Sunset Boulevard 1950

     The setting of this film is Hollywood, California during the 1950’s.  Joe Gillis writes screenplays but he’s fallen on hard times.  He can’t pay the payments on his car and two men are sent to repossess.  He ditches them when they come to his apartment but then sees them on the highway going home.  He gets a flat tire and parks his car in the empty garage of a mansion on Sunset Boulevard.  He thinks the house is abandoned.  Actress Norma Desmond lives there with her butler/driver Max Von Mayerling.  Norma invites Joe to move into the mansion and help her to write a screenplay for her acting comeback.

     Many of the silent film stars attending the premiere of this film recognized personal details of how they really lived!!  The butler was formerly a director and he is living a life lived by other silent film directors.  Many stars and directors were not able to transition from silent films to talkies.  They were left by the wayside and didn’t work again.  This didn’t stop them from thinking about their former careers and dreaming about returning to film.  One of the movies screened at the mansion by Norma for Joe is Queen Kelly of 1928 directed by von Stroheim.  He directed two sound films and that was the end of his career.  4 ½* (I loved this movie) 

      

110 min, Drama directed by Billy Wilder with William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Jack Webb, Franklyn Farnum, Larry J. Blake, Charles Dayton, Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, Ray Evans, Jay Livingston, Fred Aldrich, Joel Allen.

Note:  Imdb 8.5 out of 10, 98% critic 95% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 4*, The Telegraph 5* out of 5*, Amazon 4.8* out of 5* with 675 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in Los Angeles and West Hollywood, California.  Joe drives a 1946 Plymouth DeLuxe convertible and this model was produced from 1946-50.  Originally, Montgomery Clift was to play Joe but he quit because he was having an affair with a wealthy middle-aged former actress.  He didn’t want this information revealed.  Gloria Swanson was Paramount’s top star for 6 years in a row.  She was 53 when she made this film and her character was 50.  She was a health nut and protected her skin from the sun.  When she looks in the mirror, it reflects smooth skin instead of a face with wrinkles.  Actually, the mansion was located at 3810 Wilshire on the corner of Crenshaw and Irving Blvd.  William Jenkins built the house in 1924 and at a cost of $250,000.  The divorced wife of the second owner, Jean Paul Getty, rented it to Paramount for this film.  It was torn down in 1956 and a large office building for Getty Oil was built on the site.  This film is number 12 on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Greatest American Films.  There is also a book, On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder.