Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Sunset Boulevard on the IMDb
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Paramount Collection, Special Collector's Edition.
William Holden,
Gloria
Swanson, Erich Von Stroheim, Nancy Olson in a Billy Wilder film. I had
previously owned this on VHS and just watched the DVD again in order to time
this entry with the Gloria Swanson entry in
Tammy Stone's The Silent Collection.
I tread carefully on this one, because it's obviously one of the greatest
pictures of all-time and when it comes to those types of pictures everyone tends
to have an opinion and everyone is easily prone to argument at the first sign of
dissent. So to begin with, I also love this movie and consider it one of
the all-time greats.
If you've never seen it before, well I don't know how you
pulled that one off. First, it's a must for fans of both silent and
classic Golden Age cinema. Second, it's a must if even you're sixteen years old
and being exposed to an "old" black and white film for the first time.
Why? This movie, now 56 years old is reality TV before that concept was even a notion. Let's take the
cameras and examine the life of one of the biggest stars in film, twenty years
after they were big. This is it, Norma Desmond exposed to the bone for
you to laugh at and hopefully feel for as well. On the commentary track
Ed Sikov, author of "On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder
Sikov explains to us that while Swanson is not playing herself here that there are quite a few similarities between her and Norma Desmond. But there's definitely enough distance between the two for this to be considered a masterful performance. I'm going to go out of my way here not to quote any of the famous quotes from this film: they are many and they are oft repeated. That's just a testament to this near-perfect script. I'd just like to mention a few of the less talked about items that I noticed during my most recent screening and comment on some of the excellent extras provided on this disc.
Those extras are a good place to start. We have the usual Photo Galleries and Theatrical Trailer here, but to my surprise this disc actually offered some of the stuff that I like too! Most prominently is the 25+ minute feature "The Making of Sunset Boulevard" which features mostly Ed Sikov and Nancy Olson, who played William Holden's love-interest in the picture, Betty Schaefer. Each of them made comments which I felt summed up this classic as succinctly as possible on two different levels. Sikov refers to the film as "poignant, yet funny" further clarifying that what makes Sunset Boulevard so wonderful to still watch today is that you are both laughing at Swanson as Norma Desmond and hopefully feeling empathy for her at the same time. "Poignant, yet funny" sums up my feelings for what I just watched again a lot quicker than any long paragraph that I could have, and apparently have anyway, written. Olson adds to this by referring to the overall theme of Sunset Boulevard as being one of "opportunism and consequences." Yes. Every character has an agenda and we get to see how it plays out for them.
As if these 25 minutes of entertainment weren't enough we also have interesting additional mini-features of 13-14 minutes each, one on designer Edith Head and another on composer Franz Waxman.
I had watched this movie maybe two or possibly three times in the past, enjoyed it tremendously, but not taken my viewing any further by looking into outside sources or for other opinions. So, in a way, I still came in pretty fresh this time around. For instance, I was not aware of the alternate opening sequence. I won't get into the details of the scene here, but will say that the first few pages of the first two copies of the script which contained the scene are reproduced and there is even appropriately silent accompanying footage which was shot, and actually used in the failed test screening which ultimately led to the familiar replacement opening.
A few of the scenes brought up some thoughts of my own that I jotted down along the way. After I finished watching the film and the extras mentioned above I decided to give a few scenes a try with the commentary on to see if Ed Sikov, who I enjoyed quite a bit on the special feature, may have expanded on some of my own thoughts.
In my opinion this film has two major faults, however as big as I think these flaws are when I'm away from the picture, I really didn't find them to detract whatsoever from my enjoyment when actually watching it.
First, it's kind of cheating for a writer to have his protagonist be dead from the start. While Norma Desmond is the star of Sunset Boulevard, William Holden as Joe Gillis is our top-billed lead. And we know he's dead right from the start. We also know he's the one telling us this story right from the start. Sikov did not discuss this on the parts of the commentary track that I watched, but interestingly enough it was the first topic of debate that I found when I went to view the message board on the IMBd...and the person mentioning this problem had the same problem that I did...and he was crushed by other posters for it! Responses to this comment began to get out of hand with talk about religion and belief and disbelief in an afterlife, which as far as I can tell doesn't have anything to do with this question at all. It's a question of storytelling in my mind, and quite honestly if you employ this technique in a lesser film it's going to be considered hack work. But oftentimes the thing which will push very good writing over the top to greatness is that same willingness to break the rules. Sunset Boulevard does it right, and so it is forgivable, and at least in my case still believable.
My other problem, and this is my biggest problem with our current "Best
Picture" Crash, is that it relies on quite a bit of coincidence to get
characters together. To me this is more damning than the first offense,
however unlike Crash, which only made me wonder if all of Los Angeles was
inhabited by just 13 citizens and 3 or 4 policemen whose lives constantly
intersect, Sunset Boulevard only really does
this with two of its characters: Holden's Joe Gillis and Betty Schaefer, played by Nancy Olson.
What am I talking about? Okay, they meet when Gillis is pitching his
script at the studio because Betty is a reader there. The next time they
meet is when Gillis escapes Norma Desmond's mansion on New Year's and ends up at his friend
Artie Green's party -- Betty just happens to be Artie's girlfriend. Okay,
Joe Gillis is a writer, Betty is a reader and I believe Artie is an assistant
director. Hollywood is a small, almost incestuous place, okay, got it, in
fact that may even be the point being put across at this time.
But then, and this is the meeting that loses me, Joe runs into Artie and Betty
at the drug store when stopping in to pick up cigarettes for Norma. I'm
not buying that coincidence.
Finally Joe runs into Betty yet again at the studio when Norma goes to meet up
with Cecil B. DeMille. I can accept this encounter based on the small world theory again,
but these chance encounters are adding up, aren't they? At this point Joe
agrees to work on the script with Betty and none of the further meetings are
left up to chance. Of course I'm nitpicking here, but it is an
imperfection, still, an imperfection that I'm willing to chalk up to destiny,
which by that reasoning makes the love story even more solid.
An element to this film especially dear to me in relation to this site is the absolute slew of fan photos, publicity shots, and other images of silent age Gloria Swanson, er Norma Desmond, cluttered throughout the mansion. I'd love to find one of those old fan photos signed "Norma Desmond" to see what it fetches on eBay! Most of the items probably came right out of the Paramount publicity archives, but a few of the rarer and more glamorous pieces I would imagine must have come from Swanson herself.
For silent film fans besides mentions of Wallace Reid, Mabel Normand, John Gilbert, Vilma Banky, Rod La Rocque and Marie Prevost, we have actual camera time for performers of the past such as Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner and Buster Keaton, who form a group Joe Gillis refers to as the "wax works" when they're playing bridge with Norma. Hedda Hopper also shows up in the final scene playing herself in her more famed later profession of gossip columnist. And obviously we also have Erich von Stroheim, who had really directed Swanson in "Queen Kelly" in their earlier days, looming throughout the entire film as Desmond's butler, caretaker, etc. etc, plus her first, well a couple of firsts, you know what I mean.
We also have Norma Desmond putting on a skillful performance as Chaplin's Little Tramp -- one comment that I had expected Ed Sikov to make was in relation to Norma's change in demeanor after she received some news that she didn't want to hear mid-performance. Norma flips out and is at this point just as skillfully impersonating Adolf Hitler. What better way to show Norma Desmond's mental collapse than have her range from the innocence of early Chaplin skits to the insanity of Hitler? That's how I took it at least.
I do take issue with Sikov's comments regarding the scene where Norma meets with Cecil B. DeMille. Sikov mentions how the real DeMille was not a pleasant guy, which may be true but comes off as practically character assassination here by going further and mentioning how DeMille had the spotlight turned off of Norma before shooing away her last remaining true fans. Finally he says DeMille "doesn't even have the guts to tell Norma the truth". and he says it with quite a bit of disgust. I didn't see it this way at all. Sikov doesn't comment on DeMille's last line where he tells his flunky to put in the word to not bother Norma about her car (the real reason Paramount had contacted her was an interest in her "old" car for use in a period piece) and that he'd buy however many old cars were needed. That line shows that DeMille feels for Norma and doesn't want Paramount's, and ultimately his own, involvement with her to lead to a shattering of her beliefs and further breakdown. DeMille doesn't do right by Norma, no, but I didn't see his treatment as mean-spiritedned at all, but instead Mr. DeMille is just another enabler in a similar way that von Stroheim's Max lovingly fosters Norma's delusions throughout the movie.
And after that I'll close this with mention of something Ed Sikov said that didn't occur to me at all, but that I thought was really on target. He refers to the three main characters all getting what they wanted in the end, that is, Joe Gillis gets his pool, Norma Desmond gets her big scene, and even Max gets to direct again.
Perfect, almost, but sure close-enough for me to think that the IMDb rating of 8.6/10 at this time of writing is probably a little low.
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