The Bad and the Beautiful
1952 film
The Bad and the Beautiful is a 1952 American melodrama film 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 (including Grahame as Best Supporting Actress) of six nominations in 1952, a record for the most awards for a film not nominated for Best Picture or for Best Director.
In 2002, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Plot
In Hollywood, director Fred Amiel, movie star Georgia Lorrison and screenwriter James Lee Bartlow each refuse to speak by phone to Jonathan Shields in Paris. Film producer Harry Pebbel gathers them in his office and explains that Shields has a new film idea and that he wants the three of them for the project. Shields cannot procure financing on his own, but with their names attached, there would be no problem. Pebbel asks them to speak with Shields on the phone before they provide their final answer.
As they await Shields' call, Pebbel assures them that he understands why they had refused to speak to Shields. Their involvement with Shields unfolds in a series of flashbacks.
“The Bad and the Beautiful” enters the record as 1952 film. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Beautiful and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“The Bad and the Beautiful” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Beautiful and film provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1345583. VIAF identifies the subject as 176464897. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952 and 2002.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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This entry incorporates text from “The Bad and the Beautiful” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.