This is the last day of Summer Under the Stars. And sadly, we have an Errol Flynn situation on our hands, meaning the star of today is someone I am… not a fan of. But, I pushed through. Here’s Kirk Douglas.
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
This is Hollywood. I read The Day of the Locust a few weeks ago, a novel praised for its accurate and brutal portrayal of what goes on under the facade of Tinseltown and The Bad and the Beautiful felt very similar.
Kirk Douglas plays a son of a studio head who was successful but hated to a point where Kirk had to hire extras for his funeral. Kirk wants to make a new film and gathers a group of people he worked with earlier in his career to, hopefully, collaborate with them again. The problem is, they all think he ruined their lives and don’t want to associate with him again. The story is told in flashbacks by each of the people.
Gloria Grahame won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of the wife of a novelist who wrote a big hit for Kirk. But the person who impressed ME the most was Lana Turner. Many people write revisionist history in which she’s not a great actress but I found her absolutely mesmerizing in her portrayal of a woman hurt and desperate in this. Good to have this after the mess that was yesterday’s Where Love Has Gone.
In the end, the Hollywood allure wins over the personal grievances. But is the art (or, the business) really worth your soul? I don’t think The Bad and the Beautiful tries to make judgments here – this is just show business and this is the way those people live.
The Big Sky (1952)
Westerns galore this Summer Under the Stars! Kirk and Dewey Martin are traveling through the wilderness eventually going a team of fur trappers. They kidnap a woman of the Blackfeet tribe so that they can trade with her people. Other trading companies don’t have such opportunities.
This is a Howard Hawks film that to me seems more like a TV series. There’s are many plot lines happening and the colours of the copy I had access to looked like an episode of Bonanza.
It’s an entertaining western for the most part but the portrayal of Teal Eye (the Blackfoot girl) made me cringe a bit (even though the actress, for whom this was the only film, was actually Native American which is always nice to see in Old Hollywood) and sometimes it gets tiring to focus when so much drama is introduced when most of it doesn’t even seem like a big deal.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral is O.K.
It’s a western.
Kirk Douglas annoyed me to no end.
But Dennis Hopper was weirdly adorable.
It’s almost 11 PM on August 31st. It’s the end of Summer Under the Stars. I am exhausted. But I did it. I watched films and posted every day, even if it was just some nonsense.
(And while I’m glad that I’ll get to rest a bit now, I got a bit sad that there is no filmography to check out for tomorrow).
Swingin' at the Seance 