Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Paramount Pictures
Director: Billy Wilder
Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson. Erich vonStroheim, Nancy Olson

Honors:
Academy Award for Best Story
Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Black and White)
Academy Award for Best Score
Golden Globe for Best Picture
Best Film- National Board of Review
Best Film- New York Film Critics Circle
#12 on AFI Top 100 (1998)
#16 on AFI Top 100 (2007)
#16 on AFI Top Scores
National Film Registry

Billy Wilder delivers and compellingly different interpretation of Hollywood in his all-time classic motion picture Sunset Boulevard. Unlike the more satirical or inspiring features showcasing the entertainment capital nursed to audiences, this film delves into the dark recesses of its forgotten legends, how individuals in the business appear to be out for those themselves, and how quickly some are left behind. A film noir about legends, hard realities, skewed perception and tragedy, it is wonderfully crafted movie, so glorious, so detailed that it is considered one of the all-time best Hollywood pictures.

Sunset Boulevard a film noir of a struggling screenwriter who loses control of his world when he stumbles into the life of former silent movie star. Opening on the vision of a dead body in a swimming pool we are introduced to the victim, Joe Gillis (William Holden) as he recounts how he go there. Down on his luck Gillis is struggling Hollywood screenwriter avoiding collectors when he stumbles into a seemingly abandoned mansion off Sunset Boulevard. The owner of the manor is Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a recluse former major starlet of silent pictures who lives in alone in a shine to her past glory, her only companion her over protective butler Max (Erich von Stroheim). Delusional visions of grandeur have Norma plotting her great return to the pictures hiring Gillis to aid in editing a lengthy self-penned script, a ploy he concocts in his need for income.

Norma has Gillis moved into the mansion, carrying for all his needs, tying him to his work and molding him into a trophy man in her life as she begins to a force romantic relationship upon him. Feeling enclosed into Norma’s world Gillis moonlights with Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), a studio reader he had befriended, as they attempt to write a script based on a prior idea of his, falling in love along the way. Jealousy sees Norma attempt sabotage between Betty and Gillis leading to Gillis’s eventual demise by Norma, taking us back to the beginning of the picture. As police and news crews arrive to the crime scene that is the mansion, the delusional Norma with aid of Max, revealed to be her ex-director and ex-husband, believes the news cameras are there for her grand entrance in a picture, closing out the film.

A beautiful, sometimes humorous, and haunting portrayal of Hollywood and the forgotten specters of its past that occupy its forgotten corners, Sunset Boulevard is a great motion picture. The feature depicts a business and society that so readily pushes aside its elders for the here and now, creating troubled individuals of disillusionment and identity issues for those whose primes were just a short time ago. The acting is superb with William Holden embodying the cynical, sarcastic man that never met his goals, while Gloria Swanson portrays the great star dimmed and forgotten living in the memories of her own shadows while her livelihood has long past her by. The stunning black and white cinematography captures the visions of Hollywood past with such glory simultaneously giving it dreamlike quality as our hero falls into a nightmare.

Austrian born writer/director Billy Wilder enters mainstream filmmaking with a different perspective as Hollywood was his adopted hometown and English as his second language, giving him a genuinely unique view towards his everyday surrounding and use of its words. He was drawn to the history of the once dusty Southern California town, its power, and how quickly it appears to move forwards. Intrigued by the remnants of its resent past belied in the surrounding neighborhoods in the form of mansions of former silent luminaries Wilder concocted the story of one such star attempting to make a delusional return to the screen. Fleshed out with the aid of ever-present writing partner and producer Charles Brackett with aid from screenwriter D.M. Marshman Jr. they structured the script for Sunset Boulevard. Knowing that the negative viewpoints towards Hollywood and the insinuated gigolo romantic relationship between an older woman and a younger man would be moral issue for studio censors Wilder would submit the script a few pages at a time, even going into production with an incomplete shooting script to avoid issue with Paramount.

Originally intended for Montgomery Clift before he turned down the role just before production, William Holden portrays Joe Gillis, the down on his luck screenwriter, jaded by the business that cares little about those without a record of recent success. Holden was a just a Paramount contract actor still finding his way back into roles fallowing the war and saw Gillis to be a great opportunity for himself, enthusiastically filling in the vacancy. He delivers a character that is young with a sense of wisdom as he lost the joy of pursuing Hollywood, creating a perfect film noir characteristic that embodies the role so well. On set Holden was universally considered a joy to work with as he launched his career, earning him an Oscar nomination.

Of course, the true shining star of the picture was Gloria Swanson as the haunting Norma Desmond. Herself a former silent screen starlet that saw her career dwindle with the advent of talking pictures, she had abandoned Hollywood for New York where she starred in her own radio program. After the role of Norma Desmond was turned down by the likes of former Hollywood headliners of years past Mae West and Pola Negri, both respectfully taking issue with being presented as a “has been,” fellow filmmaker George Cukor suggested Swanson to Wilde. Despite a moment’s hesitation similar to the previous rejecters, she accepted the role with help of a salary much higher than she was making with just her radio program, but was considered a steal for Wilder. Swanson’s performance is an all-time classic as she embodies a character so rich and so flawed that she is frightening and sympathetic at the same time. She too was nominated for an Oscar as the role became the defining moment in her career, something she was not been too happy to accept considering her lengthy career on screen beforehand. She help deliver one of film’s great performances that transcended in to cinematic history.

Norma Desmond is accompanied with Max, her loyal butler, ex-director, and ex-husband disturbingly portrayed by Erich von Stroheim. Himself one of the great silent movie directors and performers that lost favor with the industry, his appearance and haunting presentation supplies additional poignant real-life poetry to Sunset Boulevard. The film even features a clip from Queen Kelly (1932), a silent picture starring Swanson directed by von Stroheim, here depicted as a movie Desmond watches with Gillis in her home. The role may have been nothing more than a much-needed paycheck for von Stroheim, but his performance is strikingly melancholy and a perfect addition to the story, he too nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Supporting Actor category.

To finish the film’s grand slam of Academy Award acting nominations is the performance of Nancy Olson as the peppy romantic interest to Gillis, Betty Schaefer. Only 21 years-old at the time, she was still very new too Paramount, even considered for the starring role in Samson and Delilah (1949). A virginal character yet to be broken by the machine of Hollywood, she represented the lost positivity that once laid in Gillis and his hope to return from the darkness Norma Desmond put him in. Olson’s Oscar nominated performance may not be too notable when compared to her fellow co-stars, but she played a valuable role in rounding out the story as the cast’s junior member.

What helps make the film so compelling both then and now is how it connects to Hollywood and its history. Featured within the picture are Cecil B. DeMille in a rather sizable supporting role and an appearance of famed Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper as themselves to accentuate Norma Desmond’s stature in cinema. Also appearing in cameos are Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H.B. Warner as members Norma’s bridge playing friends of past fame all adding to the significance of the cast to Hollywood past.

The overall style of the picture is film noir with light touches of humor dotted within the drama, but on the whole the picture is rather dark in nature. The black and white cinematography, use of shadows, dramatic lighting and smoke effects deliver a classic movie feel, but takes a dramatic turn as it harshly focuses so clearly on the make-up enhanced aged Swanson facial features to manifest the lost sheen of Hollywood from her being.

Sunset Boulevard would see a rewrite and reshoot to its opening scene after a preview screening resulted in unwanted laughter from the audience at the reveal of a hospital prone dead Gillis narrating the story. The result was the floating body that opens the picture and introduction by Gillis. The final product premiered at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, recording a seven-week stint that was one of the greatest box office turn outs for the venue to that point. The film experienced good numbers in many major American cities, but was found to be failing in smaller communities across the nation, resulting in a successful picture, but not a smash hit, despite good reviews.

Private screening within Hollywood manifested glorious reviews from many greats of the industry including performers and filmmakers, but some took exception to the picture. The most notable detractor was Louis B. Mayer who believed Sunset Boulevard too heavily harmed the image of Hollywood, stating how it “tarred and featured” the business. It was perhaps this kind of backroom disparagement that held back the highly acclaimed film’s lack of Academy Award success. Named the best film of the year by most major awards Sunset Boulevard’s was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including all the top six categories, but only won four while missing Best Picture, Director, and in all acting awards.

However, the legacy of the feature would continue to grow for the Sunset Boulevard, becoming heralded as one of the all-time great motion pictures in Hollywood history. It inspired many great filmmakers in years to come, continued to be significantly quoted with its exceptional writing, voted into the National Film Registry’s inaugural class of American film’s preserved at the Library of Congress, and named highly to both AFI Top 100 all-time American movies lists in both 1998 and 2007. All this is said without even mentioning the remarkable Oscar winning score of Franz Waxman. Sunset Boulevard is a treasure of cinema and a film to be studied over multiple times for its writing, cinematography, acting, and overall production as it easily stands out like an Everest in in cinematic history.