The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) on Netflix
Director Fred Amiel, actress Georgia Lorrison and writer James Lee Bartlow each refuse Jonathan Shields's calls from Paris. Producer Harry Pebbel gathers them in Shields's old office.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.7/1018,025 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
In Hollywood, producer Harry Pebbel brings director Fred Amiel, actress Georgia Lorrison and writer James Lee Bartlow together in the old office of Jonathan Shields, who is calling from Paris. All three have refused to take his call. After two years of financial reorganization, Shields wants to produce a picture with the three of them, and without their names he cannot raise the money. Pebbel asks them to hear Shields out before they give a final answer. While they wait for the call, each goes back over the years of knowing Shields: Fred's quickie Westerns on Poverty Row, Georgia's days playing bit parts, and James Lee's move from a Virginia college with a best-selling novel. After each account, Pebbel points out that the three now sit at the top of their professions.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Lucy Knochas Blonde Dancing with Gaucho (uncredited)
- Del Armstrongas Georgia's Makeup Artist - Screen Test Scene
- John Bishopas Ferraday (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Gloria Grahame's Rosemary Bartlow appears for just nine minutes and 32 seconds, the shortest performance ever to win an Academy Award; Beatrice Straight broke the record in 1976 with five minutes and two seconds in Network.
- The Bad and the Beautiful won five Academy Awards from six nominations in 1952, including a Best Supporting Actress win for Gloria Grahame, a record for the most awards for a film not nominated for Best Picture or Best Director.
- Robert Taylor and Clark Gable were suggested for the role of Jonathan Shields; producer John Houseman thought Gable too old and sent the script to Kirk Douglas, who was cast after Gable turned it down.
- Walter Pidgeon wanted to play B-movie producer Harry Pebbel but told Houseman and Minnelli his suave persona did not fit, so he walked into Minnelli's office in a crew cut wig and ill-fitted suit, and got the part.
- Fearing the title Tribute to a Bad Man sounded like a Western, MGM's publicity chief Howard Dietz renamed the film after F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Beautiful and Damned; producer John Houseman called the new title "meaningless, pretentious, and vulgar."
- After a sneak preview where audiences liked the film but found it too long, director Vincente Minnelli and producer John Houseman cut 12 minutes of scenes they judged implausible, repetitive or dull.
- David Raksin wrote the theme song "The Bad and the Beautiful" (first titled "Love Is for the Very Young"); Minnelli and Houseman nearly rejected it until Adolph Green and Betty Comden argued for it, and it became a hit jazz standard.
- As the script was revised, producer John Houseman and screenwriter Charles Schnee saw that Jonathan Shields resembled producer David O. Selznick and had the film screened for Selznick's lawyer to check for libel; he found none, and Dore Schary wrote that Shields was a combination of "David O. Selznick and as yet unknown David Merrick."
