Ten Movies I’m Glad I Saw: Sunset Blvd. (#3)

Tweet

Hooray, the flash flood watch has ended for Louisville! Now all we have to worry about is all that rain going on upriver that’ll push the Ohio River out of its banks later in the week. For now, it’s cool and drizzly, the perfect weather to stay inside and watch a good movie. Here’s another one that I’m so, so glad I got to watch. #3: Sunset Blvd. Or, another movie JJ’s never heard of. That’s okay, Mr. DeMille, Scar is ready for his close-up. One of the things I was introduced to in American Cinema class in college was the genre of film noir, which usually had a femme fatale as a character. Sheesh, I thought I was in French class! . There’s another film noir classic coming up, but for right now, this may be the most perfect example. Told in flashback (as was yesterday’s film) — by the corpse in the swimming pool, no less — it details a number of issues that were unsavory, from Hollywood-centric things such as casting and writing to more universal things such as mental illness. Gloria Swanson was simply frightening as Norma Desmond, a long-past-her-prime silent film star who believes (courtesy of her butler, who pens fan letters to her) she’s still a major star. It’s confirmed when she gets a call from Cecil B. DeMille...but, unknown to Norma, he just wants her car for a scene in a movie, not her. William Holden stars as Joe Gillis, the murder victim/narrator. When a film starts with a body floating in a swimming pool, and he’s doing the narration, you’re hooked. Holden played the hapless hack writer sucked into Norma Desmond’s world of delusion splendidly. Another thing that’s incredible about this film is the way it tap danced around the Hays Code. The audio commentary (by director Billy Wilder’s biographer) points out the subtle ways that taboo subjects such as sex were handled in 1950 Code-era movies. There’s also the casting inside joke: Erich von Stroheim, who was the director of many of Swanson’s movies in her silent film era, played her butler/servant/former husband. There are two quotes from this movie that made the AFI “Movie Quote” list, the other being Desmond’s proclamation that “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small!” It’s in black and white and from 1950, but there’s not a dang thing about this movie that’s dated. It’ll have you laughing, crying, and scared....sometimes simultaneously. I’m ready for my close-up. Sunset Blvd. Directed by Billy Wilder Released in 1950 One of the most iconic closing scenes in movie history: