Sunset Boulevard
Short description
Joe Gillis is a struggling screenwriter facing financial ruin who accidentally enters the estate of Norma Desmond, a former silent film star living in isolation. Norma, who remains convinced she can return to the screen, hires Joe to help with a script for her comeback. As Joe becomes her lover and employee, he finds himself trapped by her possessive nature and detachment from reality. His attempts to distance himself from her delusions eventually lead to a tragic conclusion.
Directed by Billy Wilder, this drama was the fifth of 22 films he directed, following A Foreign Affair and preceding Ace in the Hole. The screenplay was written by Wilder along with Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr., and Brackett also served as producer. The movie stars William Holden as Joe Gillis and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, with a supporting cast that includes Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, and Lloyd Gough. In total, the production credited 71 cast members and 42 crew members.
Produced by Paramount with a budget of 2 million USD, the film is highly regarded by both audiences and professionals. It holds an 8.4 rating on IMDb from 260,000 votes and an 8.3 on TMDB from 3,032 votes. Film critics gave it an even higher score of 9.8 based on 125 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film became the last joint work of Wilder and Brackett, who had collaborated for 14 years prior to this.
- Filming began even before the final version of the script was completed.
- Real screen idols of the silent film era – Mae West, Pola Negri, Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford – were invited for the role of Norma Desmond. After their refusals, the role went to Gloria Swanson.
- The name Norma Desmond is a combination of the names of actors Mabel Normand and William Desmond Taylor, who were involved in a scandal in the early 1920s related to the latter's murder.
- In the first version, the film began in a Los Angeles morgue, where the body of William Holden was brought. There he conversed with 11 other corpses, each of whom told the circumstances of their death. The episode caused laughter from the audience and was removed.
- Silent film stars such as Mae West, Pola Negri, Greta Garbo, and Mary Pickford were considered for the role of Norma Desmond, but they all declined.
- Initial script versions went by the title “A Can of Beans,” as the writers feared the studio wouldn’t support a script expressing a negative view of the film industry. Their fears were confirmed. After the film's release, MGM head Louis B. Mayer accused Wilder of insulting Hollywood. Mayer believed Wilder should be ostracized from the film community that had nurtured and raised him.
- The character of Norma Desmond is based on the scandalous silent film star Mae Murray, who caused Stroheim considerable trouble during the making of “The Merry Widow.”
- The street where the main action of the film takes place is literally translated as “Boulevard of the Setting Sun.” This name was chosen deliberately, as both the protagonist and the former director, now butler Max von Mayerling, and Norma Desmond’s guests are “setting suns” of cinema, stars of the silent era.
- In the projection room, Gloria Swanson’s character watches “Queen Kelly” (1929), directed by Erich von Stroheim, who also played the role of Max.
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