Sunset Boulevard

Although this movie was made 8 years before I was, I saw it for the first time yesterday and I was blown away! I have spent my life missing what has just become one of my favorite movies of all time.

The acting was superb, the storyline riveting and the characters were people you could care about. Max was my personal favorite. There was a quiet, tragic dignity to him. I expected something to be revealed about him but was not prepared for the truth.

I've always liked William Holden but my experience with Gloria Swanson was limited to her brief role in "Airport 75". I will now look for more movies by her. What an expressive face.

It was fun to try to recognize some of the old time actors that were portraying themselves.

An all around excellent movie. One I truly regret having waited this long to see. But it is definitely a case of better late than never.

Not a romanticised view of Tinseltown at all, this Billy Wilder movie was more or less ignored on release - the year that All About Eve took all the awards and the kudos. It is a bitter pill to swallow since it takes a kick at Hollywood's guts and has one of the bleakest endings in the whole of cinema.

Joe Gillis, a struggling writer, finds himself in the drive of a Hollywood palazzo when he wants somewhere to hide his car. The house belongs to Norma Desmond, who 'used to be big' in pictures, and Joe gets drawn to Norma and drawn into her weird world of flickering shadows.

The acting honours in this movie go squarely to Gloria Swanson, herself a 'star of yesteryear' as Norma, who is superb as the actress living in the past. Not that she plays Norma as exclusively tragic(the scene where she impersonates Chaplin is priceless) but perhaps no one could get to grips with the demands of this part better. William Holden plays Joe, his breakthrough role, and he does the part very well, while Erich von Stroheim plays faded Hollywood director Max von Mayerling (naturally a reflection of himself), and newcomer Nancy Olson plays Betty, a girl too nice to become submerged just yet in dreamland's poison.

The script is its moments of OTT-ness, but it is never less than interesting and draws in the viewer to the point when you are with Norma when she visits her old studio and talks of the joy of coming home; you are with Joe and Nancy as they fall in love among the cardboard settings of movie sets; and you are in the hall with Hedda Hopper watching Norma's last descent into madness.

The musical version which appeared in the 1990s had the heart and soul of this movie in mind, and was an excellent tribute to it.

Joe Gillis is floating face down in a pool and tells his story.That story tells how he met Norma Desmond, a big star from the silent era who now is forgotten by the people.She's planning a major comeback with a script of Salome.She wants Joe to help her with the movie.The movie's no good, everybody can see that, but Joe still stays around to help her.Soon he realizes that it was a big mistake.Sunset Blvd. (1950) is a masterpiece from the master called Billy Wilder.The actors are really unique.William Holden is superb as Joe Gillis and Gloria Swanson, an actual silent film star, is absolutely brilliant as Norma.Erich von Stroheim does a wonderful job as Max von Mayerling and so does the beautiful Nancy Olson as Betty Schaefer.In cameos you can see people like Cecil B.DeMille and Buster Keaton.The movie is something really special from the beginning till the end.You can't see movies like this these days.Now we don't have directors like Billy Wilder to make them.In his movies everything usually worked.Especially the dialog was something you don't have so often in modern movies.What happened to the great writers? Only a few seem to exist.

Every time I go to L.A., which isn't too often, I look at these palm-bemused, once smart stucco facades, and wonder if a Norma Desmond from a later era might be hiding from the world inside them, buttressed by cable TV (AMC or TCM, no doubt), a poodle named FiFi or Sir Francis, walk-in closets full of leopard-print Capri pants that haven't fit in decades, and a world class liquor cabinet that has seen heads of state under the table on a good night. It is because of Sunset Blvd., for certain, that my mind could ever go there. It is one of the most indelible films you will ever see.

This film is great for many reasons, not the least of which is because it is Hollywood's first look back at itself. In the milieu of this film, the silent era is only 22 years behind us. The people left behind by the rush to sound can still palpably TASTE the fame, the accolade, that particular past being not so very dim and distant. The sadness of their lives was real, and at that point in history, all around, if hidden. Way more has been made of the supposed "savagery" of this film vis a vis the faded star than I think exists now, or ever did. The often cynical Wilder is deeply in touch with the tragic here, as much as the grotesque.

... how would you feel if the sexes of the characters were reversed? Suppose it was a woman writer trying to break into Hollywood, completely broke who, due to a flat tire, wanders into that big mansion. Pretty much financially cornered, she agrees to a job reworking some old film star's (let's say John Gilbert lived) script and comeback vehicle and slowly, what independence she has is taken away - her things are moved from her apartment where she is behind on her rent into a room over the garage at the mansion, her host sits by and lets her car be repossessed, she is never paid the promised cash for her work, a bad rainstorm moves her from her room over the garage into a room in the main house where there are no locks on the doors and thus no privacy, and then the seduction. Who would be the cad then?

So I think Wilder meant for the audience to sympathize with Joe. Sure he makes some questionable moral moves, but he is to some degree cornered. He would have to get a hand out from somebody to go back to his job that he hates at the copy desk in Ohio, and his pride wouldn't let him. Also, some say he becomes attracted to Norma. He at best is giving her pity sex and at worst duty sex. He looks either revolted or bored every time she touches him.

There are just great performances and interesting characters all around. Unpopular opinion here - I never thought Gloria Swanson was a pretty woman, but she had such severe features that she could come across as an attractive yet unhinged woman for age 50 as Norma. Eric Von Stroheim as Max. He was a great director who lets his obsession with Norma delude them both. And then there is Betty Schaefer, the down to earth girl who does the 50s thing and gets engaged to a man the way you would buy a car - she picks something reliable and likeable and omits passion from the equation. And then she finds passion. There could have been a sequel noir with her married to the dull dutiful Artie when she begins to call the mailman by his first name. The postman would only have to ring once in her case. But I digress.

This is also a great look at Hollywood and Paramount Studios as it existed in 1950. It's too bad we don't have more actual films from Paramount Studios as it existed in 1950. To me this is a perfect film.