Sunset Blvd (1950) Rebloged from Down These Mean Streets Blog

This Blog post originally appeared     Tuesday, March 13, 2018on   Down These Mean Streets         Musings of a Noir Dame - Margot Shelby

Sunset Blvd (1950)

 

"I AM big. It's the pictures that got small."

Sunset Blvd was written and directed by the great 

Billy Wilder for Paramount. The picture is a scathing

indictment of Hollywood and the monsters it produces; 

a macabre comedy, full of stick-the-knife-in-and-twist-it

slowly humor; sordid melodrama and Noir, from which 

it borrows the flashback structure, fatalism, 

the sucker and a different kind of femme fatale who lures 

with money, not sex. As far as Noir goes, this is one of the 

bleakest. The movie also has more quotable dialogue 

than any other film I can think of.

It’s a Hollywood-on-Hollywood movie as brutal as any to 

ever come out of Tinseltown. I think only The Player (1992)

can match it in cynicism. Sunset Blvdruffled the feathers 

of a lot of Hollywood luminaries. Nobody likes to have his 
soul laid bare quite so savagely. Louis B. Mayer wanted to 
have the movie destroyed in the interest of industry honor. 
Lucky for Wilder his home studio Paramount held him in high 

esteem. He had given them a few box office successes.

The movie isn’t quite a hate letter to Tinseltown, for that there’s too much compassion and 

nostalgia in it. It stays just this side of outright condemnation, because the audience can feel 

Wilder’s love for the Silent Age and the studio system which was coming apart at the seams 

in the 50s. There’s also some positive portrayals in movie. Cecil B. DeMille for example, 

playing himself, is shown in quite a favorable light.

The film opens with the spectacularly audacious shot - now considered one of the most iconic opening shots in movie history - of Joe Gillis’ dead body floating face down in a swimming pool. He then proceeds to tell the audience how he ended up there. The picture’s sardonic voice-over narration is provided by a talking corps. Now that’s creative.

Two-bit screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) is down to his last buck and on the run from the repo men. By accident he ends up at the crumbling estate of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), former Silent movie star and now a recluse, who lives there with her strange and creepy butler Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim). She’s desperately been trying to resuscitate her career and has been writing on a script for Salomé for years, impatiently waiting for that one coveted phone call from Cecil B. DeMille inviting her back to Paramount. Unfortunately the script is melodramatic tripe that nobody wants to read. Joe sees the prospect of some impressive 

money looming in the future. He knows Norma’s script is useless but makes her believe 

he can do a patch-up job on it and so accepts an invitation to stay at her house. But things 

get weird quickly. Norma turns out to be the original cougar. She pays off his bills and he 
becomes her boy toy. His life gets even more complicated when he falls in love with fellow 
writer Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson). But Norma’s possessiveness and jealousy know no 
bounds. Joe should have paid a little more attention to the fate of John the Baptist.

An icon of the Silent era, Swanson - like so many others - came close to being reduced to nothing when sound arrived. She continued to make movies, but her kind of films had simply fallen out of favor with the public. Thankfully she proved to be a shrewd and successful business woman so her life didn’t go off the rails. 

Norma Desmond is a reminder that Tinseltown habitually treats its stars as disposable commodities, quickly kicking them to the curb to let them rot in obscurity if they don’t fill the studio’s coffers. When she was a star people worshipped the ground Norma walked on. “A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit”, says DeMille of Norma. It’s hard to weather such unmitigated awe and adoration with any kind of cool aplomb. Fame is addictive. As a result, Norma has an ego the size of a small planet and it needs feeding constantly. Like a black hole, she consumes all light and life around her.

In a stroke of genius Wilder often photographs Norma’s hands like the greedy talons of a bird 

of prey, desperately clawing at life but grasping nothing.

Norma used to be the brightest star of them all but now she’s been living in her decaying mansion 

in self-imposed exile for over 20 years. She barely sees anybody and has cut herself off completely 

from the real world while turning her mansion into a shrine to her lost fame and glory days, reliving 

them over and over again. She surrounds herself only with other fallen idols long past their 

expiry date who Joe calls disrespectfully “the waxworks”.

Her delusions aren’t helped by Max who’s enabling her. He’s forging countless fan letters to keep 

her happy. And when Paramount finally calls - seemingly about her script that she mailed to them- 

he hides from Norma the fact that it’s not her they want, just her exquisite vintage car.

The moment Joe sets foot on the dilapidated 

estate he remarks on its rotting splendor. 

Norma’s mansion is a mausoleum where 

time stands still. “The whole place seemed to 

have been stricken with a kind of creeping 

paralysis - out of beat with the rest of the 

world, crumbling apart in slow motion”. He’ll 

soon find out that everything is rotten on 

the estate. The decay has seeped 

deep down into the foundations. 

Many viewers likened Norma to a vampire. 

She feeds on other people and sucks them 

dry. In her clinging need to be loved, she 

even goes so far as attempting suicide 

to blackmail Joe into staying. In fact 

Sunset Blvd. plays very much like a horror 

movie. We have a haunted house complete with big pipe organ where a strange butler plays eerie 

music at night. There are the ghosts of Hollywood past, the undead - Norma, Max and the 

“waxworks” - forever damned to walk the earth in search of something long vanished. And weirdest 

of all there’s the midnight funeral for Norma’s feverishly beloved pet monkey that’s right out of a 

freak show. That alone would have been most people’s cue to leave, but Joe doesn’t heed the 

warning signs. He stays and so becomes Norma’s replacement chimp. The poisonous spirit of the 

mansion will possess him too. Horror movies don’t need blood and gore. Monsters come in many 

different shapes and sizes.

Swanson is phenomenal in her role. She gives a gutsy performance which could easily be 

dismissed as campy and close to parody.  But she plays it exactly right. It’s a performance within a 

performance. Norma is always in front of an audience, always posing for the cameras. She 

cannot let go. A theatrical acting style was part of the Silent Age and Norma never made it out. 

Holden’s natural acting contrasts sharply with hers.

Von Stroheim’s story in Sunset Blvd. is actually the one that comes closest to reality, lending the movie an air of uncanny authenticity. A once-great Silent director, he had a reputation for extravagance and a fanatical insistence on perfection regardless of costs. He and Swanson had a history. He had directed her in Queen Kelly in 1929, but was dismissed from the set after a disagreement with her. The movie was never finished and lost an astronomical sum. It is Queen Kelly that Norma screens nightly at her house. The film ruined von Stroheim’s career and Swanson’s suffered too. He made only two more talkies, and was then reduced to playing self-parodies in other directors’ movies. It was a spectacular fall from grace.  When Max says to Joe, "There were three young directors who showed promise in those days, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille and Max von Mayerling,” we’re supposed to substitute von Stroheim for von Mayerling. That is how famous he was in the 1920s.

Von Stroheim brings great pathos to his role. Max, as it turns out, is not only Norma’s butler but her 

former director and former husband too. He was the man who made her, and is now reduced to 

lackey status because he still loves her. The man’s a masochist. He thinks he’s helping her, but no 

doubt he’s partly to blame for Norma’s mental state, letting her live in a phantasy world, 
feeding her delusions, her denials and ultimately her illness.

Joe Gillis is a stand-in for all those wide-eyed 

hopefuls coming to Hollywood, just to be 

chewed up and spit out again. At the time 

William Holden was a bit like his character. 

After he had exploded onto the 

Hollywood scene in 1939 with Golden Boy, 

his career was going nowhere for the next 10 

years. Holden was bored with his roles and he 

literally leapt at the chance of playing Gillis. 

He made the right choice. Sunset Blvd 

made him one of Hollywood's greatest and 

revitalized his career for the next 15 years.

Joe thinks he’s found himself a cushy setup,

but he gets a lot more than he bargained for.  

In true Noir fashion, he's doomed the 

second he sets foot on Norma's estate. She 

has her own ideas about their future. Joe is a chump who fatally underestimates Norma’s 

combustible mix of neurosis, fear and insecurity. He despises himself for being a gigolo, but still 

can’t bring himself to leave. Every once in a while he ponders going back to Ohio where he came 

from but that would mean admitting defeat. The question is does he really want to leave? He likes 

the lifestyle despite his claims to the contrary. Such is the corrupting nature of easy living. A 

gold cigarette case, expensive suits, shoes and watches are better than the poor house even if it 

means prostituting more than just his art. Roger Ebert suggested that he is content being a prisoner

and I’m inclined to agree. 

It all changes when he falls in love with Betty. She’s all good, sweet and pure and may have been 

his redemption. But Norma finds out and tries to disclose Joe’s dirty secret to Betty. It doesn’t 

work. Joe’s finally had enough and invites Betty out to the mansion to see the situation for herself. 

Unwisely Joe then throws the brutal truth in Norma’s face. About the fan letters, her script, DeMille

humoring her and hating the mere sight of her. But Norma can’t handle the truth. She has been 

teetering on the brink of madness for years and this is the last straw. Her world comes crashing 

down. She sends Joe on his way…with a few parting shots. Nobody leaves a star.

The final scene shows true cinematic genius, an image that sears itself into the brain. It is truly disturbing and a master class on brilliant acting. The homicide squad has arrived to take Norma away but she has slipped into complete insanity. Her big day, her big return, has finally come. Max tells her that she’s filming Salomé’s climactic scene, convinces her to come down the stairs as if it’s a grand entrance, not a descend into police custody. It is his last act of love for her. Joe comments: “Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her.” She graciously addresses “the crew” - assuring them that they’ll make many more movies together -  and the big man who’s finally come to see her. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” The cameras keep rolling in her alternate reality, she’s back on top again where she belongs. Then mercifully the shot fades into hazy oblivion.

Madness can be a blessing. All is best in the best of all possible worlds. Norma got her comeback 

with Mr. DeMille, Max could direct her one last time, Joe got the pool he always wanted. 

Sunset Boulevard, the boulevard of broken dreams. Only the chimp got off easy. He’s the only one

who didn’t get the fuzzy end of the lollipop.