The Bad and the Beautiful

The Bad and the Beautiful
Theatrical release poster
Directed byVincente Minnelli
Screenplay byCharles Schnee
Based on"Of Good and Evil"
by George Bradshaw
Produced byJohn Houseman
StarringLana Turner
Kirk Douglas
Walter Pidgeon
Dick Powell
Barry Sullivan
Gloria Grahame
Gilbert Roland
Leo G. Carroll
Vanessa Brown
CinematographyRobert L. Surtees
Edited byConrad A. Nervig
Music byDavid Raksin
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Loew's Inc.
Release dates
  • December 25, 1952 (1952-12-25) (Los Angeles)
  • January 15, 1953 (1953-01-15) (New York City)
Running time
113 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
BudgetUS$1,558,000[1]
Box office$3,373,000[1]

The Bad and the Beautiful is a 1952 American melodrama that tells the story of a film producer who alienates everyone around him. The film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, written by George Bradshaw and Charles Schnee, and stars Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame and Gilbert Roland. The Bad and the Beautiful won five Academy Awards out of six nominations in 1952 (including Gloria Grahame winning Best Supporting Actress), a record for the most awards for a movie that was not nominated for Best Picture or for Best Director.[citation needed]

In 2002, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.[2][3] The theme song, "The Bad and the Beautiful", penned by David Raksin, became a jazz standard and has been cited as an example of an excellent movie theme.

The Bad and the Beautiful was created by the same team that later worked on another film about the seedy film business, Two Weeks in Another Town (1962): director (Vincente Minnelli), producer (John Houseman), screenwriter (Charles Schnee), composer (David Raksin), male star (Kirk Douglas), and studio (MGM). Both films also feature performances of the song "Don't Blame Me", by Leslie Uggams in Two Weeks and by Peggy King in The Bad and the Beautiful. In one scene of Two Weeks in Another Town, the cast watches clips from The Bad and the Beautiful in a screening room, presented as a film that Douglas's character in Two Weeks, Jack Andrus, had starred in. Two Weeks is not a sequel, however, as the characters in the two stories are unrelated.

  1. ^ a b The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  2. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-09-16.
  3. ^ "Librarian of Congress Adds 25 Films to National Film Registry". Library of Congress. Retrieved 2020-09-16.