The Bad and the Beautiful

The Bad and the Beautiful is a sharp, pleasurable Hollywood drama with a forgiving streak we do not entirely share. Vincente Minnelli takes the ruthless producer seriously enough to understand his appeal, and that is why the film works. Nobody would tolerate such a man if he offered nothing. The uncomfortable pleasure comes from watching confidence make behaviour attractive that would be intolerable in an ordinary workplace, where there might at least be someone to complain to.

Kirk Douglas makes Jonathan Shields hard to dismiss, even when dismissal seems the sensible response. We enjoyed his bullying more than we wanted to. The physical assurance of the performance makes his demands seem reasonable for just long enough to catch us agreeing with him. Helen Rose’s costumes contribute to that effect: the shoulder pads give his confidence a suitably broad outline. He looks accustomed to having the space around him cleared, and the performance makes that expectation thoroughly persuasive.

Charles Schnee’s screenplay gives that forceful central performance dialogue with enough bite to sustain our interest beyond the sheer pleasure of watching it. The language has been polished, sometimes conspicuously, but the actors make it sound worth saying. Conrad A. Nervig’s editing helps the changes of tone feel brisk, allowing amusement and unpleasantness to follow closely without making the film seem undecided about its subject. There is considerable skill in keeping this much melodrama lively without making every exchange equally emphatic.

The supporting performances matter because a film dominated by this producer could easily become exhausting. Lana Turner gives Georgia Lorrison enough presence to prevent our attention from settling permanently on Shields. Dick Powell, as James Lee Bartlow, and Gloria Grahame, as Rosemary Bartlow, add to the pleasure of a cast whose smaller contributions are worth attending to. We would happily have the film linger with its supporting players; its interest in them feels less strained than its fascination with the central bully.

Robert L. Surtees’s cinematography makes the polished appearance of this Hollywood persuasive, and that attractiveness is important to our response. It would be easier to condemn the business if the film made it look uniformly unpleasant. Instead, the handsome images encourage us to understand why people might find the place difficult to resist. The director’s taste for melodrama can make the presentation feel over-insistent, but the visual assurance usually keeps the emotional extravagance from becoming merely tiring.

David Raksin’s score supplies warmth that we do not always feel towards the characters, and its generosity is part of the film’s appeal. It is also where our reservation becomes clearest. The music’s emotional persuasiveness belongs to a film that can seem too indulgent towards the powerful man it finds so interesting. Understanding his attraction is necessary; occasionally we wanted a little more resistance to the assumption that being difficult and being gifted excuse much the same behaviour.

Among dramas about filmmaking, this earns its length through the pleasure it takes in actors and dialogue. At 118 minutes, it gives those pleasures room without making seriousness feel like a compulsory extra. Its affection for the business remains palpable even when its judgement ought to be harsher. Afterwards, argue about Shields rather than agreeing that this is simply how the business works.