Kirk Douglas, The Bad and the Beautiful

If there's one thing I've deduced from the few Kirk Douglas performances I've watched so far, it's that he's quite good at playing a dick. In quick succession, Douglas delivered a pompous boxer in Champion, a pompous reporter in Ace in the Hole, and a hard ass detective in Detective Story who's technically a good guy but kind of pompous in the sense that he's riddled with toxic masculinity. As they say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it - and thus we're here to witness Douglas' third rendering of an ambitious tool who backstabs his way to the top, this time in the form of a Hollywood producer.

The Bad and the Beautiful is, in my opinion, the most enjoyable watch out of the aforementioned Douglas films. One might assume, going into the film, that we are to see Douglas ravage up the screen as he claws his way atop the Hollywood ladder. Alas, this is not the case - Douglas' Jonathan Shields, while fundamentally the driving force of the film, is projected to us through the eyes of three secondary characters, thus eliminating ample screen time and any opportunity for impactful character development.

If I had to nitpick about prior performances, I'd say that Douglas has a tendency to come off as one-note whenever he plays up his characters' douchebaggery. In Champion and Ace in the Hole, there's little else to read from him outside of the abject sliminess of the men he plays; this can make for some tiresome viewing experiences when "cad" is the only facet of the main character that registers with the viewer. The being said, Beautiful is different in that Jonathan is presented to us piecemeal; the core element of Jonathan (that being a man who is pompous) still stands, albeit at a curiously less saturated punch.

I actually expected Douglas to be much more villainous than he ended up being. Anyone familiar with the lore of Old Hollywood know that studio heads a la Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer, and Harry Cohn were all horrible men. Anyone who has paid attention to Harvey Weinstein's colossal fall from grace has a high-level idea of how seedy and manipulative powerful men in Hollywood can be. With this context, Douglas' Jonathan Shields is practically the Bernadette Soubirous in comparison. Described in the plot summaries as being "ruthless" and "unscrupulous," these are words that do not come to mind while watching Douglas in this film. In fact, Douglas is quite boring for much of the film - he plays "ruthless" Hollywood producer with a lack of vitriol and dynamism, thus coming off as much more ordinary instead.

He is charming to start as a younger, hungry Shields, boasting a cocky yet charismatic determination. Beyond the first act, however, things become stagnant. With the exception of a killer final confrontation at the tail-end of their storyline, his chapter with Lana Turner is, for the most part, quite tepid (the courting of Georgia is pretty dull, though Jonathan's internal conflict towards her could have been interesting to explore...but of course this is not). What's more, Douglas' storyline with Dick Powell is just about the most boring of the bunch (how does one manage to be so uninspiring when one is essentially responsible for homewrecking a friend's life?) Whereas Champion, Ace in the Hole, and Detective Story often had Douglas playing up the nastiness a bit too much, I was disappointed by the lack of it overall here.

Likely daring at the time of its release, The Bad and the Beautiful is, through a modern lens, a safe, glossy version of bold story it claims it's trying to tell. You might assume that MGM was never going to allow the picture to really go there, so as not to expose the true underbelly of and trigger controversy within its own community. So taking it for what it is - the picture is pretty decent. The role of Jonathan Shields, however, is a disappointment. It's one thing to be too much of a dick such that it becomes grating, and it's another thing to not really be one when the role calls for it.