When Pictures Were Big
Sunset Blvd. / Daniel Carlson
Billy Wilder is undisputedly one of the greatest American writer-directors. It’s probably important to get that out of the way up front, since this here is Classic Week, and it’s understood that we’re working with films and creators that have stood the test of time. In fact, there’s a certain liberty that comes with discussing a man who’s made immeasurable contributions to the movies, most notably the fact that we can look at his body of work as a whole. Wilder never stuck with just one milieu, but he made undeniable classics in every genre in which he worked: Double Indemnity is one of the best American noirs; Ace in the Hole was an indictment of the media years ahead of its time, and only now seeing a fit release through the (nearly) always reliable Criterion Collection; Some Like It Hot is one of the great American comedies; Sabrina is one the classic romances; etc., etc. But even among Wilder’s towering contributions to the field, there’s something special about Sunset Blvd., a pointed, sad, noirish look at Hollywood and Los Angeles that could only come from someone steeped in the business and still in love with it, despite its flaws.
Before those Hollywood columnists get their hands on it, maybe you’d like to hear the facts, the whole truth…
Sunset Blvd. came out in 1950, and it’s fitting that the film seems to perch on the apex of the 20th century, scraping up everything that had come before and funneling it through the already dying golden age of Hollywood to create a parable that would be just as relevant and true today if someone had the balls to make a movie like this one. The whole thing comes barreling out of the screen at the viewer, taking in the “SUNSET BLVD.” painted on a curb before sliding down the street in a kinetic burst uncommon in films of the era. Wilder’s earlier Double Indemnity opened with its (anti-)hero already wounded, but Sunset Blvd. opens up with narrator Joe Gilles (William Holden) — minor spoiler here, but who cares — already dead and floating face down in a swimming pool behind “one of those great big houses in the ten-thousand block.” Setting up the end of the film and then following with a two-hour flashback wasn’t a new trick — Orson Welles used it to great effect in Citizen Kane — but it’s to Wilder’s everlasting credit that the rest of the film didn’t coast on a false suspense cooked up by the in medias res feel of the opening, but instead went on to craft a lengthy, nuanced portrait of the dead man and the characters that roamed through the final days of his life. Wilder co-wrote the screenplay with D.M. Marshman, Jr., and Charles Brackett, with whom Wilder collaborated on 13 films, including The Lost Weekend.
The script unspools with the graceful economy of scenes Wilder often brought to his films: Gilles is a screenwriter who hasn’t sold a script in a while and needs quick cash to pay off the creditors who have come by and threatened to repossess his car. So he heads over to Paramount, where another unsuccessful pitch meeting establishes both his bad luck and inability to connect with the business as well as introducing Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), an impossibly naïve and ambitious young woman who writes coverages for the studio but dreams of becoming a screenwriter herself. Wilder is completely at home spinning a story about the filmmaking process itself, but he also never panders to the viewer; even almost 60 years on, in an age when it seems everyone is well-versed in the ins and outs of production, the film feels like a legitimate glimpse at what it must have been like to grind out rent money by churning out spec scripts for a major studio. Gilles’ meeting with the Paramount head further establishes the film’s sardonic tone and dry wit; this isn’t a satire, but a dark comedy. Holden wears Gilles like a bad suit, all angles and nervous tics and emotional defenses against a job and life that are mercilessly beating him down. You can see from the outset that Gilles feels something for Betty, or at least for the idea of her, but we’ve also seen him floating in his own blood, and know this won’t end well for anyone.
“I sure turned into an interesting driveway…”
Sunset Blvd. just keeps unfolding like the perfect script Gilles could never manage to sell: After driving around town, hoping to collect some cash from friends who owe him, Gilles catches the attention of the collectors who are looking for his car, and he winds up blowing a flat and ditching it at what appears to be an empty mansion on Sunset — in that damned old ten-thousand block — after which he explores the house and finds it (a) occupied, and (b) occupied by a crazy person. The mansion Gilles stumbles into belongs to Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a faded movie star whose career took a nose dive when talkies were introduced, and it’s here the Wilder’s film really takes wing. Sunset Blvd. is executed with an almost flawless verisimilitude, starting with Swanson herself, whose film career tanked when movies brought in sound and whose tenacious, wild-eyed turn in Sunset Blvd. marked a career comeback. Norma recoils at the term, telling Gilles: “I hate that word. It is a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting them.” Norma’s talking about her spec script for Salome, the kind of biblical epic she used to make with Cecil B. DeMille, and she hires Gilles on the spot to punch it up and help her sell it. Gilles, hard up for cash and not above taking advantage of a rich older woman if it’ll help him out of a jam — Wilder’s men are awfully consistent in their shamelessness — agrees to the plan. Before he knows it, his things have been moved to Norma’s guest house by her butler/manservant, Max (Erich von Stroheim), another genius bit of casting: Von Stroheim was an actor and director in the silent era whose career had also slowed considerably by the time Sunset Blvd. came along. It’s the same thing as making a movie in 2025 and casting John Hughes as your chauffeur: The actor’s actual backstory only served to enhance the uneasy reality of the film.
In a typical noir setup, Gilles constantly narrates the story, and Wilder’s words flow like pure honey. The voice-over isn’t just a complement to the story, but it’s driving force and the very thing that guides its haunted, wistful, shambling tone. Surveying Norma’s ruined palace, Gilles narrates: “The whole place seemed to have been stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis, out of beat with the world, crumbling apart in slow motion.” Gilles becomes a kept man, working for Norma during the day and putting up with her awkward advances, while at night he begins to sneak off to work with Betty on another screenplay. The whole story is completely Hollywood, which gives it an undeniable edge over any other setting; no one would find the film as lurid and engrossing if it were set in, I don’t know, the shoe retail industry in Paramus.
Audiences don’t know somebody sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along….
Not to belabor the obvious, but Sunset Blvd. is ultimately a tale of Los Angeles, a big, sprawling, ravenous beast of a city that’s long since lost count of the carcasses of the young, the lustful, and the unfortunate. Wilder’s look at Hollywood is a disheartening one, made all the more real for the actual appearances of its former and then-popular names. Norma’s weekly bridge game features some of her silent-era contemporaries, including Buster Keaton — looking sad-eyed but complacent as he plays cards — and H.B. Warner, who played Jesus in DeMille’s 1927 The King of Kings. DeMille also plays himself in a pivotal role in Sunset Blvd., waffling between his latent devotion to his one-time star and his reluctance to tie himself down to her. Norma visits DeMille to pitch him on Salome in a scene shot on the sets DeMille was actually using at the time to film Samson and Delilah. So, just to recap: Wilder’s movie had a scene between an aging star and her old director, played by an actual aging star and her actual old director, shot on sets the director was using in real life to make an actual film that had yet to be released. It’s damn near dizzying.
DeMille (in the film) knows that Norma isn’t ready for any kind of comeback or return or whatever she wants to call it; the world has moved on, but she hasn’t taken any notice, sitting up in her broken castle, surrounded by her old photos and movies, secure in her knowledge that she’s still embraced by legions of fans. Norma is living a lie, but unwilling and largely unable to see it. Gilles is actually going through the same kind of crisis: He’s growing increasingly tired of trying his hand at screenwriting, and gives away the rights to one his of his stories to Betty because he just can’t bring himself to care much about it. In the same way, he doesn’t admit to himself until it’s too late that Norma has feelings for him, and what’s more, that he’s been passively trading on them in order to live a secure life, detached from all reality up in her mansion. All of Wilder’s characters are living two lives and lazily unaware of it; there’s almost nothing more L.A. than that.
Sunset Blvd. was nominated for 11 Oscars and won three: for set design, Franz Waxman’s pulsing score, and the screenplay from Wilder, Brackett, and Marshman. But it got shut out of the major races, which went more for All About Eve and omitted Wilder’s dark masterpiece (though The Third Man, Father of the Bride, In a Lonely Place and The Asphalt Jungle were also denied major awards; if nothing else, 1950 was a hell of a year for movies). Perhaps it’s because the movie simply cast too dark and fierce a look at its own culture, or perhaps it’s because then, as now, some movies manage to capture the momentum and snatch a majority of the nominations and victories. But frankly, the awards don’t matter (not that they ever do). Sunset Blvd. remains a pitch-black look at fame, madness, and the spiritual toll taken by ambition, greed, and loneliness. The film was advertised on posters and in trailers with the tagline “A Hollywood Story.” I guess that says it all.
Daniel Carlson is the managing editor of Pajiba and a low-level employee at a Hollywood industry magazine. You can visit his blog, Slowly Going Bald.
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Comments
Excellent review of one of the greatest films ever made, Dan. (The nerd-ranker in me has it at #2 on my all time faves & the essay I wrote in uni was all about the lovin', believe me). The last few lines of your review say it all, I guess...
Posted by: Josh at August 28, 2007 7:32 AM
Oh, at last talk about some real movies (films?) on Pajiba. I've been an avid reader for months but was never compelled to write anything until now. Wilder is one of my all-time favourite directors and Sunset Boulevard is my second favourite film of his (after SLIH). I hope (I so hope!) that this (Classics Week) will become a tradition!
I love old movies with all my heart. I haven't seen, say, Hostel or Transformers (nor do I plan to), but this - reviews of old films with discussion - is like dream come true for me. Thank you, thank you!
BTW, the opening shot of SB is - how you say it - AWESOME. And to think that it could have been even more so had BW stuck with his original opening (Gilles talks from the mortuary slab)...
Posted by: Dr Lomax at August 28, 2007 7:35 AM
The special features on the DVD does have the original beginning of Gilles in the morgue. Ten minutes long, as I recall, and really something to see.
"Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." I love this movie. Thanks for a great review.
Posted by: LHN at August 28, 2007 7:51 AM
God bless you, Pajiba, for Classics Week. I had been hoping for something like this ever since you guys reviewed "Citizen Kane."
And damnit if "Sunset Blvd." doesn't *deserve* the banner of a classic film. Definitely one of my favorites. It still sends a chill down my spine when Norma Desmond loses her mind at the end, coming down that staircase and saying those haunting final words. Scary shit.
Posted by: _cG at August 28, 2007 8:12 AM
I AM big.
Amen.
Posted by: barlova at August 28, 2007 8:30 AM
Damn, Dan, this was a beautifully written review.
"Not to belabor the obvious, but Sunset Blvd. is ultimately a tale of Los Angeles, a big, sprawling, ravenous beast of a city that's long since lost count of the carcasses of the young, the lustful, and the unfortunate."
"Sunset Blvd. came out in 1950, and it's fitting that the film seems to perch on the apex of the 20th century, scraping up everything that had come before and funneling it through the already dying golden age of Hollywood to create a parable that would be just as relevant and true today if someone had the balls to make a movie like this one."
Seriously, that last is definitely the most articulate sentence I've heard feature the word "balls."
Nice work.
Posted by: Deleted Space at August 28, 2007 9:12 AM
"We didn't need dialog. We had faces."
Fucking Gloria Swanson is mesmerizing in this movie. Thank GOD for Turner Classic Movies!!!!
Awesome review.
Posted by: boo at August 28, 2007 9:16 AM
this is one of THE best movies of all time. for some strange reason it always reminds me of Lynch, as if his whole "Hollywood Deconstruction" (Mulhulland Drive, INLAND EMPIRE) is inspired by this movie.
Posted by: sara at August 28, 2007 10:18 AM
Oh, wake up, Norma, you'd be killing yourself to an empty house. The audience left twenty years ago.
Gloria Swanson - sigh. so, so good
Posted by: helen at August 28, 2007 10:39 AM
I love this movie. The review is absolutely spot on. I got a VHS copy in a bargain bin at Hollywood Video. My sentences aren't really connecting.
I know this doesn't have much to do with Sunset Boulevard, but I wasn't sure where to put it. I would like to suggest a Cary Grant film. I love Arsenic and Old Lace and Bringing Up Baby. I had to do a project on Cary Grant a long time ago and ended up watching around 23 movies.
Posted by: Cait at August 28, 2007 11:24 AM
I just re-watched Sunset Boulevard a few months ago, and it hasn't lost a thing. About 13 years ago I saw the musical, which I thought was a strong adaptation, and thought, "Wow, Andrew Lloyd Webber hasn't had lyrics this strong in a really long time," and then I realized he was working with Wilder's script at least as much as anything else. (P.S. Glenn Close was fantastic as Norma Desmond, and much more appropriately cast than when she played Nellie Forbush in that TV "South Pacific" a few years back.)
Posted by: Kate at August 28, 2007 11:45 AM
Another Wilder fan here - Some Like It Hot has to be one of the best, if not the best, movie ever made. And Sunset Blvd - sigh - I can't count the number of times I have seen these movies.
Another great movie "Rebecca" - awesome
Posted by: jules at August 28, 2007 11:52 AM
Not only is this film on my all-time top list, William Holden is my all-time top classic Hollywood crush. If I were Norma Desmond, I would totally hit that too.
Posted by: DeliberatePixel at August 28, 2007 12:38 PM
This movie is one of my all-time favorites. It's all of the things the review says it is and it's also hilarious.
Posted by: Andrew at August 28, 2007 1:00 PM
Love. It.
Posted by: raspberry beret at August 28, 2007 1:17 PM
I just watched this for the first time only six months or so ago on DVD, and I was awestruck at how perfect it was. And man, did Gloria Swanson have some major cojones to play that part! I can't say enough good things about this movie.
And strangely, I kept thinking of "All About Eve" while reading this review. I guess my subconscious remembered they were contenders for the AA in 1950 (another EXCELLENT movie, by the way. Bette Davis was robbed.)
Posted by: Mary at August 28, 2007 1:22 PM
LHN,
The DVD has a feature about the original opening, some script pages, etc., but there is no footage.
Posted by: alone in the dark at August 28, 2007 1:29 PM
Alone,
The version I saw had the footage mentioned.
Posted by: Mary at August 28, 2007 1:46 PM
Sunset Boulevard is #1 on my Netflix queue right now and I CANNOT WAIT to get it!!!
Masterful review, Daniel. Seriously, man. Made me ache inside.
Posted by: Jelinas at August 28, 2007 1:57 PM
One personal quibble with your review--I don't think Sabrina is one of the "classic romances". I think it's one of the few times Wilder fell flat on his face because there's absolutely no chemistry between Bogart and (Audrey) Hepburn.
I think Sunset Boulevard is a great movie to watch back-to-back with, of all things, Barton Fink. I like to call it the "Screenwriters Screwed by the Studio System" double feature. Too bad Billy Wilder never attempted a Wallace Beery wrestling picture.
Posted by: Rebecca at August 28, 2007 2:20 PM
Thank you for a great review of such a great film, but what about the freakin' monkey. I love that dead monkey. From the moment you see that monkey you know that Norma might be just a bit off.
Ace in the Hole was an indictment of the media years ahead of its time, and only now seeing a fit release through the (nearly) always reliable Criterion Collection.
Another excellent film and rings so true even today.
Posted by: jules at August 28, 2007 2:36 PM
Great review of a great movie. I am a silent film geek, even moreso a Gloria Swanson fangirl, so this movie is one of my all-time favorites.
Another great actual Hollywood backstory tied into Sunset Blvd (there's so many); Eric Von Stroheim had directed Swanson in the silent Queen Kelly, a failed project which was abandoned because it became so bloated and out of control, not unlike Norma's vision for Salome. But what are the film clips that Norma shows Gilles? Why, Queen Kelly, of course. (Which wasn't seen by the public in its entirety until a DVD was recently released.)
Brilliant.
I have to say, I am loving this Pajiba classics week.
Posted by: Gudrun at August 28, 2007 3:31 PM
Mary,
There are some photos of a morgue (I believe), but there is no footage of corpses talking and Wilder said such footage did not exist.
Posted by: alone in the dark at August 28, 2007 3:35 PM
Granted, my memory is crap but I could've sworn I saw a mortuary scene on the DVD extras so I did a little digging and found this:
SPOILER: Originally opened and closed the story at the Los Angeles County Morgue. In a scene described by director Billy Wilder as one of the best he'd ever shot, the body of Joe Gillis is rolled into the Morgue to join three dozen other corpses, some of whom - in voice-over - tell Gillis how they died. Eventually Gillis tells his story, which takes us to a flashback of his affair with Norma Desmond. The movie was previewed with this opening, in Illinois, Long Island, New York, and Poughkeepsie, New York. Because all three audiences inappropriately found the morgue scene hilarious, the film's release was delayed six months so that a new beginning could be shot in which police find Gillis' corpse floating in Norma's pool while Gillis' voice narrates the events leading to his death. Distortion caused by water meant that this scene had to be filmed via a mirror placed on the bottom of the pool.
Courtesy of imdb.com since I can't seem to post a link here.
Posted by: Mary at August 28, 2007 5:43 PM
Damn it! "Ace In The Hole" has been sitting at the top of my Netflix que since its release, with me in back of a Really Long Wait. Pointing the film and Wilder's genius out isn't doing me any favors in that department.
Posted by: Frank Lee Delano at August 28, 2007 6:27 PM
Mary,
I own the DVD. There's no complete morgue prologue. There are script pages and maybe three (and I might be generous here)minutes of footage of the ambulance arriving, the body being wheeled in, etc. There is not one frame of William Holden as Gillis. There is no dialogue, nor any sound at all.
The prologue was shown in previews. It was revised after the first preview, then dropped entirely. Only time it's been shown. Wilder was proud of it, but it is kaput. I should have written that Wilder said "It no longer exists", but I was at work, writing from memory during my lunch break.
Posted by: alone in the dark at August 28, 2007 6:29 PM
Billy Wilder did it all! Film Noir, screwball comedy and drama. We'll never see his like again.
Posted by: Dano at August 28, 2007 7:29 PM
Thank you Pajiba, for taking the time to review this movie. It really means a lot to me,not only because the movie is amazing, but also because it was the first movie me and my fiancee ever watched, which is a big deal since we're both movie buffs. So we will sometimes look back fondly on this movie and make our crazy-Norma eyes and laugh. AH, love. =)
Posted by: Kim at August 28, 2007 8:06 PM
I just watched this for the first time last week and thought it was amazing. I can't believe I hadn't seen it before!
I kept thinking William Holden reminded me of a contemporary actor, but I never figured out which one.
Posted by: lunabelle at August 28, 2007 9:31 PM
My introduction, of a sort, to SB was through Carol Burnett's parody of Norma Desmond on her old variety show, with Harvey Korman as Max. When I saw the film, I was struck by how well Burnett nailed the grotesque-ness of the Desmond character. Of course, no one can match Holden and Swanson in the original for acting. Great review, and I am loving Classic Week.
Posted by: rlr260 at August 28, 2007 10:12 PM
Phenomenal review of a phenomenal movie. Absolutely one of my top 10 faves. Thanks, Gudrun, for mentioning Queen Kelly. I was going to mention that as well. QK is a very strange movie, with an incredibly lewd premise for its time and acting that is over the top even by silent standards. Of course, it was also financed by GS's sugar-daddy, Joe Kennedy.
I agree with posters in previous threads who said, "Damn, these people could ACT!!!!" They didn't mug for the camera, they EMOTED. *sigh* born at the wrong time, I guess.
Ya know, maybe Pajiba could spin off into Classic Pajiba.....just a thought....
Posted by: dammitjanet at August 29, 2007 10:01 AM
Phenomenal review of a phenomenal movie. Absolutely one of my top 10 faves. Thanks, Gudrun, for mentioning Queen Kelly. I was going to mention that as well. QK is a very strange movie, with an incredibly lewd premise for its time and acting that is over the top even by silent standards. Of course, it was also financed by GS's sugar-daddy, Joe Kennedy.
I agree with posters in previous threads who said, "Damn, these people could ACT!!!!" They didn't mug for the camera, they EMOTED. *sigh* born at the wrong time, I guess.
Ya know, maybe Pajiba could spin off into Classic Pajiba.....just a thought....
Posted by: dammitjanet at August 29, 2007 10:04 AM
I agree that 1950 was an amazing year at the movies. How could you possibly vote for best picture among All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard and The Third Man? It makes the whole process seem a little silly when you look at those choices and know that you only get to pick one. Knowing you had to pick between Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson and Judy Holliday for 3 extremely different, but brilliant best actress portrayals seems pretty ridiculous too.
I also think that Billy Wilder is argueably the best director that Hollywood might have ever had. There are others greats, but no one else I can think of that were really able to produce the breath and scope of unforgettable pictures with such varying themes as Wilder did. There are even fewer directors today that challenge themselves enough to try their hand at different types of films - especially directors that might eventually go down in history as "great".
If I had to pick one, I´d have to say that Ang Lee is probably closest in my mind to the directorial spirit of Wilder. He certainly has produced some classics of varying themes(Brokeback Mountain, Sense And Sensibility, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), some really ´almost great´ films (Eat Drink Man Woman, The Ice Storm, The Wedding Banquet) and doesn´t seem to be afraid to try new things or challenge himself even if he fails miserably (Ride With The Devil, The Hulk). Just curious if anyone else can think of a director today who might one day be considered in the same realm (although doubtful equal) of Wilder and his output. I think that would make a really great special post BTW.
Posted by: Tallsonofagun at August 29, 2007 12:23 PM
Alone -- thanks for clearing up the special features on the DVD. I have this very clear memory of seeing a foot sticking out from under a sheet in the morgue, with a tag on it, and hearing Joe's voice. But it has been a few years. Maybe I just have too active an imagination!
Tallsonofagun -- I agree with you about Ang Lee. I am really looking forward to seeing "Lust, Caution" and am curious how it will fare in Venice. Another Golden Lion for Ang?
Posted by: LHN at August 30, 2007 7:54 AM
This FILM, because it is a true film and not just a "movie", made me sad, because films like this aren't really made anymore. The premise is quite simple, yet it is portrays the complex array of human emotions when two people become almost addicted to each other. Movies today try to throw all this complexity at you when it only takes this type of storytelling, direction, and ART to truly win an audience over. And that is all I have to say...
Posted by: ph at September 3, 2007 6:15 PM
