Sunset Blvd. [Region 2] | William Holden, Gloria Swanson | One of the best films ever made about...

Sunset Blvd. [Region 2] | William Holden, Gloria Swanson | "A Dead Man's Hand"

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Sunset Blvd. [Regi...

	Sunset Blvd. [Region 2] William Holden, Gloria Swanson average customer review:based on 254 reviews
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highly recommended

Billy Wilder's noir-comic classic about death and decay in Hollywood remains as pungent as ever in its power to provoke shock, laughter, and gasps of astonishment. Joe Gillis (William Holden), a broke and cynical young screenwriter, is attempting to ditch a pair of repo men late one afternoon when he pulls off L.A.'s storied Sunset Boulevard and into the driveway of a seedy mansion belonging to Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a forgotten silent movie luminary whose brilliant acting career withered with the coming of talkies. The demented old movie queen lives in the past, assisted by her devoted (but intimidating) butler, Max (played by Erich von Stroheim, the legendary director of Greed and Swanson's own lost epic, Queen Kelly). Norma dreams of making a comeback in a remake of Salome to be directed by her old colleague Cecil B. DeMille (as himself), and Joe becomes her literary and romantic gigolo. Sunset Blvd. is one of those great movies that has become a part of popular culture (the line "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up," has entered the language)--but it's no relic. Wow, does it ever hold up. --Jim Emerson

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One of the best films ever made about Hollywood, tough, yet human too....

This is one of those classics that deserves its reputation and then some. It's one of the best films ever made about Hollywood, and it doesn't have a trace of "inside" jokes or condenscenion as a lot of films/TV shows about Hollywood do today. The story starts out in startling fashion as a dead William Holden is narrating from the grave (you see his body in a pool in the famous opening scene, then they flashback). Holden is a down on his luck screenwriter who stumbles across Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson), a former silent screen star who lives with her trusted butler (played by the great filmmaker Erich von Stroheim). She has delusions of a comeback, and he assists her by shaping her screenplay about Salome. Holden finds the script hopelessly self indulgent, but he needs the cash, so he agrees.

The film is startling in many ways. It's a cynical, hard boiled film (close to film noir), but it isn't heartless, as many think it is. It has some of the greatest lines in movie history, and some startling scenes, such as the opening and the scene where Desmond mistakes Holden for the caretaker who has come to bury her dead monkey (the shot of the monkey is very creepy and unsettling, even today). It has some of the greatest performances in any film. Holden is terrific as the screenwriter just trying to survive, Swanson is astounding as Norma Desmond, the still alluring yet terrifying former screen star, and Erich von Stroheim is wonderful as Max, the faithful butler. The mansion in which Desmond lives looks like it was out of a Von Stroheim film from the 1920's (this may have been intentional), perhaps even emulating Von Stroheim's last film, Queen Kelly (which starred Gloria), as well. Cecil B. DeMille himself shows up playing himself, and he has some of the best scenes. He comes across as warm and humanistic, and his sadness feels very real. One of the most remarkable and poignant scenes in the film is when a gaffer recognizes Norma Desmond, she acknowledges him, and he puts the spotlight on her. Everyone on the film that DeMille is shooting recognize her, and they flock to her with admiration and love. It's a beautiful moment, perfectly realised, and it shows while Billy Wilder may have been a cynical [...], he wasn't a complete, heartless [...].

The film has hardly dated at all (most of Wilder's work hasn't), and its cynicism, intelligence, and depth still sear the screen like no other film on Hollywood. This is arguably the best film ever made about Tinseltown. There have been many films on Hollywood (Altman's The Player is one of the best examples, but sometimes that's a bit too much inside), but this one remains the best.

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"A Dead Man's Hand"

The eerie opening of the movie, sets the tone. William Holden is speaking, telling of his experince and you realize that he is the dead man floating in the pool and it is a post-mortem spiel. This is the one film that I remember Gloria Swanson for--her playing of the dusty movie relic who has an over-exaggerated sense of self-importance in Hollywood. In fact she is long forgotten. William Holden had the unfortunate luck to get mixed up with her, and as the authorities are coming to take her away, she delivers her classic line, "Mr. DeMille, I am ready for my close-up." Thinking that the members of the press are the production company of a new movie that she will star in. Dementia rears its ugly head. What a great classic movie. Swanson and Holden are fabulous.

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The Single Greatest Film About Hollywood

I watched it again today-for about the 50th time-and again it grabbed me and held me.
And again I was struck by the fact that of all the lines quoted from it the very best isn't quoted much and isn't delivered by Norma or Joe. It's delivered by C.B. de Mille when Norma visits him on the set of Sampson And Delilah, "A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit."
It just gets more true every year.
Phil Brown

Is Sunset Boulevard Film Noir?

Film Noir is juxtaposed against a post-war optimism (Film Noir 1994, Sklar 269-285). As if Hollywood and its audience were not convinced that everything was peaches and cream, Hollywood would revert to a darker mood culminating, for our discussion, in a form of self-reflexivity and foreboding about the coming of television and nostalgia for the golden age of silent movies in a film like Sunset Boulevard (1950). According to the writers of the documentary Film Noir (1994), movies such as Samuel Goldwyn's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) and the musical Ziegfeld Follies (1946) where released alongside Film Noir seminal piece Detour (1945). Unlike the two big budget films, Film Noir offerings such as Detour were "B" movies made on the cheap allowing them break all the rules. Film Noir, it could be argued is an example of the Production Code forcing directors to be creative vis-à-vis sex, violence, and even subversive themes.

Film noir in general and Sunset Boulevard (1950) in particular inhabit that liminal time and space of a pre-television era (as we see with the final scene of Sunset Boulevard). Hollywood as self-reflective is evidence in the movie-within-a-movie scene where Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and Joe Gillis (William Holden) watch one of Swanson's old silent movies: Queen Kelly (1929) a movie directed by Erich Von Stroheim - who plays Max Von Mayerling. Details of this change in subjectivity, which outlines one of many moves that display Billy Wilder's range, complexity, and genius, will be discussed below.

According to Michael Walker, "Film noir is not simply a certain type of crime movie, but also a generic field: a set of elements and features which may be found in a range of different sorts of films. The generic labeling of films adopted by Hollywood studios for their own purposes (casting, production, marketing, etc.) does not do justice to the complex interaction of determinants - including generic elements - in any given film" (Cameron 8). Simply put, in the 40s/50s cycle - the films made a break with the 30s cycle that included various distinct elements (listed above in the "Summary"). Although tied in with gangster flicks film noir say in its use of a, "lone, often introverted hero" (Cameron 8). Walker adds that this hero is a, "victim of a hostile world" (Cameron 8) and the movies usually tackle a problem of a political nature set in a personal struggle. The mood set is often somber and cynical and the mode de emploi usually voice over. In Film Noir 1994, Film Noir is seen not as a genre but, "... a look, a tone, or a feel" (Film Noir 1994). Narrative style and character type/development - one of deep psychological angst - are two of the more distinctive elements spoken of above. More specifically, I will discuss the creative and varied uses of flashback and the notion of the femme fatale as destroyer (Cameron 12).

A film like Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Double Indemnity (1944) use flashback (Spicer 76). One cannot escape two of the more profound contributions of Billy Wilder to this genre Double Indemnity (1944) and Wilder's crowning achievement Ace in the Hole (1951) which marked the peak of noir era. According to Spicer, "Sunset Boulevard (1950) uses the flashback narrative of a man already dead. Although the protagonist appears to be in control of the retelling of the story, it is really the past events that are still controlling him, which he would love to alter if he could" (Spicer 76). Double Indemnity (1944) is the perfect segue to talk about the second element the femme fatale. Spicer writes "Thus Neff's flashbacks have a double purpose: to try to exorcise the malign influence of the femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), and to renew a bond of loyalty with Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) which offers some form of redemption" (Spicer 76). Both of these elements are used very skillfully by Jacques Tourneur in the Film Noir masterpiece Out of the Past (1947). Tourneur deftly uses flashback to bring back the main character Jeff Bailey's (Robert Mitchum) past. Bailey narrates his sordid past with Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) - the film's femme fatale - to his pastoral country girlfriend Ann Miller (Virginia Huston). Marie Windsor, in the documentary Film Noir (1994), argues that, "Classic femme fatales are the kind of woman who after gets the man into bed and then gets him into trouble" (Film Noir 1994). Intimating from her experience as the femme fatale in Forces of Evil (1948), Windsor further intimates that femme fatales like Barbara Stanwyck (Double Indemnity 1944) and Gloria Swanson (Sunset Boulevard 1950) are the ones most often remembered (Film Noir 1994).

Silver et al. write that, "The fusion of writer-director Billy Wilder's biting humor and the classic elements of film noir make for a strange kind of comedy, as well as a strange kind of film noir. There are no belly laughs here, but there are certainly strangled giggles: at the pet chimp's funeral, at Joe's discomfited acquiescence to the role of gigolo; at Norma's Mack Sennett-style "entertainment" for her uneasy lover; at the ritualized solemnity of Norma's "waxworks" card parties, which feature such former luminaries as Buster Keaton as Norma's has been cronies" (Silver 276). Riffing along Silver et al it is clear that this is not your conventional film noir. Billy Wilder in Sunset Boulevard maintains the elements selected above - the femme fatale as destroyer and flashback narrative - but adds a strong dose of Hollywood self-reflexivity and calls to question its excesses, its corruption, its unreality, and its transition to television - all of which add to but also departs from the classic film noir.

Miguel Llora

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Oldie but goodie

A classic movie which i need to see about once a year. The camera work is excellent and the story line is believable. An excellent example of what hollywood used to produce.

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