Enjoyed this more than before, ironic melodrama in familiar style of writer-director of A Letter To Three Wives (it won best film, screenplay and director Oscars); also seems to go hand-in-hand with Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful. Anne Baxter great as passive-aggressor who is utterly ruthless, Better Davis as fading actress (both nominated), George Sanders in familiarly oily role (won Oscar), Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Gregory Ratoff, Thelma Ritter, Marilyn Monroe, Walter Hampden and Barbara Bates in brilliant conclusion where the new Challenger to the Throne arrives. (Reading up on Bates quickly, she had a tragic life.)
Not especially cinematic, quite talky, but a real drama classic, underscored by Tom's dad Alfred Newman (one of his staggering 44 Oscar nominations) and lit by Milton Krasner (one of his).
Long.
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