Here's Dancin' Dan to continue our mini Kirk Douglas fest. The actor turns 100 this Friday.
For every performer, a film lover has THAT performance. The one that makes you fall in love with them. Or, short of that, the moment you totally understand why they became a star.
I had seen a few Kirk Douglas films before Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful, most notably Spartacus and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but I was not a great lover of the man himself even when I liked the films. That changed when watching Minnelli's behind-the-Hollywood-scenes epic. Whether it was due to the match of actor to character, the quality of the film, or Douglas's performance itself, who can say, but this performance made me a believer...
Which is interesting, of course, because The Bad and the Beautiful is all about the magnetic pull of Kirk Douglas.
Douglas plays Jonathan Shields, an artistic genius movie producer who screwed over all those closest to him one too many times. But they still come running when he calls to pitch a new movie idea, despite what a colossal asshole he was to them. The film's flashback structure means we know Jonathan is an asshole before we ever meet him, but even knowing that, it's damn hard not to fall for him just like director Fred, star Georgia, and writer James do. There is a fire burning inside him that ignites everything he touches. It's warm and beautiful at first, but eventually it burns you.
The film absolutely needs Kirk Douglas in the role of Jonathan in order to work. His manic expressiveness comes through even in quieter moments, making it incredibly easy to believe in whatever he's saying, and even easier to dismiss his more rakish qualities, at least until he eventually hits rock bottom and that energy turns violent. He's so great at playing the curdling of this man's soul that it isn't until the film's third flashback segment that you notice how exquisitely judged the performance is, how carefully he's sown all the seeds of Jonathan's personality. When the hammer falls, it falls fast, but you see it coming from just far enough away to want to yell at his partners to move aside, leave, get out while they still can.
But still, he's so charming. There's that boyish glee and knowing smirk that are just irresistible. He pulls you back in, makes you believe. Maybe this time will be different. It's a great performance of artistic bipolarity - the highs when you're working on an idea and creating something from it, and the lows when it's all over. And Douglas navigates that with the aplomb of a seasoned performer who knows that very journey all too well, and relishes getting to sink his teeth into it for a performance. I wouldn't want to take away Gary Cooper's High Noon Oscar that year, but boy is this a magnificent, magical star turn.
Previously: Lust for Life