The Bad and the Beautiful is on theater marquees. Cop cars are torpedo-nosed Fords. The news that the Los Angeles Times screams in banner headlines is about crime. We hear his manual typewriter in the background as he taps out his stories. The spine of the film is essence d'noir.
Characters wander lost in moral deserts.
Some are looking for their oasis. Some try like hell to avoid their oasis and stumble on it anyway. He had a hand in the Robert Mitchum marijuana bust. He's on the take from Hudgins, who has the goods on everybody . Hudgins sets up people in the film business for Vincennes to arrest, and Hudgins there with his camera.