We all love movies. That is why we come here and write our reviews and read other peoples opinions of them. But to make a site like this possible we need to have the finished article on our screens, and these movies are presented in such a way that they seem effortless. Never once are we to imagine that the whole scene is just a set, and the characters on screen are merely paid actors.<br /><br />The Bad and the Beautiful breaks that mould. For once we are shown the true gritty realism of what goes on behind the cameras. The studio systems, the dodgy and sometimes sleazy wheeler dealing's and the heartbreak and high running passions that go into making a motion picture. In short it is a movie about movie making.<br /><br />When a Director, an Actress and a Writer are called into the office of movie Mogul Harry Pebbel (Walter Pigeon) they are told that movie producer Jonathan Sheilds has fallen on hard times. He plans to make a come back but requires their combined talents to pull it off.<br /><br />However all four of them have had extensive dealings with Sheilds in the past and have all vowed never to even talk to him again let alone work with him. Each have their own reasons as each have suffered at Sheilds' hands.<br /><br />The rest of the picture is told in three individual flashbacks as it is explained just how and why Sheilds deserves such animosity, with Pebbels also explaining just what they all went on to achieve because of him and in spite of him.<br /><br />The Director is Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan) who started out as Sheilds' partner when they were a young Producer/Director team finding it hard to land a job. They have a very close friendship and make very low budget 'B' pictures. When the two men finally land a job with Harry Pebbel's studio, their pictures start to acquire success and with that comes the ambition to produce bigger and better projects.<br /><br />The two decide to take on Amiel's dream project and translate a best selling novel to the screen. Amiel has written a solid screenplay and longs more than anything to direct it. Requiring a big budget and 'A' list stars, the two of them pull out all the stops to get the necessary backing from the studio.<br /><br />It pays off but in the negotiations Amiel is all but dropped from the project, instead opting for a better known and more experienced Director. Sheilds however rides his ambition and signs on for the project despite the railroading of his best friend, and with Sheilds' star on the rise, the two end their partnership and their friendship on a bitter and acrimonious note.<br /><br />The Actress is Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner), the daughter of one of the early movie stars, who's tortured passed she hides behind a bottle. Despite her drunken exterior, Sheilds who now owns his own production company and studio, sees the potential for a star quality leading lady and signs her on for his next picture.<br /><br />During the preparation for the picture she falls in love with Sheilds. This coupled with the pressure of her first major role is too much for her, so once again she finds solace in drink which threatens to destroy the project.<br /><br />As a way of keeping Lorrison on track, Sheilds convinces her that he too is in love, and helps her develop as the actress she undoubtedly is. However when the film is released and Lorrison becomes the new Hollywood sensation, Sheilds drops her like a hot potato, an act made even more callous by the fact he is already with another woman and had probably been so all the time.<br /><br />The Writer is James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell) a southern intellectual who's first book has just been published and Sheilds intends to adapt it for the screen. After flying Bartlow and his wife out to Hollywood, Sheilds convinces him to write the screenplay as well.<br /><br />Bartlow is a happily married man who's home-life has always come first, however Sheilds believes that his wife is interfering with his work, so he engages his dashing leading man 'Goucho' (played by Gilbert Roland) to turn on his Latin charm and seduce the lady away from her husband while the screenplay is finished.<br /><br />This has tragic results as Goucho and Mrs Bartlow are killed in a plane crash, while running away to Mexico together so she can get a quick divorce and marry her new found Latin lover.<br /><br />Unaware that it was Sheilds' scheming that resulted in the infidelity and ultimate death of his wife, he finds solace in Sheilds and the two finally become close friends until the truth is finally unearthed.<br /><br />Kirk Douglas gives what is in my opinion his greatest performance as the selfish and scheming Jonathan Sheilds, especially in the scenes with Lana Turner. His power and emotion was so much deserving of the 1952 Oscar which finally went to Gary Cooper in High Noon.<br /><br />Although selfish and egotistical, hes not necessarily a bad man. He had his moments of kindness, he genuinely was remorseful over the death of Bartlow's wife and in an earlier scene, he speaks of how he wanted to make a star out of someone Hollywood had thrown onto the Ash pile. A boy who made good, wanting to give something back.<br /><br />He would lie, cheat, sacrifice and tread on anybody's heels to get his pictures on the screen, but he is not evil through and through, like most cinematic baddies and indeed like some of the real Hollywood producers who were out there at that time.<br /><br />Yet with all, thanks to Douglas' perfect performance, Jonathan Sheilds is destined to remain one of cinemas most loathsome and despicable characters