William Holden and Gloria Swanson Go Wilder in Sunset Boulevard

 

In the annals of cinema, few films have as far-reaching and lasting impact as 1950’s Sunset Boulevard, Paramount Pictures’ one-of-a-kind, fascinating take on the darker aspects behind Hollywood’s tinsel and stardust. Director Billy Wilder, co-scripting a truly original tale with longtime co-writer Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr., masterfully helms the bizarre, seriocomic tale of Norma Desmond, a former silent screen star still reveling in her glory years from decades past, who takes up with Joe Gillis, an opportunistic young screenwriter desperate to finds his footing in the movie business, mining every bit of dark comedy from the scenario without losing sight of the bleak drama at the film’s center. Moody, noirish-laced cinematography by John F. Seitz, a tense, atmospheric score by Franz Waxman and a quartet of stars, both old and new, giving career-defining performances help Wilder in bringing the eerie, insightful and remarkable story to the screen with unforgettable vividness and conviction.

Wilder had quickly risen up the Hollywood ladder after teaming with Brackett for a series of quality scripts, including Midnight, Ninotchka and Hold Back the Dawn, before finding success as a director/writer with 1942’s The Major and the Minor, starting his lengthy tenure as one of Paramount’s prime auteurs. By 1950, Wilder had witnessed a period of overwhelming popularity with audiences and critics, specifically with the one-two punch of one of the great noirs, Double Indemnity, followed by 1945’s The Lost Weekend, which brought Wilder his first two Oscars. Although both of these classics rate among Wilder’s peak films, with Sunset he managed to blend moments of comedy with some much grimmer themes, thanks to some of the wittiest dialogue ever committed to film, and the colorful nature of Norma Desmond’s outsized persona. With fearless creativity, Wilder illustrates the unsavory nature of the ill-fated relationship at the center of the film without softening the material to aid in making the characters more likable and sympathetic to viewers. Risking alienating audiences, Wilder managed to offer them an engrossing portrait of the seedy underside of the glamourous facade usually used to represent Hollywood, in the process forever changing how Tinseltown and the stars therein would be perceived on screen and off, as filmmakers strove to include a greater degree of realism in their work.

Gloria Swanson, once a star of the Norma Desmond caliber during her reign as a 1920’s screen siren, clearly understood her assignment and, working at a fervor pitch, instills a manic intensity into her work. Absent from the screen since 1941’s Father Takes a Wife, maintaining a successful career in radio during the rest of the decade, Swanson throws herself into one of the juiciest roles ever with passionate resolve, emoting throughout with a florid, sometimes literally eye-popping theatricality worthy of the diva for the ages Norma clearly is (although it’s wonderful Swanson is also given a great lighter Sunset moment, doing her ace impersonation of Charlie Chaplin, complete with cane and bowler hat). There’s little subtility to be found in her expansive playing, partially due to the larger-than-life aspects of the role, but Swanson’s intense style allows her to put a unique stamp on the dazzling anti-heroine with memorable aplomb, while selling each now-classic Norma line (including, ironically, “We didn’t need dialogue, we had faces”) to maximum effect, in the process creating one of the most iconic characters ever put on film. Sunset would gain Swanson possibly the greatest comeback storyline in Hollywood history circa 1950, then grant her lasting fame for her ever-transfixing work in the movie, long after most of her silent screen contemporaries were fated to disappear from the public eye.

William Holden was at a career crossroads when he stepped in to replace a skittish Montgomery Clift to score possibly his most enduring role. Holden rated as one of the most sensitive and skillful young leading men with his fine debut in 1939’s Golden Boy, followed immediately by a truly incisive, expert portrayal of George in Our Town, yet by the late-1940s his stock was falling, after failing to make a breakthrough in more substantial roles outside of the light comedy realm, however stable his work in fare such as Dear Ruth or Apartment for Peggy might be. It’s difficult to imagine anyone else bringing off the tricky combination of cynicism and charm Holden adroitly invests in his jaded-yet-captivating take on Joe, believability maintaining a level of truth and focus in his singular depiction, whether Joe is allowing himself to be drawn deeper into Norma’s desire to control him or later is confronting her and her chimera notions with straightforward, forceful conviction. Sunset would mark a new phase in films for Holden, elevating him to the forefront of stars, a position he would hold through the rest of his career, specifically during the 1950s, wherein he would gain an Oscar for his equally entertaining follow-up with Wilder, Stalag 17, then go on to star in a steady stream of box-office winners, culminating in one of the decade’s biggest hits (both financially and critically), 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai.

 With polish and his patented imposing presence, Erich von Stroheim regally enacts the role of Max, Norma’s former director and current chauffer and assistant who devoutly stands by and protects Norma and her delusions of grandeur. Von Stroheim, one of the most influential figures behind and in front of the camera during the silent era, is uniquely qualified to play the role after teaming with Swanson in the late 1920s for the opulent but unfinished Queen Kelly, which did much to destroy von Storheim’s status as an innovative, masterful director. Von Stroheim would continue on as an actor in films of various quality, with Sunset also providing him with a cinematic comeback and his final involvement in an important studio-backed film. With calm assurance and a mystifying severity, von Stroheim adds layers to Max that make a viewer wonder about his background, how he came to his present role as a seemingly underling in Norma’s world, and to what extent he factors into her life as an ominous or supportive figure.

Nancy Olson, possessing just the right amount of fresh-faced ingenuity and mature resolve in her second film, manages to hold her own with her powerhouse costars, specifically establishing a potent chemistry with Holden that would aid in their costarring three more times post-Sunset. As Betty Schafer, the young script reader who has screenwriting ambitions of her own and forges a partnership and romance with Joe, Olson enacts the role with an honest simplicity that makes her every expression ring true, while matching Holden’s touching sincerity and naturalism as the bond between Joe and Betty grows stronger. Following her Sunset rise, Olson would continue in films up to 1955’s smash hit Battle Cry, before alternating between life as a wife and mother, returning to the screen for roles in Disney offerings such as Pollyanna, The Absent-Minded Professor and Snowball Express.

In other roles, Jack Webb is good-natured as Artie Green, Joe’s loyal friend, a few years before Webb’s most famous role in a much more stoic mode as Sgt. Joe Friday on television’s Dragnet, while Fred Clark, in the midst of becoming one of Hollywood’s busiest character actors, puts in a good showing appears as Sheldrake, the blithe producer who goes toe-to-toe with Gillis early in the film. Cecil B. DeMille perfectly portrays Cecil B. DeMille with a low-keyed persuasiveness that plays importantly in one of the most moving passages in the film, wherein “C.B.” and his former star Norma (DeMille also guided Swanson to stardom in a nice off-screen parallel) are reunited at Paramount, before he reappears to have one of filmdom’s most famous exit lines ever directed at him just before Sunset’s final fade out. Also playing themselves, Hollywood columnists Hedda Hopper and Sidney Skolsky represent other members at the top of the Hollywood heap circa 1950, while as “the Waxworks” a trio of Norma’s bridge-playing buddies, former silent stars Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner and the legendary Buster Keaton are briefly on hand. The famous songwriting duo of Ray Evans and Jay Livingston can be spotted in the party sequence at Artie’s, along with Yvette Vickers, at the outset of her career as the giddy girl on the phone, before becoming a beloved B movie queen later in the decade.

Unlike some other off-beat movies that failed upon initial release but went on to become all-time classics, both the public and critics knew immediately what a quality picture they had on their hands with Sunset. After a successful premiere at the Radio City Music Hall in August of 1950 the movie did well, especially in metropolis areas, with patrons drawn by Swanson’s comeback and buzz concerning the unique nature of the film. After receiving mostly raves from reviewers, Sunset did exceptionally well during awards season, vying with All About Eve for top honors. At the National Board of Review, the film won Best Picture and Best Actress for Swanson, a feat replicated at the Golden Globes, where Wilder also won Best Director. Wilder also won a Quarterly award from the Director’s Guild and (with Brackett and Marshman) a Best Written Drama prize from the Screen Writers’ Guild, while the film placed in the top ten on both Time magazine and The New York Times lists.

At the Academy Awards, Sunset established itself as a major contender with eleven nominations, including Best Picture, Director, and nods for all four of its principal players, eventually winning three Oscars, for Best Story and Screenplay, Black-and-White Art Direction and for Waxman’s memorably stark score. Over time, the movie has ranked impressively on many polls and lists, including placing among the first entries on 1989 National Film Registry’s preservation list, high rankings (at #12 and #16) on the AFI’s 1998 and 2007 lists of the 100 greatest American films and the Writer’s Guild naming the script the seventh-best ever. The film influenced a multitude of films featuring past-their-prime divas and led to an Andrew Lloyd Webber 1993 musical that conquered London, then Broadway. However, those wanting to catch possibly Hollywood’s greatest and most audacious account of itself need look no further than 1950’s original take on the legendary fading superstar Norma Desmond, who ironically and iconically has only risen in stature with the passing decades, so strongly does the explementary work of Wilder and a supreme cast and crew resonant with filmgoers who never tire of venturing once again to tragic-tinged charms of Sunset Boulevard.

And a fond farewell to Gene Hackman, who sadly passed away at 95. Rising to fame with Oscar-nominated work in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde after a movie debut via 1961’s Mad Dog Coll, Hackman became a leading force in films until his retirement in the early 2000s, serving as an everyman with an edge in a variety of heroic and anti-heroic parts. Hackman deftly added intensity and humor to his iconic work, such as Oscar-winning roles in The French Connection and, in a much more sinister vein, The Unforgiven, while also carefully underplaying (The Conversation, Mississippi Burning) or overplaying (The Poseidon Adventure, Superman) his juicy characters depending on the needs of the film. The versatile star also delighted in comedies on occasion, including Get Shorty, The Birdcage, a late-career Golden Globe for The Royal Tenenbaums and, in one of the most unforgettable unbilled star cameos ever, his hilarious turn as a lonely blind man who encounters the Monster in Young Frankenstein. RIP to one of the foremost imposing and creative actors of his generation, Gene Hackman.