Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett were about the best writing team in Hollywood for more than three decades. "Sunset Boulevard" shows the men at the pinnacle of their profession. Billy Wilder directed the film with his usual panache at this nostalgic look at a Hollywood that had faded almost a quarter of a century before. If you haven't seen the film, please stop reading here.
With the advent of the "talkies" a lot of film stars of the silent era lost their privileged positions as the most admired people in movies. When the new generation appeared in the scene, they were more accessible to the fans that flocked to see the new technique in the movies that came out. One of those movies stars, Norma Desmond, lives in the past as she never adapted to the new reality, which is evident in the way she stays out of the scene dwelling in her antiquated castle on Sunset Boulevard.
Enter Joe Gillis, the man who never made it into the industry. As a writer, all his screen plays were rejected by the studio machinery because they were not what the heads of the production departments wanted to produce, or just were plain, not interested. Joe Gillis comes into the Desmond mansion by accident and it's an accident he encounters on his way out of it! Tbe egotistical Norma Desmond lives in the her palatial home with Max Von Mayerberg, the loyal servant, who was himself, somebody in the silent era. Norma falls for the young Gillis in ways she never expected, but as a desperate woman she wants to possess what she can't otherwise buy, even a man going through financial bad times the way Joe Gillis is.
Billy Wilder got magnificent performances out of the three principals. William Holden had one of the best opportunities of his film career with Joe Gillis, a character he wasn't even scheduled to play, but which Montgomery Cliff handed to him in a silver platter when he refused to appear in the picture! Gloria Swanson, having experienced that old Hollywood, was a natural choice to play Norma, which was perhaps, the crowning role in her distinguished career. Erich Von Stroheim, the great director, himself, is absolutely wonderful as Von Mayerling.
We see some of the silent era stars such as Buster Keaton, Hedda Hopper, Anne C. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, as well as Cecil B. DeMille, the director of Hollywood epics par excellence.
The great musical score of Franz Waxman enhances the film. John Seitz black and white photography brings us back to that time. Ultimately, it's the genius of Billy Wilder that keeps things in balance showing a man who understood movies as perhaps the only one that could have directed the classic "Sunset Boulevard".
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