Sunset Boulevard (1950) 1950, 1h 50min - Drama Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond, an aging silent-film queen, and William Holden, as the struggling young screenwriter who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen's most memorable characters in "Sunset Boulevard." (1966), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Network (1976), Coming Home (1978), Reds (1981), Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013). Jay Livingston, Ray Evans: The Paramount songwriting duo is seen at the piano at Artie Green's New Year's Eve party. The mundane accident that took the Hollywood actor's life was made even worse by the fact that nobody found his body for a week afterward, according to the Associated Press. In the movie when a cop tries to call in to the coroners office, he cant get an open line because Hedda Hopper is on the phone in Normas room, talking to the Times City Desk and that is more important. The forensics team rolled him over and saw he had been shot at least once in the back with a small-caliber pistol. Billy Wilder was a friend of the danish silent movie star Asta Nielsen, and based the Norma Desmond caracter on her. The whole place seemed to have been stricken with the kind of creeping paralysis, out of beat with the rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow motion. Sunset Boulevard DVD (2007) William Holden, Wilder (DIR) cert PG Amazing Value. #7. New York-born novelist and screenwriter Brackett was head of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 1930s, and president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1949 to 1955. 12 Sep. WILLIAM HOLDEN: At some point, "Sunset Boulevard" (1950) played at The Silver Screen. (1950) was plagiarized from other scripts. In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked this as the #16 Greatest Movie of All Time. Taylor had a British accent and the imposter sounded like he came out of Chicagos south side. Darryl F. Zanuck, Olivia de Havilland, Tyrone Power and Samuel Goldwyn all refused to allow their names to be used in the film, but Billy Wilder decided to use Zanuck's and Power's names anyway. While talking with Betty and Artie in Schwab's, Artie points out the studs in Joe's tuxedo. "Lonely, alone, without dignity.". When he drives Norma to Paramount Pictures at the studio gates, the car was pulled with a rope by off-camera grips. April 17, 2019 6:00AM. And here is how he obtained his new movie tag. Norma Desmond promised she would never desert her audience again. They thought the actors made it up as they went along. The drugstore where Joe Gillis meets up with his old movie industry friends is Schwab's Pharmacy, then a real pharmacy/soda fountain at the intersection of Sunset Blvd. Just us and the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark! Norma Desmond didnt need dialogue, she can say whatever she wants with her eyes. What do you say about a longtime friend a sense of personal loss, a fine man. The next decade saw Holden's career flourish. Norma telling studio guard Jonesy that without her there would be no Paramount Studios is not a far-fetched notion. Billy Wilder had worked on a script for a Swanson picture years earlier called "Music in the Air (1934)" and had forgotten about it. Culture Editor Tony Sokol is a writer, playwright and musician. Wilder and Brackett told everyone at Paramount and the Production code that the screenplay was based on the story A Can of Beans by Wilder, Brackett, and D.M. The statuette on the telephone table at Artie Green's new years party is a model of the Philistine god, Dagon. Gloria Swanson does a famous impression of Charles Chaplin as the "Little Tramp," but Chaplin's name is never mentioned. Billy Wilder's 1978 Flop Fedora is less a worthy follow up to Sunset Boulevard than a sorry footnote. "I left countless messages but received no answer." Oh, and while were at it, Wilder didnt submerge any cameras to get that underwater shot. In fact, a pivotal plot point in the Showtime limited series of Twin Peaks (2017) includes a scene from "Sunset Boulevard" in which the character's name is mentioned. He was named one of the "Top 10 Stars of the Year" six times (19541958, 1961), and appeared as 25th on the American Film Institute's list of 25 greatest male stars of Classical Hollywood cinema. After living in the home for a year he moved, and the house sat vacant for a little over a decade, earning the moniker "The Phantom House" in the process. Holden turned the tables on Lucille Ball when he appeared as a guest star on I Love Lucy at The Brown Derby. At one point, Norma decides the time is right to send Gillis script to DeMille because is a Leo. Yeah. You see, this is my life, she promised. In Billy Wilder's film, Erich von Stroheim plays the butler of Gloria Swanson's forgotten silent-film star. These include Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Rudolph Valentino, Rod La Rocque, Vilma Bnky, Mabel Normand, Marie Prevost, Pearl White, and Douglas Fairbanks. After all, it's about a dethroned queen." The mansion was torn down in 1957, and a large office building for Getty Oil built on the site still stands on the spot. The exterior shots were of a house located not on Sunset but Irving Boulevard, near the corner of Wilshire, owned by the J. Paul Getty family. ", The scene of Max playing Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" at the organ might well have been an inspiration for Lurch at the harpsichord in the TV series "The Addams Family.". Highly unusual at the time, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder had Joe Gillis narrate, from beyond the grave, the sad tale of the final months of his life, while the film simultaneously depicts the still living Gillis experiencing those events unaware of the fate his dead self already knows. ), and he calls her "young fellow." Holden acted in Executive Suite (1954), The Country Girl (1954) with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), and Picnic (1955). Brackett was a New York-born novelist and screenwriter, head of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 1930s, and president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1949 to 1955 (during which time he won two screenwriting Oscarsgood news for conspiracy theorists). Perry, George & Andrew Lloyd Webber (1993). He is the TV Editor at Entertainment. Beedle grew up in South Pasadena, California. He stayed at Paramount for The Remarkable Andrew (1942) with Brian Donlevy, then made Meet the Stewarts (1943) at Columbia. It's probably just as well, since the darker, more nuanced story that eventually emerged was quite different from West's wheelhouse anyway. Sunset Blvd. But Joe wouldnt have fallen so hard if he werent so shackled. This film was originally released in the United States as The Christmas Tree and on home video as When Wolves Cry. It would go on to be one of his most successful movies. It was only natural that he should film several sequences on the studio's backlots. Norma's butler, Max, who used to be one of her directors is played by Erich von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in the movie Queen Kelly (1932), clips from which are used in the scene where Norma and Joe watch one of her old films. This is absolutely true, Nancy Reagan continued consulting her astrologer long after she stopped parking at studio lots. And gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (who appears in the movie as herself) wrote that "Billy Wilder was crazy about Evelyn Waugh's book The Loved One, and the studio wanted to buy it.". She said it was a blackmail scheme gone wrong. Gloria Swanson brings sunshine into every room as silent screen idol Norma Desmond. In real life, when Swanson and DeMille had worked together, that was what they always called each other. In his place, Wilder hired Buster Keaton. Set designer Hans Dreier had in fact been the interior designer for the homes of former silent stars Bebe Daniels, Norma Shearer and Pola Negri. Such extravagances were so commonplace that when Wilder was planning to shoot the funeral of Normas chimpanzee, the director told the crew to just set-up the usual monkey-funeral sequence.. "I knew he was off the wagon," she recalled in her memoir "One from the Hart." Gloria Swanson, meanwhile, was born on March 27, 1899. On the night of November 12, 1981, Holden consumed somewhere between eight and 10 drinks in a short amount of time, according to "William Holden: A Biography." (1950) in my head, and I'd always sort of related to that character floating in . Norma goes to visit Cecil B. DeMille, several of whose films Swanson had starred in. This is a nod to retired silent-movie star Clara Bow, whose husband Rex Bell, a former star of "B" westerns, was the president of the Nevada Chamber of Commerce, and later Lieutenant Governor of Nevada. Columbia put Holden in a Western with Jean Arthur, Arizona (1940), then at Paramount he was in a hugely popular war film, I Wanted Wings (1941) with Ray Milland and Veronica Lake. A Western at MGM, Escape from Fort Bravo (1953) did much better, and the all-star Executive Suite (1954) was a notable success. American actress Gloria Swanson in a promotional portrait for 'Sunset Boulevard', directed by Billy Wilder, 1950. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . . Later he strangled himself with it. Holden met French actress Capucine in the early 1960s. The British author's satirical The Loved One was published in 1948, after Waugh had spent time in Hollywood observing the film industry and, of all things, the funeral industry. Costume designer Edith Head found working on the film to be one of her greatest challenges. For Swanson, whose career was already being threatened by the advent of talkies, Queen Kelly was another blow. Sunset Boulevard is also a reflection of Hollywood through a glass, darkly. Marshman was a journalist but both Wilder and Brackett had been impressed by the critique he had given of their earlier film, The Emperor Waltz (1948). One of his father's grandmothers, Rebecca Westfield, was born in England, while some of his mother's ancestors settled in Virginia's Lancaster County after emigrating from England in the 17th century. Bogart took the part hoping it would pair him back up with his wife Lauren Bacall. The car with the massive chrome grill that the repo men drive is a 1948 DeSoto Custom Club Coupe. An inventory of his prospects added up to exactly zero. When filming began, William Holden was 31 and Gloria Swanson was 50, the same stated age as her character. And what faces. I didn't know. Gordon Cole was a real person in the art department for DeMille's Samson and Delilah (1949) and later in The Ten Commandments (1956). The apartments, and the "Alto Nido" sign out front that is glimpsed briefly in the film, are still there. Holden was still an unknown actor when he made Golden Boy, while Stanwyck was already a film star. The movie featured the famed director Erich von Stroheim, who made photographs of Gloria Swanson move so beautifully the world was enthralled, as Max Von Mayerling, the director who made, married, and divorced the enthralling Norma Desmondand then gave up his career in film to be her slave in butlers clothing. It also alludes to the fact that Pomona was one of three towns in California's Inland Empire region (Riverside and San Bernardino were the others) that were frequently used during Hollywood's Golden Age for testing preview audiences' reactions to unreleased films. Billy Wilder also used Sheldrake as the last name of Fred MacMurray's character in "The Apartment". In a scene described by director Billy Wilder as one of the best he'd ever shot, the body of Joe Gillis is rolled into the morgue to join three dozen other corpses, some of whom--in voice-over--tell Gillis how they died. This parallel narrative--two perspectives from the same character, one omniscient, the other blissfully ignorant--that converge at the moment of Joe's death, are a major reason the film retains such dramatic and emotional power. Holden paid it forward, becoming Hepburns guardian angel.. Newspapers printed love letters between 19-year-old former child star and screen idol Mary Miles Minter and Taylor. According to Billy Wilder, it was von Stroheim's idea to use a clip from Queen Kelly (1932) in Sunset Blvd. Gillis: "No, swimming pool." [10] RKO borrowed him for Rachel and the Stranger (1948) with Robert Mitchum and Loretta Young. The Pharmacy was filmed only 500 feet (150 meters) from a scene in Armed and Dangerous (1986) & Falling Down (1993), The parking lot behind Rudy's Shoeshine where Joe Gillis pulls his car out of is 1751 Vine Street - about a half a block North of Hollywood Blvd (you can tell by the scene's POV of the Taft building that sits on the corner of Hollywood and Vine). Also in 1969, Holden starred in director Terence Young's family film L'Arbre de Nol, co-starring Italian actress Virna Lisi and French actor Bourvil, based on the novel of the same name by Michel Bataille. Their partnership ended in a professional and gentlemanly mannerthere was no airing of any dirty laundrybut it did end.. As DeMille was directing Lamarr at the time in Samson and Delilah (1949), this would have been no problem. Our friendship never waned. Peavey died in a San Francisco asylum, where he was being treated for syphilis-related dementia, in 1931. The name "Norma Desmond" was chosen from a combination of silent-film star Norma Talmadge and silent movie director William Desmond Taylor, whose still-unsolved murder is one of the great scandals of Hollywood history. When Artie Green introduces Joe to other guests at his New Year's Eve party, he jokingly refers to him as "the well-known screenwriter, uranium smuggler and Black Dahlia suspect", a reference to the infamous unsolved L.A. murder case in 1947 of an aspiring actress known as The Black Dahlia, who was found murdered and dismembered on a street in Los Angeles. As this film opens, William Holden's character Joe Gillis describes himself as a Hollywood screenwriter "living in an apartment house above Ivar Street." April 17 marks the 100th birthday of William Holden, who is ranked No. He would slay, "I have no idea! The only addition was the swimming pool, which wasn't equipped with a means of circulating the water so it was useless after filming. The audience left 20 years ago. A classic film review of Sunset Boulevard (1950) starring William Holden, Gloria Swanson and Eric Von StroheimDirected by acclaimed film maker Billy Wilder (. She is ever the star. Betty and Joe fall in love after they sneak off to the studio backlot by moonlight to collaborate on a screenplay. She can be seen talking and giggling on the phone during the party. Holden made a fourth and final film for Wilder with Fedora (1978). It always will be! The character of Max Von Mayerling as a washed up silent film director was an homage paid by Wilder to Erich von Stroheim, who was an inspiration to Billy in his glory days as a notorious silent film director himself. He made two more films with Olson: Force of Arms (1951) at Warner Bros. and Submarine Command (1951) at Paramount. F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered a heart attack while in Schwab's in 1940 (contrary to legend, Lana Turner was not discovered by a talent agent in Schwab's but, rather in a drugstore across from Hollywood High School, about three miles to the east). "I know how it's going to be," Holden said (per The Huntsville Item). His Mount Kenya Safari Club in Nanyuki (founded 1959) was popular with the international jet set. There once was a time in this business when they had the eyes of the whole world. William Haines, along with fellow silent screen veterans Buster Keaton and Anna Q. Nilsson, was approached to play one of Gloria Swanson's bridge partners. William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 - November 12, 1981) was an American actor and murderer, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. The magnifying glass in Normas beauty makeover scene shows the skin of a young ingnue, not an aging crone. Since her part required her to gaze at the newsreel cameramen and "fans" (the waiting police) gathered in the foyer below, she couldn't watch where she placed her feet. The older actor prided himself on needling people and he needled the shit out of Holden on the first movie, and the second movie was worse because Holden started dating Audrey Hepburn during filming. [7], Back at Paramount, he starred with Bonita Granville in Those Were the Days! Stanwyck went to bat for Holden when he was going to be replaced in Golden Boy (1939) and Wilder's collaboration with Holden in the 50s starting with Sunset Boulevard revitalized his career (including the Best Actor Oscar for Stalag 17 (1953). Joe could have slept with Norma and loved Betty, and owned the pool that would be his final resting place. Sunset Boulevard is no has-been, though. Sunset Boulevard, one of Hollywood's most cruelly accurate depictions of itself, is now 65 years oldolder, even, than its main character, who's washed up at 50. In 1972, Holden began a nine-year relationship with actress Stefanie Powers and sparked her interest in animal welfare. He was a genuine star. In addition to the famous swimming pool, the studio also built sets to exactly duplicate Schwab's Drug Store in Hollywood and the Los Angeles County Morgue. Principal photography took place from 11 April to 18 June 1949. Norma Desmond says that she paid $28,000 for the Isotta-Fraschini car in 1929. Neither did Toward the Unknown (1957), the one film Holden produced himself. Gloria Swanson became so identified with the demanding, irascible Norma that later generations of fans were startled to discover her serene, easy-going, naturalist personality in real life. Art director John Meehan experimented until he came up with the idea to shoot the scene through a mirror at the bottom of the studio water tank. The pool was used in its empty condition in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). Charles Brackett and Wilder were just as adamant that nothing in their scripts should be changed, and nothing new added. You used to be big. Gloria Swanson worked closely with Edith Head on Norma's clothes to achieve just the right look: grandly expensive but slightly out of date. This car has been on display at the National Automobile Museum in Turin, Italy since 1972. During Norma Desmond's New Years' Eve party, the band begin to play the song 'Diane', the theme of the 1927 film 7th Heaven (1927). He did another Western at Columbia, Texas (1941) with Glenn Ford, and a musical comedy at Paramount, The Fleet's In (1942) with Eddie Bracken, Dorothy Lamour, and Betty Hutton.[9]. There were no shortage of suspects. The first of four films in which William Holden and Nancy Olson appeared. 10060 Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, California, USA. (1950), as a way of "art imitating life." Someone who said they were a doctor said Taylor died of a stomach hemorrhage and then disappeared. Cecil B. DeMille: at the studio during Norma's visit. "Waxwork" Buster Keaton was in reality an excellent bridge player, always in demand at Hollywood bridge parties.