SUNSET BOULEVARD

Directed by: Billy Wilder - Writers: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder
Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Eric Von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Jack Webb
Academy Awards: Screenplay, Art Direction, Music - Released: I950

A portrait of the old Hollywood system; as tyranny of studios and star egos, with writers as under-appreciated throwaway commodities. The poster-girl for this establishment is silent-era movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). The writer is Joe Gillis (William Holden). He's trying to survive in the pitiless world of Hollywood screenwriting; the movie serves well as primer in the first step in any picture, the script. And in an ironic touch, a director from the twenties who in real life directed Swanson in Queen Kelly (I929) and was known for his egotism, Eric Von Stroheim, plays Swanson’s servant, Max.

Joe is forced by circumstance to take refuge in the decrepit mansion of silent-era star Ms Desmond, no longer in the limelight, but still an abyss of narcissism. What follows is a descent into the abyss, surrounded by a horror movie setting, and the ever-present servant Max. The issue of the film - that somebody does write a film's dialogue - is Ms Swanson's big beef, "All that talk, talk, talk." Mr. Wilder, being a screenwriter as well as director - is in the other camp. He had been in a front row seat to see the "star system"; actors with their sometimes giant egos, getting all the credit in the public's mind. Wilder also settles other scores. Coming from the high culture of I920's Berlin; he has the usual beef with LA itself; too new, too big, not enough culture; although he himself said the alternative was not appealing, "I came here because I didn't want to burn in an oven". Sunset Boulevard was his chance to get all the bile out of his system that had been accumulating since he had been forced to flee to America by the sudden rise of Hitler.

Against the ménage living on Sunset Boulevard is posited a contrasting “normal” world of young writers and assistant directors, all freshly scrubbed, much too happy with their lot, and not a care in the world. They're lucky; they're not in this fight. Joe would join them, “I wanted to hear someone laugh again” – if only he could afford his rent. But by this time he’s lost his self-respect – because of the crime of being supported by a woman – a prime felony in 40’s-era American films. He's also shown to be only a minor talent at scriptwriting, and though Hollywood loved the quick and the talented, its way of showing the door to the untalented, or those with unlucky timing, was ruthless in the extreme. And no medieval kingdom had a more layered and intricate pecking order, from superstar to best boy, than the dream factory.

Ms Swanson understood and played her role to perfection as vampira-like faded movie star. In fact the character followed her for the rest of her life, as if set in stone. Holden's character name of Joe in movie parlance often means "average joe"; meaning an part which is not that of a hunky leading man. He had a quality about him - that he looked slightly bored and wanted to be somewhere else and was sometimes slightly unsure of himself, that director Wilder must have thought good for the Joe Gillis part.

In real life, he was somewhat of a regular Joe, he didn't hang around with the film colony; he found the actor's life a bore after becoming a star; and he went elsewhere - he spent a lot of time at his Mt. Kenya lodge in Africa, about as far away from Hollywood as you can get. During the filming of Sunset Boulevard, Holden told Wilder that he needed to know more about Joe Gillis in order to fill out the character (the script was not finished when production started). "How much do you know about Bill Holden?", was Wilder's Zen-like response. If Bill Holden looks a little unsure of himself in this film, that's one reason. And that's just the effect Wilder wanted.

Indeed the film is mostly about Norma Desmond - dominatrix; Joe Gillis has a the passive role. In fact, much of his time is spent narrating a running monologue on the doings at Casa Desmond, much like the chorus in a Greek play. The subject of this film being as dangerous as nitroglycerine, a case could be made that the talented scriptwriting team of Billy Wilder and Charles Bracket deliberately withheld the script (claimed it was unfinished) to avoid trouble with the studio, the censors, the stars, and most importantly on this film - the film colony in general, until the film was in the can. Wilder could be hard and unfeeling, both in life and in the presentation of his film's characters. Joe Gillis, as mentioned, is a virtual cipher as far as personality points, and Norma Desmond, although more fully fleshed out, is not given any redeeming characteristics.

Movies that hold the mirror up to the film industry walk a fine line. It was a vindictive little village in those days, and the famous phrase, "you'll never work in this town again" could still be heard in the halls of power. Louis B. Mayer, when he saw Sunset Boulevard, damned it for giving Hollywood a black eye; in fact Sunset Boulevard probably wouldn't have been released had it been made five years earlier. So for every issue that Sunset Boulevard brings up, it just as quickly drops. But Hollywood wassuch an easy target that many authors have vented their spleen. Nathanial West did his own acidic take on Hollywood in the 30s (Day of the Locust), but he afterward wisely decamped for New York. Sunset Boulevard has many parallels with Day of the Locust, too many to be coincidence.

It's an insight into a certain era of filmmaking; the era in which writers, editors, and even directors were practically unknown off the studio lot. The public only knew or cared about the stars; not too different from today. But today, others get some recognition by those who write about films and teach the film studies classes, a modern phenomena in America. Billy Wilder certainly deserves the recognition he's getting today. The list of great films he wrote, or wrote and directed, include Ninotchka, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Stalag I7, The Seven Year Itch, The Spirit of St. Louis and Some Like It Hot.

If compared to the other inside-Hollywood pictures, The Barefoot Contessa (I954) , The Bad and the Beautiful (I952), Day of the Locust (I975) and A Star is Born (I937-56-76) - this is the superior film. It glides lightly over it’s metaphors through writer-director Billy Wilder’s justly celebrated directorial talents. The film ends as grand opera; the last five minutes are worth waiting for. The film was a critical success in its day and was nominated for Oscars in eleven categories, although it met with incomprehension in the sticks. Sunset Boulevard doesn’t take itself too seriously, the performers are top-notch, the dialogue engaging. Listen especially to Holden's voice-over during the film. It's makes the film work; Holden knew how to underact to achieve more. The role of the writer was actually the trickier character to pull off.



Notes:

(a) The film was chosen by theater impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber (Cats) as the basis for a musical, which flopped in the US, although it did somewhat better in the British Isles.
(b) The role of the faded movie star was originally offered to Mae West. The role of the writer was offered to Montgomery Clift, but he backed out at the last minute. He might have been a more realistic as a writer, but the comic touches might have eluded him. He also may have been put off by the similarities between his real-life situation at the time and the film's theme.
(c) Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nillson, biblical film director Cecil B. DeMille, and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper all played themselves in the film. Holden's character rather cruelly calls the old silent stars "the Waxworks". Buster Keaton, on the set, reportedly looked at the other silent-era stars around him and said, "Waxworks; that's right". The others broke-up with laughter.
(d) The silent film Queen Kelly (I929), parts of which are shown in Sunset Boulevard, was directed by Eric Von Stroheim (who plays the servant Max in Sunset Boulevard), starred Gloria Swanson, and was partly financed by her then (reputed) romantic partner, Joseph P. Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy and Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
(e) Those interested in the subject of scriptwriting can also check out Robert Altman’s take on the subject in The Player (I992).
(f) Nathanial West’s Day of the Locust was made into a film by the same name by British director John Schlesinger in I975.
(g) In the film Norma Desmond visits an actual set of the film Samson and Delilah, and chats with director Cecil B. DeMille.
(h) Holden hadn't much love for Humphrey Bogart. His summation: "I hated the bastard".
(g) After twelve years of scriptwriting together, the Wilder-Brackett team split up. According to Charles Brackett, one year after Brackett's wife had died and Sunset Boulevard was in the can, "Billy smiled at me and said, 'You know Charlie, after this I don't think we should work together anymore. I think it would be better for both of us if we just split up.'" It wasn't better for either. In many people's opinion, Sunset Boulevard was the high-water mark in both men's careers.
(h) One anonymous wag coined the phrase; "Sic transit Gloria Swanson".
(i) Bill and Ardis Holden were the cupids in Ronald and Nancy Reagan's romance and eventual marriage. Bill Holden and Ronald Reagan were close friends throughout the I950s. When Ronald Reagan wed Nancy in I952, the only guests at the wedding were the Holdens. For younger readers, Ronald Reagan became the 40th President of the United States from I98I to I989.
(j) Holden and Wilder became lifelong friends; they planned a get-together at Holden's Palm Springs home the week of Holden's accidental death from a fall.
(k) The man who plays Joe Gillis' friend Artie Green, Jack Webb, produced and starred in the most famous TV police show in history, Dragnet, which ran from I952 to I959 and I967 to I970. Dragnet added to the culture the famous theme "dummm-de-dum-dum" that signals police activity even to people who've never seen or heard of the show.


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