the bad and the beautiful and a film about the behind the scene artifice and technique and environment of the celluloid universe be base upon a short story title tribute to a bad man . the main character and a freshly dead and underhanded and exploitative broadway producer and be adapt into a living and vainglorious hollywood producer desperate for a return in a versatile and restless performance by eternal youth kirk douglas . in hollywood and screenwriter dick powell and play with an exact self honesty despite his old fashioned style and movie star lana turner and director barry sullivan each decline to speak by phone to douglas jonathan shield . a movie producer play with walter pidgeon unfettered naturalness urge them to help shield out . the subsequent segmented chronicle be narrate in recollection . in each retrospective and shield extravagant life be see through their eye . their career have profit from work with him and but each of them also undergo an intimate expense . jonathan estranges and con and deceives and abandon and and almost consumes each of them in his own egocentric and legendary ascent to his peak . this be one of the first in an extensive sequence of film and some acerbic and disparaging and that lampoon and spear or study the making of film on the gaudy hollywood back lot and include the same year and studio singin in the rain and billy wilder sunset boulevard and truffaut day for night and kazan the last tycoon and robert altman the player and and sundry more . this one be a melodrama and but director vincente minnelli separate his love of romantic fantasy from his ability to identify with the whole spectrum of human gray area and yet there be much veil satire represent indeed and dick powell novel about early virginia provide a wealthy opportunity for it . we deliberately determine that this serious work be a commercial work . it promise it celebrity with a liberal peppering with sex and and the film version be decidedly trite with a man in a gray confederate uniform be peck with a heroine . the bad and the beautiful submits that romance of the old south merely sell the tacky sentimental delusion . this minnelli endeavor also see make b movie western a among the least notable enterprise in hollywood . and bud star lana turner first movie role associate trade novel with tasteless teasing and garish mise en scene . alternately and there be tremendous insight into the creative process and such a when shield propose the concept of scar people by uncertainty and shadow when call on to make a thriller influence by the actual film cat people . this inspired episode be realize with various light transition and include turn a switch on and off and move a lamp . the scene intricacy be assure by it long take camera movement and and it visceral effect be imprint fleetingly in other moment represent light go on and off in the screening room cause the window from the projection booth to start or stop working a a mirror . we see the heroine image show and vanish in the window . there be a party at a mansion where an enthral tracking shot furnish an elaborate evolution through the crowd and each of the extra have their own clique of going on and intellectual dialogue . candelabra be everywhere . on the set of a movie wed scene and there be a checkerboard floor and 19th century dress uniform and christian symbolism . on another film set and a huge chandelier be over a dining room table and statue present . another film set show a revolution and opening with special effect men add smoke . all the studio shooting set piece be rope off from the real world . their style be find in movie set and not day to day . a few extra get to wear white tie and tail and but none of the outer movie focal male character ever do . gloria grahame win the best supporting actress oscar for this hollywood melodrama and in which she play a status seek wife and press her screenwriter husband to move to hollywood and live a more lavish rank . but kirk douglas find that she be distract to her husband screen write . despite her unmistakable sexy grandiosity and childlike enthusiasm and his award be clearly for her early work and a she hardly get to do anything here but babble on in a southern accent in the periphery of a few shot in the latter half of the film . but whatever she do and it certainly a refreshment to see her in the interval divide lana turner screen time and because unlike grahame and turner do not and in her impersonal approach and appear to have any internal dynamic . but overall and this be a fascinating film .