Born to Be Bad (1950)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Very well executed

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I was intrigued by the title, expected to see an old black and white movie with drama.Instead, it started with 16 minutes of dull, gossip, characters that talk in clichés, know and don't know each other - no point in the dialogues.I suspect the "bad" person is the soft talking "angle", who looks rather old in my opinion but hardly can be bad compared to what you experience nowaday 67 years later.It is boring, take too long before you (only me) can get head and tail on what this film is about. The title is misleading.

. . and incites this humble reviewer to an extended rhapsody.'Born to Be Bad' is yummy fun for film buffs, fans of Joan Fontaine, film noir and Nick Ray, as well as students of Gay history. Released the same year as 1950's 'All About Eve', with a similar theme: scheming wallflower breezes into town and proceeds to steal another woman's fabulous life.Here the setting is not the Broadway crowd, but a subtler, more spacious and brightly-lit counterpart in the cosmopolitan circles of post-WWII San Francisco. You got the richest (and most naive) young man in town, his erstwhile capable fiancée, their snappy-mercenary gay artist pal, a hyper-hetero rough young novelist on the verge of fame, and his diminutive high-power agent -- who invites his poor-relation niece into the mix, who -- wham-bam -- proceeds to s - - t all over everything and everybody.Fascinating to watch Joan play against type as Christabel -- the actress's natural sweetness here contextualized as pure ruthless artifice as she smarms her way to the top. Nobody's terribly nice to anybody else in this film anyway (even the minor characters and extras throw continuous shade), thus, as in 'All About Eve', their less-than-saintly, less-than-solid society is vulnerable to invasion by an ambitious nobody -- who needs do little more than strategically scratch the surface in order to prevail. Juicy, fun cinema of manners! Nobody's fooled by the interloper for very long -- all but her wealthy target are on to her from nearly the start -- but for a variety of reasons: from not wanting to appear unseemly, to raw self-interest -- everybody lets her get away with it. Messy, messy -- just like life. Joan Leslie as the wronged woman is particularly effective at conveying the helplessness of an otherwise savvy and capable person caught in the cross-hairs of an expert predator.Mel Ferrer as the gay artist Gabby (short for Gabriel, which he insists everybody pronounce affectedly as 'Gahbby') is worth noting, in the kind of role usually given to professional crypto-gay aesthete types like Clifton Webb -- suitably neutered by convention so as not to suggest carnality. Ferrer on the other hand is here a butch, young, handsome actor of considerable masculine sex appeal, not to say talent. (Ferrer would later marry and guide the career of Audrey Hepburn.) He's given genuinely-funny bitchy epigrams throughout, and several flat-out declarations of his orientation, albeit in the usual euphemistic language required in that time -- yet, apart from a charming too-graceful hand gesture and giggle in his first scene, Ferrer wisely avoids any hint of camp effeminate stereotype -- he just lets himself be a serious guy running his business who happens to be openly gay -- a singularly revolutionary thing in film at that time, and still elusive in film today.Ferrer's brief scenes with Robert Ryan as the 'lady-killer' man's man, and Zachary Scott as the rich 'sap', indicate that straight guys think he's a fine fellow and enjoy long-term friendships with him, and suggest a couple of other things: Ferrer when sharing the screen with Scott and Ryan, appears equally fit and young, i.e., sexually viable. Zachary Scott's passive softness and his own sometime crypto-gay actor's image cause one particular moment between Ferrer and Scott to speak of a possible personal history beyond friendship. The three of them represent male archetypes, benchmarks on the Kinsey male sexuality scale: hard hetero, in-between, and strickly-d- - -ly, with Joan's 'rich Uncle John' the literary super-agent thrown in, who for all appearances is a self-made gay man sublimating his sexuality into his work. Joan also must escape the passive-aggressive meddling of her countrified cloying 'Aunt Clara', the archetypal 'spinster' cinematic crypto-lesbian.It's that kind of movie -- subtext, subtext, subtext -- or why Nick Ray matters! As with other masters -- Douglas Sirk and Michael Powell come to mind -- nothing in the frame is ever there by accident. Ray's cinematic language to convey, within 1950 restrictions, when illicit sex acts actually take place in the story -- which is often -- is so raw and original one feels the need for a hot bath afterward, as Joan's character in fact does at one suspenseful point. Robert Ryan deserves much credit for this -- his character is unapologetically bestial -- a priapic satyr -- practically swallowing Joan whole in every scene they are in together.The DVD I saw included an alternative ending in the extras. It has its good points, additional tawdry humor, etc. Recommended. (Glad they went with the one they went with though.)

With a long camera closeup lingering on her, you know that sweet looking Joan Fontaine is truly trouble. With the soap opera sounding name of Christabel Kane, Fontaine could be the aunt that Erica Kane of "All My Children" picked up a thing or two from. In fact, the whole plot line has a soap opera plot set up: distant relative Fontaine showing up at the home of Joan Leslie's, expected a day later, and passive aggressively setting up her scheming from the moment Leslie finds her sitting in her living room.Between the two women and three men (Robert Ryan, Zachary Scott and Mel Ferrer), there's enough soapy plot to fill an entire afternoon. Fontaine had played vixens before, but no one like Christabelle. Her murderess in "Ivy" was a period femme fatale, basically the American version of a Margaret Lockwood character, so in modern dress, she gets to be openly a modern women, basically a sort of Eve Harrington type schemer breaking into society rather than theater.The anti-hero bad boy, Robert Ryan, sees through her from the start, but is intrigued by her two sides. But if homewrecker has a picture in the dictionary, Fontaine's likeness in character should be there as she sets her eyes on Leslie's fiancée (Zachary Scott), with a painting by Mel Ferrer opening his eyes about her, and not taken in by her lady like facade. This goes for the gold as a camp classic, quite over the top, especially when Ryan refers to her painting as a cross between Lucretia Borgia and Peg o my heart.As for Leslie, she has a major makeup call as she's brought to life by the revelation of who this dangerous vixen really is and how she became the hand that not only rocked the cradle, but cracked it as well. Psychological darkness of the soul even opens the eyes of the amoral men, making this one of the few film noir where no crime is committed. Like the same named Erica Kane of daytime legend, God help any woman who gets any more male attention than her.

I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed BORN TO BE BAD (1950). The plot, about a woman who infiltrates a circle of friends and destroys their relationships, suggests a lot of melodrama. But the movie is buoyed by an excellent cast of characters and a script that sparkles with wit.There is drama, to be sure, but there's some nice humor that comes from the characters and their relationships with one another. Nothing gets so serious that somebody pulls a gun or commits suicide or anything. There are no shrill histrionics. The movie is a little racy for Hayes Code fare, but it's not terribly dark or gritty. It's a rather pleasant tale about a selfish woman who only hurts herself in the end.Robert Ryan is great as the cynical, rough-edged author. Mel Ferrer is great as the witty painter. Joan Fontaine is lovely as always as the maneater who conceals her scheming behind a façade of sweet innocence. This is a sexier, sneakier Joan Fontaine than viewers may be accustomed to. Joan Leslie, still only twenty-five, is fine in her adult role, after years of playing ingenues. Zachary Scott rounds out the principal cast as Leslie's rich fiancé.Nicholas Ray deftly handles the directing duties, in both the busy party scenes and the noir-ish love scenes.The movie isn't very deep or compelling, but it is very watchable thanks to the terrific performances and some wonderfully witty lines. Robert Ryan steals the show.