Believe it or not, I had not seen this film before and therefore, it was probably my most anticipated Reel 13 film yet. After all, it’s a film I supposed was right up my alley – behind the scenes of old Hollywood, it had some actors I was excited about (Dick Powell and Gloria Grahame) and for some reason I was under the impression that it was directed by Douglas Sirk, whom I love. As the opening credits rolled, I was embarrassed to learn that it was actually a Vincente Minnelli film (I don’t know where I got the crazy idea that it came from Sirk – maybe the melodramatic title…), which didn’t dampen my spirits at all. Minnelli, probably best known for his musicals, is a very capable filmmaker and has handled some good drama in his time, namely Lust for Life. However, as the film started to unspool on my television set – that’s when my spirits got dampened.
I can’t label The Bad and the Beautiful as anything but a disappointment. Sure, my expectations were high, but I still say the film underachieves. While there are a few really good scenes (I like the scene in which Kirk Douglas is waiting for Lana Turner in her bedroom and the scene when her character films the final scene of her first movie and all the crew stops in their tracks and watches proudly), I think the film’s downfall is its narrative structure, which features three separate film professionals (Barry Sullivan, Turner and Powell) sitting in the office of a movie magnate and recollecting how producer Jonathan Shields (Douglas) came into and affected each of their lives. Does that sound familiar? It should if you have ever seen Citizen Kane, made 11 years earlier. Kane makes the device work by sending the faceless reporter from person to person to interview them. Here, all the narrators are gathered in one place under the auspices of being offered another chance to work with Shields and they each just vomit up their individual sagas as if it were a daily ritual. It’s all so unfortunately contrived. You might argue that some of the devices of older films like this that seem awkward today need to be accepted and looked at within the historical context of the film – an argument that I find myself making often. However, I don’t think that’s the case here. I think this was lazy storytelling then, just as it would be now.
The performances offered some surprises as well. I have always been a big Gloria Grahame fan. Those eyes of hers and her presence just SCREAM sex to me. She is fun, sassy and great in films like Oklahoma, The Greatest Show on Earth and even It’s a Wonderful Life. She won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her work on this film, so I had high expectations for her as well. She doesn’t appear until ¾ through the film and then she disappears quickly after that. Worst of all is that even during her brief screen time, she seems really off her game – she’s more a nuisance than anything else as Powell’s Southern belle wife. The accent is fine, but she doesn’t seem to offer any depth to the character whatsoever – almost as if she were phoning it in. (This brings up another revisionist Oscar vote – Best Supporting Actress of 1952 – how in the world did Grahame beat Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont in Singin’ in the Rain? What do you guys think?) On the flip side, Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner, more well-known for being movie stars than actors (in the most esoteric sense of the word), deliver outstanding, layered and nuanced performances. With the exception of an unfortunate car scene (which I blame more on Minnelli), Turner avoids the histrionics that are normally associated with films like this (a trap she will fall into later in her career). She also manages to look stunningly gorgeous while at the same time, making her character’s vulnerability very real and believable. Douglas is best when either playing smarmy confidence (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) or righteous indignation (Spartacus). Here, in a way, he gets to do both and as a result, he ignites the film whenever he is on-screen. It is easy to see why the three lost souls in the magnate’s office were so drawn to him in the first place.
In spite of these fine performances and also some additional good supporting work from Walter Pidgeon and Dick Powell, The Bad and the Beautiful is never able to overcome that initial hurdle of poor structure. Why couldn’t the story be told chronologically? Would that have been so awful? And now that we’re discussing it, what’s the point of the story anyway? Shields gives each of them a chance to shine and then moves on (albeit sometimes in a not-so-ethical way). So what? Who cares? Where’s the beef, as they say? Perhaps the episodic nature of the film diluted its potential impact, but even if the film were told sans flashbacks, I wonder if the film still wouldn’t feel as empty as it does.