F-0118

Title:

Sunset Boulevard

Category:

S

Produced:

1950

Country:

USA

Released:

Aug 1950 (film, USA); Nov 2002 (DVD); Nov 2002 [CD]

Director:

Billy Wilder

Writer:

Charles Brackett; Billy Wilder; D.M. Marshman Jr.

Actors:

William Holden (Joe Gillis); Gloria Swanson (Norma Desmond); Erich von Stroheim (Max von Mayerling); Nancy Olson (Betty Schaefer); Fred Clark (Sheldrake); Lloyd Gough (Morino); Jack Webb (Artie Green); Franklyn Farnum (Undertaker); Larry J. Blake (Finance man #1, as Larry Blake); Charles Dayton (Finance man #2); Cecil B. DeMille (Himself); Hedda Hopper (Herself); Buster Keaton (Himself, Bridge Player); Anna Q. Nilsson (Herself, Bridge Player); H.B. Warner (Himself, Bridge Player); Ray Evans (Himself); Jay Livingston (Himself)

Description:

Joe Gillis, an unsuccessful screenplay writer, escapes the finance men who are trying to reclaim his car by driving into the garage of an old mansion on Sunset Boulevard. Assumed to be someone else, he is led by Max the butler to the mansion's owner, silent film star Norma Desmond. Wishing to make a comeback, she hires him to rewrite her "Salome" script, then falls in love with him. Joe moves into the mansion as a kept man. Secretly, Joe is collaborating with a pretty young screenplay editor, Betty Schaefer, on another idea. Though she is engaged to his best friend, Artie Green, an assistant director, Betty falls in love with Joe. When Betty finds out about Norma, she asks him to leave Norma for her, but Joe can't unsettle her life, too. He decides, instead, to leave Hollywood. As he is leaving, a crazed Norma tries to stop him. (filmfactsman)

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, Amazon.com)

Language:

English

Bach's Music:

Toccata & Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

Film Company:

Paramount Pictures

Format:

B&W film | DVD (Closed-captioned, Subtitled, NTSC) | VHS [NTSC, Full Screen] | CD (Soundtrack)

VHS/DVD Label:

Paramount [DVD, VHS] | Varese Saraband [CD]

TT:

110 min (USA) / 115 min (Argentina)

Comments:

Watch selections:

Buy movie at:

Amazon.com [DVD] | Amazon.com [VHS] | Amazon.com [CD]

Source/Links: IMDB
Contributor: Aryeh Oron (November 2007)