The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
Drama, Romance • 1h 58m
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Cast: Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame, Leo G. Carroll, Gilbert Roland, Paul Stewart, Vanessa Brown, Elaine Stewart, Sammy White, Ivan Triesault, Lucy Knoch, Jay Adler, Stanley Andrews, Del Armstrong, Ben Astar, Barbara Billingsley, Madge Blake, Marshall Bradford, Paul Bradley, Hadda Brooks, Ralph Brooks, Robert Burton, Francis X. Bushman, Louis Calhern, Marietta Canty, Robert Carson, Beulah Christian, Janet Comerford, James Conaty, Jonathan Cott, Lillian Culver, Alexis Davidoff, Bob Davis, Sandy Descher, Helen Dickson, Phil Dunham, Steve Dunhill, Franklyn Farnum, James Farrar, Bess Flowers, Charles Fogel, George Ford, Steve Forrest, Kathleen Freeman, Rudy Germane, Frank Gerstle, Joe Gilbert, Ned Glass, James Gonzalez, Phyllis Graffeo, Herschel Graham, A. Cameron Grant, Marion Gray, William E. Green, Dabbs Greer, Robert Haines, Sam Harris, Dick Johnstone, Ted Jordan, Joseph Keane, Kenner G. Kemp, Peggy King, Mike Lally, Louise Lane, George J. Lewis, Wilbur Mack, Paul Marion, Paul Maxey, May McAvoy, Harold Miller, Hans Moebus, Patrick J. Molyneaux, Roger Moore, Ellanora Needles, Richard Norris, William H. O'Brien, Pat O'Malley, Christopher Olsen, Dorothy Patrick, William Phillips, Murray Pollack, Paul Power, Kathy Qualen, Anthony Redondo, Jeff Richards, Loretta Russell, Jeffrey Sayre, Frank J. Scannell, Perry Sheehan, George Sherwood, Reginald Simpson, Mabel Smaney, Norman Stevans, William Tannen, Dee Turnell, Harry Tyler, Kaaren Verne, Ray Walker, Harte Wayne, Lawrence A. Williams, Eric Wilton, Wilson Wood, Douglas Yorke, Helen Young
Best English-friendly release · updated 4 months ago
Overview
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
Director: Steve James
Director: Victor Fleming
3D: Warner Bros 3D Blu-ray or Apple Vision Pro
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
Director: Tony Scott
The 70mm 6-track mix has a higher bitrate on the Paramount 1998 DVD, but is more limited than on the THX LaserDisc The Paramount 1998 DVD also has open matte versions in fullscreen 1.33:1 and widescreen 2.00:1 instead of the theatrical aspect ratio of 2.39:1, but the 2.00:1 widescreen presentation is non-anamorphic. The THX LaserDisc is available in both fullscreen 1.33:1 and widescreen 2.00:1 variants.
Director: Terrence Malick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Lovely underlying remaster by Criterion and Resillion but encode is sadly low-pass filtered by Pixelogic, and even then, the encode is still less than ideal. Still easily obliterates any prior disc release, but certainly wouldn't hurt to have a UK or German label take a crack at this same master.
Director: Anthony Mann
Criterion 4K Blu-ray, Universal 2008 DVD
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
2008 Universal DVD mono
The mono on the Criterion is severely filtered resulting in it sounding incredibly muffled. It is nearly as filtered as the 2003 original Universal DVD which had extreme filtering and sounds horribly thin. The 2008 DVD remaster and original Laserdisc analog mastering are mostly left alone. The original LD master is from a worn element but otherwise sounds very natural. The 2008 DVD is the highest quality version we have without the heavy filtering and the defects of the LD master. It isn't perfect but easily the best of the main four sources by a dramatic margin.
The existing 4K SDR restoration looks excellent, but the Criterion extras are limited and disappointing. The classic Stewart interview commentary from the LD is ported over but given a new mastering. Compared to past releases it has been very slightly noise reduced.
Criterion Box Set coming October 20th with FiM encode, work done to un-Nolan the 4K master, the first ever appearance of the 35mm mono track on physical media and a new restoration/remastering of the 70mm 6-track mix.
(early pressing has errors of a shot, later pressings fixed)
Director: Vincente Minnelli
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
TV series
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative for all episodes
Director: John Ford
Sources: ibb.co (opens in a new tab)
Warner Archive Blu-ray is 4K restoration from nitrate projection elements
Germany Filmjuwelen Blu-ray is AI upscaled https://ibb.co/album/mCJ7RQ
Director: Norman Taurog
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Delbert Mann
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Lloyd Bacon
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
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