This is one of those so-called classic movies I just don't get. Its credits are impeccable, and director Vincente Minnelli had done brilliant work elsewhere. The screenplay won an Academy Award. Actress Gloria Grahame won an Academy Award. With apologies to Miss Grahame, who did some fine work over the years, this does not seem deserved. As the story of the rise, fall and rise again of a ruthless producer widely believed to be modeled on David Selznick, it is no more than a series of cliches and in-jokes. As I am not a fan of either I was not particularly amused. Kirk Douglas is unbelievable in the leading role. He can portray torment and ambition, but not brilliance. In private life he may well be brilliant, but this doesn't come across on the screen. There's nothing of the entrepeneur or impressario about him; and no sense of the businessman. He seems at all times like an actor playing a part. Lana Turner is marginally better. Barry Sullivan is bland as a director, and the normally capable Dick Powell cannot overcome a bad case of miscasting in his performance as a pipe-puffing Southern writer (not based on Faulkner, I hope). In any case, Barton Fink this ain't. My sense is that the movie is popular for its "in" references, the thinly veiled depictions of real life Hollywood folk, the sheer fun that movie insiders and outsiders have connecting all the dots. I did this, too, while watching the movie, but in the end it just didn't add up. I didn't get it.
Review of The Bad and the Beautiful
