The melancholy that creeps into even Minnelli's brightest musicals takes center stage in this scabrous portrait of life in Hollywood. Kirk Douglas stars as an independent producer who does whatever it takes to make the pictures he wants. Seen in flashback (a touch of Citizen Kane by way of producer John Houseman), Douglas's rise and fall hinges on a series of cynical calculations that turn trusted friends—Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan and Lana Turner—into betrayed enemies. Often celebrated as one of the great Hollywood films about Hollywood, with its vision of the studio system as a place where artistic vision can be realized only at the cost of great personal sacrifice, The Bad and the Beautiful is also the apotheosis of one of Minnelli’s preoccupations: the loneliness of the artist. Robert Surtees’ evocative cinematography finds shadows lurking everywhere.