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Poster for The Bad and the Beautiful
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Released
1952 · FILM

The Bad and the Beautiful

Ambitious Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields will stop at nothing to create a masterpiece and cement his legacy—only to discover that his relentless manipulation of friends, stars, and directors threatens to destroy the very empire he’s built.

I took you out of the gutter... I can fling you back!

Runtime
118 min
DramaRomance

Synopsis

The film is presented in flashback and follows the rise and fall of the ambitious and tough Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields, as viewed through the perspectives of several acquaintances, including writer James Lee Bartlow, star Georgia Lorrison, and director Fred Amiel. Shields is a driven individual who ascends to become one of Hollywood's leading filmmakers through ruthless manipulation of those around him.

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 18

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by Conrad A NervigShot by Robert SurteesScored by David Raksin

Box Office

1952 · Box office

⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.2× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$3.4M

Budget$1.6M
Worldwide gross$3.4M
break-even (2.5×)

Also known as

  • Stadt der Illusionende
  • Cautivos del males
  • Les Ensorcelésfr
  • Il bruto e la bellait

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