ever seen. Long live producers.
eely (3★) · 171 likes
“there are no great men, buster. there’s only men.”
georgia smoking her cigarette in that meeting with her heavy lidded eyes the exact way jonathan taught her...i live for the subtlety!!!