Lana Turner abandoned developing her talent into becoming a good actress early in her career when still a teen-age starlet. Here a mature Lana puts out her usual wooden performance, an actress always acting, always conveying to the audience that she is Lana Turner, Sex Goddess and Movie Star. Kirk Douglas is fierce and dictatorial, a character type he excels at and could probably play in his sleep. Dick Powell is a bland presence in every movie he's in. Walter Pigeon is in it too. Aren't he and Melvyn Douglas the same person? Barry Sullivan, a competent B movie actor, has a role. Gilbert Roland is thrown in for effect to represent the generic Latin Lover female moviegoers traditionally swoon over. Gloria Grahame shows up too, always the "dame," in this case a Southern belle one fluttering and flitting all over the place; and the Academy honored her with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for 1952!
That takes care of the cast. As for the story, well it's supposed to be an inside look at Hollywood wheelers and dealers, star making, and breaking, glory takers and those on the down escalator to failure. It's the real story, exposed! Wrong. It is so full of clichés and tired old tropes, stereotypes--- everything that the public anticipates and comfortably accepts in a fictionalized story purported to be drawn on "real life" events and people. All the soap opera melodrama bursts out of it everywhere making scenes meant to be taken seriously more like comedic spoofs from Saturday Night Live. And the Academy honored this with a Best Screenplay Oscar for 1952!
The weepy, poignant musical score by David Raksin serves as the baleful icing dripping off this collapsed cake.
To say that this is not director Vincent Minelli's best effort is an understatement. He made a lot of good movies. This should be relegated to the bottom of the heap.
That takes care of the cast. As for the story, well it's supposed to be an inside look at Hollywood wheelers and dealers, star making, and breaking, glory takers and those on the down escalator to failure. It's the real story, exposed! Wrong. It is so full of clichés and tired old tropes, stereotypes--- everything that the public anticipates and comfortably accepts in a fictionalized story purported to be drawn on "real life" events and people. All the soap opera melodrama bursts out of it everywhere making scenes meant to be taken seriously more like comedic spoofs from Saturday Night Live. And the Academy honored this with a Best Screenplay Oscar for 1952!
The weepy, poignant musical score by David Raksin serves as the baleful icing dripping off this collapsed cake.
To say that this is not director Vincent Minelli's best effort is an understatement. He made a lot of good movies. This should be relegated to the bottom of the heap.