Andrew McMurtrySunset Boulevard
This 1950 film noir is expectedly whacked. But in a good way.
An attractive but unsuccessful screenwriter is found shot dead in a pool in a worn down mansion, a reclusive eccentric former movie star of the silent era tied to the murder. The rest of Sunset Boulevard tells of how this eventuates. And like the noirish narrator says, it's a pretty nutty but equally riveting story.
Co-written and directed by the great Billy Wilder (who brought you the hilarious Some Like It Hot), it's smartly paced with glossy cinematography in the more fast paced sequences but generally the film smartly let the actors tell their story, especially Gloria Swanson in a powerfully frightening and tragic portrayal as the has-been actress gone mad with her former celebrity. The film is unexpectedly funny as well has having some amusingly cheesy cliched romantic embraces. But they act as necessary relief to what is a very tense and disturbing film.
The parallels between the film characters and the actors that portray them I have to say make the film creepier. Swanson (Norma Desmond the silent film actress) was herself once a big silent film star who had faded into obscurity, William Holden (Joe Gillis the screenwriter) a failing actor with Sunset Boulevard his comeback, Erich von Stroheim (The butler/former director) a former silent film director who had previously directed Swanson, and Cecil B. DeMille (playing himself) had in fact also directed Swanson in many of his films. Suppose that's what made their performances so good, disturbingly so.
Some things did annoy me though. The storyline and plots were very familiar and predictable - the relationship between Joe and Norma remeniscent to me of An American In Paris, the romance between Joe and Betty like Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall films, the strange routines Norma did for Joe were like in Singin' In The Rain, the quick and cheeky exchanges similar to those in All About Eve and The Big Sleep. But although I didn't find the story too original, I guess it isn't really a bad thing that it plays like many famously great films of that era. And I cannot get the last scene out of my head. It's so devestatingly tragic. Norma Desmond will be haunting me for a while, I know it.
An attractive but unsuccessful screenwriter is found shot dead in a pool in a worn down mansion, a reclusive eccentric former movie star of the silent era tied to the murder. The rest of Sunset Boulevard tells of how this eventuates. And like the noirish narrator says, it's a pretty nutty but equally riveting story.
Co-written and directed by the great Billy Wilder (who brought you the hilarious Some Like It Hot), it's smartly paced with glossy cinematography in the more fast paced sequences but generally the film smartly let the actors tell their story, especially Gloria Swanson in a powerfully frightening and tragic portrayal as the has-been actress gone mad with her former celebrity. The film is unexpectedly funny as well has having some amusingly cheesy cliched romantic embraces. But they act as necessary relief to what is a very tense and disturbing film.
Some things did annoy me though. The storyline and plots were very familiar and predictable - the relationship between Joe and Norma remeniscent to me of An American In Paris, the romance between Joe and Betty like Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall films, the strange routines Norma did for Joe were like in Singin' In The Rain, the quick and cheeky exchanges similar to those in All About Eve and The Big Sleep. But although I didn't find the story too original, I guess it isn't really a bad thing that it plays like many famously great films of that era. And I cannot get the last scene out of my head. It's so devestatingly tragic. Norma Desmond will be haunting me for a while, I know it.
Film & TV on DVD
This film is an all time favourite of mine, the story may be familiar but never handled with such deftness. Wilder was a master.
If your interested you can read my Sunset Boulevard review HERE
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