Art Vandelay As David Letterman put it while introducing this movie as part of TCM's Essentials series, this movie is a naive look at the Hollywood studio system. Well, until something 'sinister'' happens, he said. I got 70 minutes into this soapy snooze-fest and decided I couldn't wait any longer for the ''sinister'' turn. It's all competently acted and directed and photographed. But it moves more slowly than a Wednesday episode of The Young And the Restless. Watch Sunset Boulevard again, if you want a wicked look at how Hollywood chews 'em up and spits 'em out. That movie is so full of memorable writing and acting it dwarfs this tepid effort. And the late-great Robert Osborne claimed on air at least once that Sunset Boulevard was his favorite movie. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would claim The Boring and the Banal was anyone's favorite movie of 1952.

Gavin O. I really liked the way the story was told in this movie - three vignettes that feature different characters, all of whose lives are affected by film producer Jonathan Shields. All three start off with these characters partnering with Shields to become successful in the film industry, and all of them end with Shields "ruining" their lives... that is, until they become more successful without Shields. The only person that actually does lose something of value is the writer Bartlow, whose wife is killed in an airplane crash that Shields indirectly causes. Still, he goes on to become a famous writer, so it isn't all bad news.The movie is a little dated today - the film industry was much simpler back then than it is nowadays - but "The Bad And The Beautiful" is still an entertaining look into the inner workings of Hollywood.

higherall7 I have seen this film many times and the thing that is interesting is how swiftly time seems to pass for the viewer. Despite its dark subject matter about a cutthroat producer who will use anything and anyone to succeed; ruthlessness being a common Douglas theme and motif, there is this undeniable sense of warmth and familiarity between the characters and a sense of family as the narrative comes to its conclusion. Yes, Jonathan Shields as played by Douglas, has done terrible things to this wildly popular actress Georgia Lorrison, the imminently successful director Fred Amiel, and the Pulitzer Prize winning author James Lee Bartlow. But as Lana Turner, who plays the actress, holds the phone for Barry Sullivan, who plays the director, while Dick Powell, who plays the author share cheeks together listening in, you feel there is something ambiguous and paradoxical about 'The Shields Touch'.When I first saw this movie, it seemed somewhat light and just this side of a soap opera. But over the years it has grown on me and in stature as a serious work of cinema. Nowadays it strikes me as a strange and glossy form of verisimilitude. There is this sense that at its core it is telling the truth about a particular age in Hollywood when the studio system was in its heyday and does so with honest sensitivity and something more than bordering on fond regard.None of the characters are complete ogres and each has something likable about them. Many of the characters like Gaucho, the Latin Lover, played by Gilbert Roland, or his date, the Dancing Blonde played by Lucy Knoch, represent stock types more or less to varying degrees. For a long time I thought a writer's life must be something like the way Dick Powell portrayed it to be and was looking forward to adopting such a lifestyle. At times you feel like you are getting an inside look at workings of the Hollywood system. Or are you? Hard to tell exactly the difference between reality and illusion here. Jonathan confesses to Georgia that he feels a letdown after each and every production that he puts in the can and that this feeling is getting worse; yet I felt no letdown at the end of this film. Quite the opposite. Every time I see this film my regard for it increases and it's getting better. I also like the way it does not call attention to the techniques it uses to convey its story. The handling of time in the flashbacks makes the story seem non-linear although this is not, strictly speaking, the case at all. Even though it's photographed in Black and White, oddly enough I often remember it as though it were filmed in color.There is evil in this story and Kirk Douglas as Shields largely represents this. However, it is amusing how all the main characters have been affected by this Faustian Bargain that Jonathan the producer seems largely to shoulder on his own. After all, James Lee Bartlow's wife, Rosemary, as played by Gloria Grahame, has died in a horrible plane crash along with the contract player known as the Gaucho. Surely that is enough to condemn the machinations of Hollywood as a corrupt and unworthy system.But still there is that ending that gnaws at the imagination. James Lee Bartlow, Fred Amiel, and Georgia Lorrison have each survived their encounters with Jonathan Shields and are now more successful than ever. Feels like some kind of Hollywood ending shaping up. Could there be a story in all this? Something that would pack them in at the box office? Hmmnn, no, there's nothing to that but your average everyday Hollywood hype. Still, I would give my eye teeth to hear Shields begging us to give him one more shot with this new 'bright idea' and big project he has in the works. Harry Pebbel is out of his mind. 'Give the Devil his due'!But still... listen to him squirm.. about time, I say... did you hear that? Boy, he must be really desperate...

elision10 There's plenty of good IMDb reviews on the film already, so I just want to focus on one aspect. The beginning of the film with Shields and Bartlow doing the buddy/buddy thing -- picking up odd Hollywood jobs, crashing big-shot parties -- seemed unrealistic to me. If he's the son of such a notorious filmmaker who just had to pay half of Hollywood to show up for his Dad's funeral, why doesn't everybody say whenever he shows up "Hey, you're Old Man Shields's son! Get out of here." You can't be anonymous and notorious at the same time. I realize "it's just a movie" and a small point, and perhaps even one that's easily rebutted. But it was just too much of stretch for me, and it was really not necessary to advance the plot.