THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
This 1952 film stars Kirk Douglas as a movie producer with few scruples (or is that redundant?), which isn’t exactly new territory for a Hollywood movie. But director Vincente Minnelli’s drama does structure itself quite unusually, by teaching us about this movie producer by listening to (and watching) the very biased and personal perspectives of three people caught within his web – a writer, a director, and an actress. Lana Turner is a standout as the actress, and the shifting perspective brings to mind Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant movie Rashomon, which had been released only two years earlier. Co-stars include Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, and Gloria Grahame.