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The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

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Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 1
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 0

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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 3,707

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Movie Info

Kirk Douglas plays the corrupt and amoral head of a major film studio in this Hollywood drama, often regarded as one of the film's industry's most interesting glimpses at itself. Actress Gloria Lorrison (Lana Turner), director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan), and screenwriter James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) are invited to a meeting at a Hollywood sound stage at the request of producer Harry Pebbel (Walter Pidgeon). Pebbel is working with studio chief Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas), whose studio is

Unrated, 1 hr. 58 min.

Drama, Romance, Classics

George Bradshaw, Charles Schnee

Feb 5, 2002

MGM Home Entertainment

Cast

All Critics (18) | Top Critics (2) | Fresh (13) | Rotten (1) | DVD (10)

Under Minnelli's direction it becomes a fascinating study of a man destroyed by the 50s success ethic, left broke, alone, and slightly insane in the end.

February 5, 2010 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Three disjointed stories awkwardly connected by a frayed thread.

August 15, 2011 Full Review Source: Oscar Guy | Comment
Oscar Guy

If it's not quite Sunset Blvd., Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful stands on its own as a scathing portrait of Hollywood's cutthroat ways and means.

February 27, 2010 Full Review Source: Film and Felt | Comment
Film and Felt

Dramatically strange - but visually splendid - inside look at Hollywood film making.

August 8, 2008 Full Review Source: Classic Film and Television | Comment
Classic Film and Television

In Minnnelli's hands, the noirish melodram is less critical of Hollywood and more ambiguous in depicting the tawdry absurdities and operatic splendors of a bizzare industry, in which the players are more of frustrated dreamers than cold manipulators.

July 22, 2006 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comment

Classic take on classic Hollywood.

June 26, 2003 Comment
Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) is director Vincente Minnelli's (and producer John Houseman's) quintessential movie about Hollywood and moviemaking.

January 1, 2000 Full Review Source: Tim Dirks' The Greatest Films | Comment
Tim Dirks' The Greatest Films
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Audience Reviews for The Bad and the Beautiful

A Kirk Douglas film, has to be based or meant to base a director that played a part in his career, just to factual to be a made up story. Its about a director that is pretty much ruthless, shows the story of three people who basically were made famous thru his ruthless actions. A good ole Black & White. 4 stars.

December 8, 2011
bbcfloridabound
Bruce Bruce

Super Reviewer

"Will you help him get started again? Will you work with him just this once?"Three people: a Pulitzer Prize winning writer (Dick Powell), a beloved actress (Lana Turner), and an Oscar winning director (Bernard Sullivan) ; all connected by one man (Kirk Douglas). A charismatic, volatile, unknowable movie producer (with

August 31, 2010
lewiskendell

Super Reviewer

    1. Jonathan Shields: Georgia, love is for the very young.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

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