Sunset Boulevard [2 Discs]

Director: Billy Wilder Billy Wilder

Overview

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard ranks among the most scathing satires of Hollywood and the cruel fickleness of movie fandom. The story begins at the end as the body of Joe Gillis (William Holden) is fished out of a Hollywood swimming pool. From The Great Beyond, Joe details the circumstances of his untimely demise (originally, the film contained a lengthy prologue wherein the late Mr. Gillis told his tale to his fellow corpses in the city morgue, but this elicited such laughter during the preview that Wilder changed it). Hotly pursued by repo men, impoverished, indebted "boy wonder" screenwriter Gillis ducks into the garage of an apparently abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. Wandering into the spooky place, Joe encounters its owner, imperious silent star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). Upon learning Joe's profession, Norma inveigles him into helping her with a comeback script that she's been working on for years. Joe realizes that the script is hopeless, but the money is good and he has nowhere else to go. Soon the cynical and opportunistic Joe becomes Norma's kept man. While they continue collaborating, Norma's loyal and protective chauffeur Max Von Mayerling (played by legendary filmmaker Erich von Stroheim) contemptuously watches from a distance. More melodramatic than funny, the screenplay by Wilder and Charles Brackett began life as a comedy about a has-been silent movie actress and the ambitious screenwriter who leeches off her. (Wilder originally offered the film to Mae West, Mary Pickford and Pola Negri. Montgomery Clift was the first choice for the part of opportunistic screenwriter Joe Gillis, but he refused, citing as "disgusting" the notion of a 25-year-old man being kept by a 50-year-old woman.) Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-running musical version has served as a tour-de-force for contemporary actresses ranging from Glenn Close to Betty Buckley to Diahann Carroll.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/25/2017
UPC:	0032429258243
Original Release:	1950
Source:	PARAMOUNT
Language:	English
Time:	1:50:00
Sales rank:	4,858

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

William Holden	Joe Gillis
Gloria Swanson	Norma Desmond
Erich von Stroheim	Max Von Mayerling
Nancy Olson	Betty Schaefer
Fred Clark	Sheldrake
Lloyd Gough	Morino
Jack Webb	Artie Green
Franklyn Farnum	Actor,The Undertaker
Charles Dayton	Finance Man
Hedda Hopper	Actor,Doctor/Courtier
Anna Q. Nilsson	Actor
Sidney Skolsky	Himself
Ray Evans	Actor
Bernice Mosk	Herself
Larry Blake	Finance Man,Actor
Eddie Dew	Assistant Coroner
Roy Thompson	Actor
Peter Drynan	Actor
Ruth Clifford	Sheldrake's Secretary
Bert Moorhouse	Actor
Yvette Vickers	Actor
Virginia Randolph	Courtier
Gertrude Astor	Courtier
Frank O'Connor	Actor,Actor,Jonesy
Eva Novak	Courtier
Al Ferguson	Phone Standby
Stan Johnson	1st Assistant Director
Bill Sheehan	2nd Assistant Director
Julia Faye	Hisham
Gertrude Messinger	Hair Dresser
John 'Skins' Miller	Hog Eye
John Cortay	Young Policeman
Gerry Ganzer	Connie
Tommy Ivo	Boy
Emmett Smith	Man
Ottola Nesmith	Woman
Jay Morley	Fat Man
Howard Negley	Captain of Police
Ken Christy	Captain of Homicide
Len Hendry	Police Sergeant
Arthur Lane	Actor
Archie R. Dalzell	Actor
James Hawley	Actor
Edward Wahrman	Actor
Sanford E. Greenwald	Actor
Howard Joslin	Police Lieutenant
Fred Aldrich	Cop Who Drags Joe's Body from Pool
Creighton Hale	Undetermined Role
Chuck Hamilton	Grip on DeMille Set
Tiny Jones	Little Woman outside Paramount Gate
Edward Biby	Restaurant Patron
Danny Borzage	Accordionist
H. B. Warner	Actor
Arthur P. Schmidt	Actor
Franz Waxman	Actor,Composer
Charles Brackett	Actor
D.M. Marshman Jr.	Actor
Billy Wilder	Actor
Patrick Poch	Actor
Archie Twitchell	Actor
Kenneth Gibson	Salesman
Ralph Montgomery	First Prop Man
Joel Allen	Second Prop Man
Jack Warden	Actor
Richard Strauss	Composer

Technical Credits

Billy Wilder

D.M. Marshman Jr.

Charles Brackett

Billy Wilder	Director,Screenwriter
D.M. Marshman Jr.	Screenwriter
Charles Brackett	Screenwriter,Producer
Farciot Edouart	Special Effects
Gordon Jennings	Special Effects
Harry Lindgren	Sound/Sound Designer
John Cope	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Tackling the kind of movie "that never quite worked," Billy Wilder made one of greatest films about Hollywood. In his pungent satire of the industry's sordidness, Wilder turned Hollywood history back on itself, with the presence of silent film star Gloria Swanson as aging silent diva Norma Desmond and great silent director Erich von Stroheim as her butler eloquently commenting on the ephemerality of fame. Her writer/gigolo Joe Gillis incarnated corruptly desperate young Hollywood, dismissing forgotten greats like Buster Keaton as "waxworks" while imagining that he can escape unscathed from Norma's fantasy world. Shot in ultra-noir black-and-white in a 1920s Hollywood mansion, the looming ceilings, overstuffed rooms, and oblique lighting rendered Norma's environment alluringly sinister in its deteriorating decadence, while Joe's famous "entrance" -- floating face-down dead in Norma's pool while recounting his story in voiceover -- caustically upended narrative conventions. Greeted with raves, Sunset Boulevard became Swanson's cinematic triumph; William Holden's performance as Joe (replacing Montgomery Clift) reignited his own stardom. Despite offending the movie moguls, Wilder was rewarded with eleven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Actor, and Actress. Along with wins for Art Direction and Franz Waxman's score, Wilder, Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr. took a Screenplay prize. Adapted as a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.