Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)

Police and reporters gather at a Sunset Boulevard mansion, where a dead man is floating in a pool. The deceased Joe Gillis (The Wild Bunch's William Holden) narrates the story of the circumstances leading up to his death. Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, has to trick the creditors who seek to repossess his car by parking it in a lot behind a shoeshine stand. Going to Paramount Pictures, he tries to pitch a script to a producer, but he is unwilling to take it, and reader Betty Schaefer (The Absent-Minded Professor's Nancy Olson) criticizes it. Seeing the repo men are watching him, Joe drives into the garage of a mansion he thinks is deserted. A mature woman calls out to him, asking him to come in. The taciturn butler, Max (Erich von Stroheim), lets him in, saying something about a coffin. Joe discovers the woman thinks he is there to perform the burial for her dead chimpanzee, and recognizes her as silent film actress Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), whose career ended with the advent of sound in cinema. Finding that Joe is actually a writer, she asks him to take a look at her script for Salome, her comeback picture, though she detests that term. Although the script is horrible, Joe merely tells her it needs a little work. Norma hires him to help her punch it up, and convinces him to stay the night in. Waking up the following morning, Joe is furious to discover Max has moved all his things from his apartment to the mansion. Although Norma says she still gets fan letters constantly, Joe discovers Max himself is writing them to comfort her, and that Norma has suffered from depression and attempted suicide in the past. Norma is besotted with Joe, and buys him the finest things money can buy. At a New Year's Eve Party for just the two of them, Norma reveals her feelings to Joe, but he rejects her and leaves, heading for a party held by his friend assistant director Artie Green (Dragnet's Jack Webb), where he runs into Betty Schaefer, who turns out to be Artie's new girlfriend. Betty has read another of Joe's scripts, and thinks one scene in particular has potential. The two seem to become strongly attracted to one another, but Joe receives a call from Max, informing him that Norma has attempted to slit her own wrists, and feels he has no choice but to return.

It's hard for me to say anything about Sunset Boulevard that hasn't been said a million times before. It was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, and won for three: Screenplay, Art Direction, and Music, though amazingly Swanson lost Best Actress to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday, which also featured Holden. Swanson's performance, though, is incredible, both pathetic and not a little horrifying at the same time. Many of her mannerisms scream "silent film character," and the famous ending and the immortal last line show perfectly how reality and film blur for Norma Desmond. Holden as screenwriter-turned-gigolo Joe Gillis is superb, and he exudes the same cynical air he would bring to later films such as Network. von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in Queen Kelly (a clip from which is shown as one of Norma's old films), is perfect as Max von Mayerling, Norma's enabling butler who turns out to have had a much closer connection to her once upon a time. Nancy Olson's chemistry with Holden is excellent, and one can't help but feel for her when she finds out the truth about Joe's relationship with Norma. It's also amusing to see dead-serious Joe Friday Jack Webb playing a wisecracker for a change. The film also features a number of Hollywood icons of yesteryear playing themselves, such as Cecil B. DeMille and Buster Keaton. I also have to note that Bert Moorhouse's character, Gordon Cole, was the namesake of David Lynch's character on Twin Peaks. I've heard vague rumors one of those Wold Newton guys proposed Moorhouse's Gordon Cole was the father of Lynch's, but I can't verify that. The script by director Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett (who also co-wrote The Lost Weekend) is as great a piece of film noir as Wilder's Double Indemnity, while also showing the darker side of stardom. Not every movie considered a classic is one I would consider as such myself, but this most definitely is one I would.