   #copyright

Sunset Boulevard (1950 film)

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Films

               Sunset Boulevard
     Directed by   Billy Wilder
     Produced by   Charles Brackett
     Written by    Billy Wilder,
                   Charles Brackett,
                   and D.M. Marshman Jr.
      Starring     William Holden,
                   Gloria Swanson,
                   Erich von Stroheim
   Distributed by  Paramount Pictures
   Release date(s) August 4, 1950
    Running time   110 min
      Language     English
       Budget      $1,752,000 USD (estimated)
                 IMDb profile

   Sunset Boulevard (also known as Sunset Blvd.) is a 1950 American film
   noir containing elements of drama, horror, and black comedy. Directed
   and co-written by Billy Wilder, it was named for the famous boulevard
   of the same name that runs through Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.

   It stars William Holden as down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis,
   and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a faded movie star who entraps the
   unsuspecting Gillis into her fantasy world in which she dreams of
   making a triumphant return to the screen. Erich von Stroheim, Nancy
   Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough and Jack Webb play supporting roles.
   Director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper play
   themselves, and the film includes cameo appearances by leading silent
   film figures Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner and Anna Q. Nilsson.

   Praised by many critics when first released, Sunset Boulevard was
   nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won three. It is widely
   accepted as a classic, often cited as one of the most noteworthy films
   of American cinema. Deemed "culturally significant" by the U.S. Library
   of Congress in 1989, Sunset Boulevard was included in the first group
   of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In
   1998 it was ranked number twelve on the American Film Institute's list
   of the 100 best American films of the 20th century.

Plot

   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

   The opening scene reveals that a man has been killed, and his corpse is
   seen floating face down in a swimming pool. A narrator explains that
   the dead man was an unsuccessful screenwriter. The film fades into
   flashback as the narrator, now named as Joe Gillis, describes his
   attempt to flee by auto from two repossession agents. He turns into a
   driveway on Sunset Boulevard in order to escape them, and sees what he
   assumes to be a deserted mansion. He enters the house, where he meets a
   German butler and an eccentric older woman who mistakes him for an
   undertaker, visiting to arrange the funeral for her recently deceased
   pet chimpanzee. Gillis recognizes her as Norma Desmond, formerly one of
   the great stars of the silent screen. She offers him a job reading the
   script she has been writing for her planned comeback, and seizing a
   rare chance to make some money, he agrees.

   Eventually, Gillis is completely financially dependent upon Norma, who
   lavishes attention on him and buys him expensive clothing; while he
   occasionally shows discomfort, he makes no effort to change his
   situation. He is horrified when Norma reveals on New Year's Eve that
   she is in love with him. Rejecting her attempt at seduction, he hitches
   a ride to a friend's house where a party is underway and speaks with a
   young woman named Betty who is interested in his writing. Inspired to
   continue his writing, he phones the Desmond house to say he is leaving,
   but is told Norma has attempted suicide. He rushes back to the mansion,
   where he comforts her and stays. The two seem relatively content as
   Norma continues working on her script. When she considers it to be
   complete, she sends it to Paramount Studios. She receives telephone
   calls from Cecil B. DeMille's office at the studio and assumes he is
   interested in filming the project. She travels to the studio and meets
   with him; Gillis and the butler learn the studio only wants to hire
   Norma's vintage Isotta-Fraschini car for use in a film and has no
   interest in her script, but the two of them keep this from her. Joe
   begins secretly meeting with Betty to work on a screenplay and they
   fall in love. When Norma discovers this, she phones Betty and
   insinuates what sort of man Joe really is. Joe returns to the house in
   time to hear what Norma has said and takes the phone from her. He tells
   Betty to come to the house, where he explains his side of the situation
   before turning Betty away. Misunderstanding his actions, Norma is
   grateful to Joe, but he brushes her aside and begins packing to leave.
   Norma threatens to shoot him, but he does not take her seriously. As he
   walks away, she follows and shoots him several times before he falls
   dead into the pool.

   Having explained the corpse in the pool, the film returns to the
   present, where Norma Desmond appears to be lost in fantasy. News
   cameras arrive to film her, and she thinks she is on the set of her new
   film. Norma slowly descends her grand staircase and, after making a
   speech declaring her happiness at making a new film (culminating in the
   film's most famous line: "All right, Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close
   up".), she reaches for the camera, the screen fades to white and the
   narrator concludes that Norma's dream of performing for the cameras has
   in an unexpected way come true for her.
   Spoilers end here.

Background

   The street after which the film is named has been associated with
   Hollywood film production since 1911 when the town's first film studio
   opened on Sunset Boulevard. The film workers lived modestly in the
   growing neighbourhood, but during the 1920s profits and salaries rose
   to unprecedented levels. With the advent of the " star system",
   luxurious homes noted for their often incongruous grandeur were built
   in the area. The stars were the subject of public fascination
   throughout the world as magazines and newspapers reported the excesses
   of their lives.

   As a young man in Warsaw, Poland, Billy Wilder was interested in
   American culture, with much of his interest fueled by American films.
   In the late 1940s many of the grand Hollywood houses remained, and
   Wilder, now a Los Angeles resident, found they were part of his
   everyday world. Many former stars from the silent era still lived in
   them, although most were no longer involved in the film business.
   Wilder wondered how they spent their time now that "the parade had
   passed them by" and began imagining the story of a star who had lost
   her celebrity and box-office appeal.

Casting

   In 1948 Wilder discussed the Norma Desmond character with Greta Garbo
   (who had not made a movie since 1941) in the hope she might return to
   the screen. However, she expressed little interest. The role was then
   offered to Mae West who declared herself too young to play a former
   silent-movie star. Wilder recalled that "in a bout of insanity" he and
   Charles Brackett visited Mary Pickford. She was interested but cautious
   and was ruled out when she disagreed with the storyline. They also
   approached Pola Negri who "threw a tantrum at the mere suggestion of
   playing a has-been" and refused the role.

   George Cukor suggested Gloria Swanson. Wilder later commented they had
   not considered her because they thought she was "somehow unattainable."
   Swanson had been one of the most feted actresses of the silent-screen
   era, known for her beauty, talent and extravagant lifestyle. At the
   peak of her career in 1925 she was said to have received 10,000 fan
   letters in a single week and had lived on Sunset Boulevard in an
   elaborate Italianate palace from 1920 until the early 1930s. In many
   ways she resembled the Norma Desmond character and, like her, she had
   been unable to make a smooth transition into talking pictures. The
   similarities ended there though, as Swanson accepted the end of her
   film career and in the early 1930s moved to New York City where she
   worked in radio and, from the mid 1940s, in television. Although
   Swanson was not seeking a comeback, she was intrigued when Wilder
   discussed the role with her.

   Swanson was chagrined at the notion of submitting to a screen test,
   saying she had "made twenty films for Paramount. Why do they want me to
   audition?" Her reaction was later echoed in the screenplay when Norma
   Desmond declares, "without me there wouldn't be any Paramount." In her
   memoir Swanson recalled asking Cukor if it was unreasonable to refuse
   the screen test. He replied that Norma Desmond was the role for which
   she would be remembered. "If they ask you to do ten screen tests, do
   ten screen tests, or I will personally shoot you," Cukor replied. His
   enthusiasm convinced Swanson to participate. In a 1975 interview Wilder
   recalled Swanson's reaction with the observation, "there was a lot of
   Norma in her, you know."

   Montgomery Clift was signed to play Joe Gillis but withdrew, likely due
   to concerns of unflattering comparisons with his real life, in which he
   was dating an older woman. Then Fred MacMurray declined the role.
   William Holden, who had made an impressive debut in Golden Boy (1939)
   and Our Town (1940), followed by WWII military service and a modestly
   successful return to film in the late 1940s, accepted the part.

   Erich von Stroheim, a leading film director of the 1920s, who had
   directed Swanson, was signed to play Max, the faithful servant and
   Norma's protector. For the role of Betty Schaeffer, Wilder wanted a
   newcomer who could project a wholesome and ordinary image to contrast
   with Swanson's flamboyant and obsessive Desmond. He chose Nancy Olson,
   who had recently been considered for the role of Delilah in DeMille's
   Samson and Delilah.

Writing

   Wilder and Brackett began working on a script in 1948 but the result
   did not completely satisfy them. In August 1948 D.M. Marshman Jr.,
   formerly a writer for Life Magazine, was hired to help develop the
   storyline after Wilder and Brackett were impressed by a critique he
   provided of their film The Emperor Waltz (1948).

   In an effort to keep the full details of the story from Paramount
   Studios and avoid the restrictive censorship of the Breen Code they
   submitted the script on an almost page-by-page basis. The Breen Office
   insisted certain lines be rewritten, such as Gillis' "I'm up that creek
   and I need a job," which became "I'm over a barrel. I need a job."
   Paramount executives thought Wilder was adapting a story called A Can
   of Beans (which did not exist) and allowed him relative freedom to
   proceed as he saw fit. Only the first third of the script was written
   when filming began in early May 1949 and Wilder was unsure how the film
   would end.

   The script contains many references to Hollywood and screenwriters,
   with Joe Gillis making most of the cynical comments. He sums up his
   film writing career with the remark, "The last one I wrote was about
   Okies in the dust bowl. You'd never know because when it reached the
   screen, the whole thing played on a torpedo boat." In another exchange
   Betty comments to Gillis, "I'd always heard that you had some talent."
   He replies, "That was last year. This year I'm trying to make a
   living."

   Several of Swanson's lines, such as, "All right Mr. De Mille, I'm ready
   for my close-up," and "I am big. It's the pictures that got small!" are
   widely remembered and quoted. Much of the film's wit is delivered
   through Norma Desmond's deadpan comments, which are often followed by
   sarcastic retorts from Gillis. Desmond appears to not hear some of
   these comments, as she is absorbed by her own thoughts, and so some of
   Gillis' lines are heard only by the audience, with Wilder blurring the
   line between the events and Gillis' narration. Gillis' response to
   Desmond's cry that "the pictures got small" is a muttered reply, "I
   knew there was something wrong with them." Wilder often varies the
   structure, with Desmond taking Gillis' comments seriously and replying
   in kind. An example is when the two discuss the overwrought script
   Desmond has been working on. "They'll love it in Pomona," observes
   Gillis. "They'll love it everyplace," replies Desmond firmly.

   In an essay about the screenplay, film writer Richard Corliss described
   Sunset Boulevard as "the definitive Hollywood horror movie," noting
   that almost everything in the script is "ghoulish." He remarked that
   the story is narrated by a dead man who Norma Desmond first mistakes
   for an undertaker, while most of the film takes place "in an old, dark
   house that only opens its doors to the living dead." He compared Von
   Stroheim's character Max with The Phantom of the Opera, and Norma
   Desmond with Dracula, noting that as she seduces Joe Gillis the camera
   tactfully withdraws with "the traditional directorial attitude taken
   towards Dracula's jugular seductions." He wrote that the narrative
   contains an excess of "cheap sarcasm" but ultimately congratulated the
   writers for attributing this dialogue to Joe Gillis, who was in any
   case presented as little more than a hack writer.

   Wilder preferred to leave analysis of his screenplays and films to
   others. Asked if Sunset Boulevard was a black comedy he replied, "No,
   just a picture."

Key creative personnel

   The film's dark, shadowy black-and-white film noir cinematography was
   the work of John F. Seitz. Wilder had worked with him several times
   before, and trusted his judgment, allowing him the freedom to make his
   own decisions. Seitz recalled asking Wilder what he required for the
   pet monkey's funeral scene. Wilder replied, "you know, just your
   standard monkey funeral shot." For some interior shots Seitz sprinkled
   dust in front of the camera before filming to suggest "mustiness", a
   trick he had also used during production of Double Indemnity (1944).

   Wilder was adamant that the corpse of Joe Gillis be seen from the
   bottom of the pool, but creating the effect was difficult. The camera
   was placed inside a specially made box and lowered underwater, but the
   result disappointed Wilder, who insisted on further experiments. The
   shot was finally achieved by placing a mirror on the bottom of the pool
   and filming Holden's reflection from above with the distorted image of
   the policemen standing around the pool and forming a backdrop.

   Film historian Tom Stempel wrote, "In both Double Indemnity and Sunset
   Boulevard, Seitz does something that has always impressed me. Both are
   films noir, and he finesses the fact that both are set in the sunniest
   of locales, Los Angeles... he brings together the light and the dark in
   the same film without any seams showing... he brings together the
   realistic lighting of Joe Gillis out in the real world with the gothic
   look of Norma Desmond's mansion. Again with no seams showing."

   Edith Head designed the costumes. Wilder, Head and Swanson agreed Norma
   Desmond would have kept somewhat up to date with fashion trends so Head
   designed costumes closely resembling the Dior and Chanel look of the
   mid-1940s. Embellishments were added to personalize them and reflect
   Norma Desmond's taste. Swanson recalled in her biography that the
   costumes were only "a trifle outdated, a trifle exotic." Head later
   described her assignment as "the most challenging of my career," and
   explained her approach with the comment, "Because Norma Desmond was an
   actress who had become lost in her own imagination, I tried to make her
   look like she was always impersonating someone." Head later said she
   relied on Swanson's expertise because "she was creating a past that she
   knew and I didn't."

   Head also designed the costumes for William Holden and the minor
   characters but for authenticity, Wilder instructed Von Stroheim and
   Nancy Olson to wear their own clothing.

   The musical score was created by Franz Waxman. His theme for Norma
   Desmond was based on tango music, inspired by her reference to dancing
   the tango with Rudolph Valentino. This style was contrasted with Joe
   Gillis' bebop theme. Waxman also used distorted arrangements of popular
   film music styles from the 1920s and 1930s to suggest Norma Desmond's
   state of mind. The film's soundtrack was released on compact disc for
   the first time in 2002.

   The overstated decadence of Norma Desmond's home was created by set
   designer Hans Dreier, whose career extended back to the silent era. He
   had also done the interior design for some movie stars' residences,
   including Mae West's. William Haines, an interior designer and former
   actor, later defended criticism of Dreier's set design with the
   observation, " Bebe Daniels, Norma Shearer and Pola Negri all had homes
   with ugly interiors like that."

   During filming considerable publicity was given to health-conscious
   Gloria Swanson's youthful appearance, which did not contrast enough
   with William Holden's mature looks. Wilder insisted the age difference
   be delineated and instructed makeup supervisor Wally Westmore to make
   Swanson look older. Swanson argued that a woman of Norma Desmond's age,
   with her considerable wealth and devotion to self, would not
   necessarily look old, and suggested makeup be applied to Holden to make
   him appear younger. Wilder agreed and Westmore was assigned the task of
   making Holden appear younger, which allowed Swanson to portray Norma
   Desmond as a more sophisticated and glamorous figure than Wilder had
   originally anticipated.

Touches of authenticity

   In dissecting Hollywood's "world of illusion" Wilder carefully placed
   the story within as authentic a setting as possible and made use of
   Hollywood history. Norma Desmond's name is believed to have been
   inspired by William Desmond Taylor, who had been murdered in 1922, and
   his close associate and friend Mabel Normand, whose career was ruined
   by scandals surrounding the murder.

   Swanson was considered a fitting representative of Hollywood's past,
   remembered nostalgically by older fans but unknown to many younger
   movie viewers. Her personal collection of photographs decorated the set
   of Norma Desmond's home, causing Desmond's fictional past to resemble
   Swanson's authentic career.

   The script refers to real films such as Gone with the Wind and real
   people such as Darryl F. Zanuck, D. W. Griffith, Tyrone Power, Alan
   Ladd, Adolphe Menjou, Rudolph Valentino, Rod La Rocque, Vilma Bánky,
   John Gilbert, Mabel Normand, Bebe Daniels, Marie Prevost, Betty Hutton
   and Barbara Stanwyck along with the Black Dahlia murder case. Norma
   Desmond declares admiration for Greta Garbo.

   Wilder extended his Hollywood references into some of his casting
   choices. Erich von Stroheim was a leading director of the silent era.
   In the role of Max he watches a film with Norma Desmond and the briefly
   shown scene is from Queen Kelly (1929), which von Stroheim himself
   directed with Swanson in the title role. Cecil B. De Mille (often
   credited as the person most responsible for making Swanson a star)
   plays himself, and was filmed on the set of his current film Samson and
   Delilah at Paramount Studios. He calls Norma "young fellow," the
   nickname he had called Swanson, a tiny detail of authenticity suggested
   by De Mille.

   Norma's friends who come to play bridge with her, though described only
   as "The Waxworks", are Swanson's contemporaries Buster Keaton, Anna Q.
   Nilsson and H. B. Warner, who, like De Mille, play themselves. (They
   are credited as doing so in the film's closing credits.) Hedda Hopper
   also plays herself reporting on Norma Desmond's downfall in the film's
   final scenes.

   In a comic scene Norma Desmond performs a pantomime for Joe Gillis as a
   Mack Sennett "Bathing Beauty", in homage to Swanson's earliest film
   roles. She also performs a Charles Chaplin impersonation identical to
   one she performed in the film Masquerade (1924).

   Wilder also made use of authentic locales. Joe Gillis's home in the
   Alto-Nido apartments was a real apartment block located near Paramount
   Studios and often populated by struggling writers. The scenes of Gillis
   and Betty Schaefer on Paramount's backlot were filmed on the actual
   backlot and the interior of Schwab's drugstore was carefully recreated
   for several scenes. The exterior scenes of the Desmond house were
   filmed near around an old home on Wilshire Blvd. built during the
   1920s, which by 1949 was owned by the former wife of J. Paul Getty. The
   house is also featured in Rebel Without A Cause. It has now been
   demolished and an office building stands in its location.

Reaction to the film

   Wilder and Brackett were nervous about a major screening in Hollywood
   and decided to have the film preview in Evanston, Illinois. The
   original edit opened with a scene inside a morgue, with the assembled
   corpses discussing how they had come to be there. Joe Gillis was one of
   the corpses and began telling about his murder. The audience reacted
   with laughter and seemed unsure whether to view the rest of the film as
   a drama or a comedy. After a similar reaction during its second
   screening the opening scene was deleted. The new edit was well-received
   in Poughkeepsie, New York.

   In Hollywood Paramount arranged a private screening for the various
   studio heads and specially invited guests. After viewing the film,
   Barbara Stanwyck bowed to kiss the hem of Gloria Swanson's skirt.
   Swanson later remembered looking for Mary Pickford only to be told "She
   can't show herself, Gloria. She's too overcome. We all are." Louis B.
   Mayer berated Wilder before the crowd of celebrities, saying, "You have
   disgraced the industry that made and fed you. You should be tarred and
   feathered and run out of Hollywood." Actress Mae Murray, a contemporary
   of Swanson's, was offended by the film and commented "None of us
   floozies was that nuts."

   Sunset Boulevard attracted a range of positive reviews from critics.
   TIME magazine described it as a story of "Hollywood at its worst told
   by Hollywood at its best" while Boxoffice Review wrote "the picture
   will keep spectators spellbound." James Agee, writing for Sight and
   Sound, praised the film and said Wilder and Brackett were "beautifully
   equipped to do the cold, exact, adroit, sardonic job they have done."
   Good Housekeeping described Swanson as a "great lady [who] spans
   another decade with her magic," while Look Magazine praised her
   "brilliant and haunting performance."

   Some critics accurately foresaw the film's lasting appeal. The
   Hollywood Reporter wrote that future generations would "set themselves
   the task of analyzing the durability and greatness" of the film while
   the magazine Commonweal said that in the future "the Library of
   Congress will be glad to have in its archives a print of Sunset
   Boulevard."

   The rare negative comments included those from The New Yorker which
   described the film as "a pretentious slice of Roquefort," containing
   only "the germ of a good idea." Thomas M. Pryor wrote for the New York
   Times that the plot device of using the dead Joe Gillis as narrator was
   "completely unworthy of Brackett and Wilder, but happily it does not
   interfere with the success of Sunset Boulevard."

   After a seven-week run at Radio City Music Hall, Variety magazine
   reported the film had grossed "around $1,020,000" making it one of
   Radio City Music Hall's most successful pictures. Variety also noted
   that while it was "breaking records in major cities, it is doing below
   average in ... the sticks." To promote the film, Gloria Swanson
   traveled by train throughout the United States, visiting 33 cities in a
   few months. The publicity helped attract people to the cinemas but in
   many provincial areas it was considered less than a hit.

Awards

   Sunset Boulevard won Academy Awards in the categories of:
     * Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White ( Hans Dreier,
       John Meehan, Sam Comer and Ray Moyer)
     * Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture ( Franz Waxman)
     * Best Writing, Story and Screenplay ( Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder
       and D.M. Marshman Jr.)

   It was also nominated in the categories of:
     * Best Picture
     * Best Director (Billy Wilder)
     * Best Actor in a Leading Role ( William Holden)
     * Best Actor in a Supporting Role ( Erich von Stroheim)
     * Best Actress in a Leading Role ( Gloria Swanson)
     * Best Actress in a Supporting Role ( Nancy Olson)
     * Best Cinematography, Black-and-White ( John F. Seitz)
     * Best Film Editing (Arthur P. Schmidt and Doane Harrison)

   Sunset Boulevard's eleven nominations were exceeded only by the
   fourteen nominations received by All About Eve which won six awards
   including Best Picture and Best Director. Many critics predicted that
   the Best Actress award would be given to Gloria Swanson or Bette Davis
   for All About Eve and were surprised that the recipient was newcomer
   Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday. Swanson recalled the press' reaction
   following Holliday's win, writing "It slowly dawned on me that they
   were asking for a larger-than-life scene, or better still, a mad scene.
   More accurately they were trying to flush out Norma Desmond."

   Image:Poland-sunset-blvd.jpg

   In an interview years later Davis bluntly stated she and Swanson had
   "cancelled each other out" , though in 1982 she told Playboy Magazine
   of her admiration for Swanson's performance, saying, "If she'd won, I'd
   have shouted hooray. She was sensational, just fantastic".

   Sunset Boulevard' also received Golden Globe awards for Best Motion
   Picture - Drama, Best Motion Picture Actress (Swanson), Best Motion
   Picture Director and Best Motion Picture Score. Wilder and Brackett won
   a Writer's Guild of America Award for Best Written American Drama while
   the Director's Guild of America nominated Wilder for Outstanding
   Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. The National Board of
   Review voted it Best Picture and Swanson received Best Actress.

After Sunset Boulevard

   Sunset Boulevard was the last collaboration between Wilder and
   Brackett. Their relationship was reportedly damaged by disputes over
   filming the montage scenes of Norma preparing her return to the screen.
   The film marked an approximate midpoint of Wilder's most successful
   years.

   Charles Brackett's Hollywood career continued after his split with
   Wilder. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay for Titanic (1953),
   and wrote Niagara (1953), which was the breakthrough film for Marilyn
   Monroe as a dramatic actress. It was Wilder however, who realized
   Monroe's comedic abilities in The Seven Year Itch and Some Like it Hot.
   Brackett's career waned by the end of the decade.

   William Holden began receiving more important parts and his career
   rose. In 1953, he won the Best Actor Oscar for Stalag 17 (also directed
   by Wilder) and by 1956 he was the number one box-office attraction in
   the United States.

   Nancy Olson's pairing with William Holden was considered a success, and
   she appeared opposite him in several films during the 1950s. However,
   none of them repeated their earlier success. Olson went on to star in
   The Absent-Minded Professor (1960) and Son of Flubber (1961), in which
   she was paired with Fred MacMurray, but despite the films' popularity
   with movie-goers, her career stalled.

   Similarly, Gloria Swanson was not able to leverage her own success in
   Sunset Boulevard. Although offered scripts, she felt that they all were
   poor imitations of Norma Desmond. Imagining a career that would
   eventually reduce her to playing "a parody of a parody," she virtually
   retired from films.

   In 1957 Swanson initiated discussions with Paramount Studios to adapt
   Sunset Boulevard into a musical called Boulevard! In her version the
   romance between Gillis and Shaefer was allowed to blossom and rather
   than shoot Gillis at the end, Norma gave the couple her blessing,
   sending them on their way to live "happily ever after." Swanson
   employed Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley to compose the score, which
   was completed and recorded, later appearing on LP; Miss Swanson
   performed a fully-orchestrated selection on The Steve Allen Show.
   Paramount Studios, which owned the copyright, encouraged Swanson to
   continue but withdrew its consent in 1959, saying it would not permit
   an interpretation that would damage the existing and future reputation
   of the film. It allowed television productions for Lux Video Theatre
   with Miriam Hopkins, and Robert Montgomery Presents with Mary Astor and
   Darren McGavin, because the storyline remained faithful to the original
   script.

   Sunset Boulevard was shown in New York City in 1960 and drew such a
   positive response that Paramount arranged for a limited rerelease in
   theaters throughout the United States. It is arguably best known to
   modern audiences as a result of its television screenings since the
   1960s.

The film's current stature

   In 1989 the film was among the first group of 25 deemed "culturally
   significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation
   in the National Film Registry.

   Polls conducted by the American Film Institute have demonstrated the
   lasting appeal of Sunset Boulevard and the esteem in which it is held
   by the modern filmmakers who respond to these polls. In 1998 it was
   ranked number twelve on a list of " 100 Greatest Films". In 2004 two
   quotes from Sunset Boulevard were included in their poll of " Greatest
   Movie Quotes": All right, Mr. De Mille. I'm ready for my close-up (#7)
   and I am big. It's the pictures that got small (#24). In 2005, Franz
   Waxman's score was named #16 of the top 25 film scores in the AFI's
   "100 Years of FIlm Scores list.

   Roger Ebert has praised the acting of Holden and von Stroheim and has
   described Swanson's as "one of the all time greatest performances." He
   says Sunset Boulevard "remains the best drama ever made about the
   movies because it sees through the illusions." Pauline Kael described
   the film as "almost too clever, but at its best in its cleverness," and
   also wrote it was common to "hear Billy Wilder called the world's
   greatest director." When Wilder died, many obituaries singled out
   Sunset Boulevard for comment, describing it as one of his most
   significant works along with Double Indemnity (1944) and Some Like it
   Hot (1959).

   By the late 1990s, most Sunset Boulevard prints were in poor condition,
   and since the film was one of the last to be filmed on cellulose
   nitrate filmstock, much of the original negative had perished.
   Paramount Studios, believing the film merited the effort of a complete
   restoration, mounted an expensive project to have the film digitally
   restored. The restored version was released on DVD in 2002. A 2003 BBC
   review of the restored film described it as "the finest movie ever made
   about the narcissistic hellhole that is Hollywood."

Other films about Hollywood

   While Hollywood had been making films about itself since the 1920s many
   of them, such as It's a Great Feeling (1949), were good-natured and
   fun. Others, such as What Price Hollywood? (1932) and A Star Is Born
   (1937), hinted at the darker side of Hollywood without explicitly
   showing it. Sunset Boulevard is considered to be the first to employ
   such extreme cynicism. It was soon followed by The Bad and the
   Beautiful (1952), Singin' in the Rain (1952) and the musical remake of
   A Star Is Born (1954). Though none of them was as harshly
   self-critical, they each depicted the ease and cruelty with which
   Hollywood could discard a movie star past his or her prime.

   Sunset Boulevard was followed by other films which varied the story of
   an older actress desperately clinging to her past glory, such as Bette
   Davis in The Star (1952) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962),
   Joan Crawford in Torch Song (1953), Geraldine Page in Sweet Bird of
   Youth (1962), Susan Hayward in Valley of the Dolls (1967) and Faye
   Dunaway in Mommie Dearest (1981). The scenario of an older woman with a
   gigolo was also used as a storyline without the Hollywood setting in
   such films as The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) which starred
   Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty, while Katharine Hepburn's descent into
   madness in Suddenly Last Summer (1959) has been compared to Norma
   Desmond's final scene. The Day of the Locust (1975) and The Last Tycoon
   (1976) depict Hollywood in bitter terms and, like Sunset Boulevard,
   make use of real backstage settings.

   Among the more recent films to discuss Sunset Boulevard in their
   screenplays or imitate its scenes or dialogue are Soapdish (1991), The
   Player (1992), Gods and Monsters (1998), Mulholland Drive (2001) and Be
   Cool (2005). The ending of Cecil B. Demented (2000) is a parody of
   Sunset Boulevard's famous final scene.

   On television, the film inspired an episode of The Twilight Zone, " The
   Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine", in which an aging movie queen relives her
   past glory through watching her movies and at the same time isolating
   herself from the real world.

The musical version

   A musical version (also titled Sunset Boulevard) with music by Andrew
   Lloyd Webber and book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton
   opened in London, England in 1993. The film had been originally meant
   to be adapted by Stephen Sondheim but he gave it up after meeting Billy
   Wilder who proposed he write an opera instead of a musical. Then, John
   Kander and Fred Ebb were asked to do so. Finally Andrew Lloyd Webber
   took the opportunity to create a musical based on the film.

   The production closely followed the film story, retained much of the
   dialogue and attempted to present similar set designs. Billy Wilder
   commented, "I congratulate [the writers] on something very ingenious —
   they left the story alone. A woman comes forward and says, 'I am big,
   it's the pictures that got small.' I was very much astonished when I
   heard the words, many of them retained and some of them to music. I'm
   not an expert on music but it sounded good to me." The show opened on
   Broadway the following year. Among the actresses to play Norma Desmond
   were Patti Lupone, Elaine Paige, Betty Buckley and Petula Clark in
   London along with Glenn Close in Los Angeles and Betty Buckley in New
   York.

The Movie Musical

   In July 2005 Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group announced that a film
   version starring Glenn Close and Ewan McGregor was to be produced in
   association with Paramount and the Relevant Picture Company, with an
   expected release date of 2006, but the project has been delayed until
   2008. The announcement had a mixed response, as many people think the
   original film could never be replicated or remade. Hugh Jackman who was
   Joe Gillis in an Australian Production of the show, has also been
   considered for the role of Joe in the remake.

The name of the film

   Nearly all references give the name of the film as Sunset Boulevard.
   However, the opening sequence does not give a title. Instead, it has a
   shot of the road and zooms in on a street sign that says Sunset Blvd.
   Thus some authorities such as Leonard Maltin's Film Guide and the IMDb
   argue that it is the latter that is the true name of the film. However,
   "Sunset Boulevard" is the name given in the original theatrical trailer
   but the registration with the Library of Congress shows 'Sunset Blvd'.
   Retrieved from "
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Boulevard_%281950_film%29"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
