Filmmaker Billy Wilder is a man of many masterpieces. But arguably his crowning achievement remains Sunset Boulevard, the 1950 noir that’s often considered to be the finest motion picture about making movies and where movies are made. To back up this claim, consider that the film ranks #12 and #16, Wilder’s highest-ranked work, on the AFI’s Top 100 Greatest American Films of All Time lists from 1998 and 2007, respectively. In 1999, Sunset Boulevard was ranked #43 on the Village Voice list of the Top 250 Films of the Century. In the 2002 Sight & Sound poll, it placed #63 among critics and an impressive #12 among directors. By the 2022 Sight & Sound directors' poll, it remained highly regarded, coming in at #62. In 2015, the film was ranked #54 on BBC Culture’s list of the 100 Greatest American Films. Additionally, the Writers Guild of America has recognized Sunset Boulevard's screenplay as the 7th greatest ever written. And it commands a 98% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 94 out of 100 Metascore on Metacritic.
The story follows Joe Gillis (William Holden), a struggling screenwriter who stumbles into the decaying mansion of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a once-great silent film star who has faded into obscurity but dreams of making a triumphant return. Norma, clinging to her illusions of stardom, ensnares Joe in a complex relationship—offering him money and shelter in exchange for his help on her comeback screenplay. The film also features Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim), Norma’s devoted but secretive butler, and Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson), a young studio script reader who becomes both Joe’s creative collaborator and romantic interest.
To listen to a recording of our CineVerse group discussion of Sunset Boulevard, conducted earlier this month, click here. To hear the latest Cineversary podcast celebrating the 75th anniversary of Sunset Boulevard, click here.
It boasts a stellar combination of talents, including Wilder and Charles Brackett who wrote the Oscar-winning original screenplay together; Gloria Swanson, William Holden, and Erich von Stroheim, who each received Academy Award nominations for their performances; a brooding, brilliant score by Franz Waxman, who earned Oscar gold for the music; fantastic lighting and compositions by master noir cinematographer John Seitz; and costumes by the legendary Edith Head. In all, the film was nominated for 11 Oscars and won three, including Best Art Direction-Interior Design (let’s not forget that this was All About Eve’s year, with that rival scoring six Oscars, including Best Picture, and 14 nominations).
In addition to being regarded as perhaps the finest movie about Tinseltown ever made, it’s also one of the first and greatest meta films of them all, in which the movie is self-reflexive about the creation of motion pictures. We are given an insider’s look at how the industry works, Hollywood’s winners and losers, and the cynicism inherent in this field. Turner Classic Movies describes it as “one of the first serious treatments of life in Hollywood, coming at a time when most movies about movies were irony-free comedies and musicals.”
This film’s greatest meta achievement was the casting of Swanson and von Stroheim, who portray a former actress and film director – the roles they actually served years ago during Hollywood’s silent movie age. Desmond’s character also draws clear inspiration from the real-life decline of several silent-era stars: Her reclusive lifestyle echoes that of Pola Negri and Mary Pickford, while her psychological instability recalls figures like Clara Bow, Valeska Surratt, Audrey Munson, and Mae Murray. Many film historians believe her name was crafted as a nod to silent film actress Mabel Normand and director William Desmond Taylor, whose scandalous 1922 murder – still unsolved – captivated the public and media alike.
Wilder and his collaborators lend authenticity and verisimilitude by name-dropping real players and referencing actual movies: from Alan Ladd, Tyrone Power, Daryl Zanuck, Greta Garbo, and Rudolph Valentino to Gone With the Wind, King Kong, and Queen Kelly (which was, ironically, directed by von Stroheim and starring Swanson).
There are also impressive cameos by bona fide actors, filmmakers, and celebrities playing themselves, including Cecil B. DeMille (who was shooting the real film Samson and Delilah in that sequence), Buster Keaton, H.B. Warner, Anna Q. Nilsson, and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.
Sunset Boulevard boasts some of the sharpest dialogue and most treasured lines of any film in history, particularly those delivered by Swanson, which is hardly surprising considering they were written by tag team champions Wilder and Brackett:
All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.
You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big / I am big – It’s the pictures that got small.
We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
Without me, there wouldn't be any Paramount studio.
No one ever leaves a star. That's what makes one a star…The stars are ageless, aren't they?
She was the greatest of them all! You wouldn't know, you're too young. In one week, she received 17,000 fan letters. Men bribed her hairdresser to get a lock of her hair. There was a Maharaja who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings. Later, he strangled himself with it.
It was a great big white elephant of a place. The kind crazy movie people built in the crazy 20s. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades. It was like that old woman in Great Expectations. That Miss Havisham, in her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil, taking it out on the world because she'd been given the go-by.
You don't yell at a sleepwalker. He may fall and break his neck.
Funny, how gentle people get with you once you're dead.
The poor dope - he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool.
This film checks several genre and subgenre boxes: noir, black comedy, character-driven drama, satire, romance, horror film, and meta movie. There’s even a sequence early on with the repo men where we think this could turn into a chase film. But first and foremost, it remains a benchmark noir, complete with one of the most iconic femme fatales in the canon, an unforgettable gunshot murder, noirish thematic elements of inescapable fate, and, of course, gorgeous chiaroscuro lighting. But Sunset Boulevard is also rife with elements of horror, including an old dark house in the form of a decrepit Gothic mansion, Toccata and Fugue being creepily played from a giant pipe organ, a midnight graveyard burial, rats running wild, Max serving as the Igor assistant of sorts to Norma’s mad scientist, Norma peeking through shades that resemble a giant spider web, and Ms. Desmond embodying a surprisingly violent vampiric creature with Nosferatu-like claws who slowly sucks away Joe’s dignity and self-respect.
Additionally, Sunset Boulevard could be both the greatest satire and meta film ever made about the inner workings of Hollywood and the many skeletons buried there. Think back to the opening credits, which show the film’s title literally superimposed over a gutter and then displaying cast and crew names in a step-down pattern, suggesting perhaps a descent from loftier heights. It also satisfies as a consistently humorous black comedy, one that goes more for clever comedic touches and grin-inducing moments than broad guffaw-generating laughs.
We can’t deny that, even if they’re subplots, this film works on a romantic level, too. Roger Ebert agreed, writing that “…it’s also a love story, and the love keeps it from becoming simply a waxworks or a freak show.” We feel Joe’s pangs of romance, desire, and betrayal (to his friend Artie) in his blossoming amorous relationship with Betty. And even if it’s out of pity or selfishness, let’s not forget the would-be romance between Norma and Joe: He returns to Norma after her suicide attempt, initiates an intimate embrace, and remains her kept man for the rest of the picture.
Lastly, ponder the ending sequence, in which a totally unhinged Norma walks down the staircase to greet the cameras, which can be described as simultaneously comical, pathetic, eerie, disturbing, depressing, grandiose, grotesque, and even beautiful. Just as it can slot within different genre folders, these final images reinforce how the entire film can evoke many different feelings and reactions from the audience.
Thanks to its meta structure that provides textual and subtextual commentary on the film industry, Sunset Boulevard likely inspired subsequent movies to adopt similar approaches, including the casting of actors and filmmakers who play themselves and riff on their personas. Without this work, you probably don’t have follow-up films like The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), The Star (1952), or The Barefoot Contessa (1954) that give us a continued inside look at the workings of Hollywood.
Reflect, as well, on how more contemporary movies like Robert Altman’s The Player (1992), Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich (1999), and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994) feature actors and directors playing themselves to somewhat comedic effect: a trend that became more accepted and mainstream after Sunset Boulevard.
This picture was undoubtedly an influence on later films like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962), Woman in the Dunes (1964), The Day of the Locust (1975), and Mulholland Drive (2001). Also, several cinematic works reference Sunset Boulevard directly in their scripts or echo its themes, lines, or imagery through homage, including Soapdish (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Gods and Monsters (1998), Cecil B. Demented (2000), Mulholland Drive (2001), Be Cool (2005), and Inland Empire (2006).
But the impact didn’t stop there. Sunset Boulevard deeply penetrated pop-culture, as evidenced by its being spoofed, referenced, or mirrored in TV episodes of The Twilight Zone, The Carol Burnett Show, American Dad, Archer, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Twin Peaks, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Desperate Housewives; and being imitated by Australian wrestler Toni Storm, who portrays a highly theatrical character that draws significant inspiration from Norma Desmond and her butler Max.
Additionally, the movie seemed prescient in its focus on the dark side of fame and celebrity culture as well as celebrity crime. Norma killing Joe makes us think of the later murders associated with Robert Blake, O.J. Simpson, and Phil Spector, for example. And Sunset Boulevard’s cynical tone helps peel back the façade of the Hollywood dream factory, exposing its rotten underbelly and preoccupations with past glory.
It was also controversial for its depiction of an older, rich woman essentially paying a man for companionship and, presumably, sex. What’s perhaps narratively innovative is that the main story revolves around this relationship, delving deeply into Norma’s intense obsession and Joe’s reliance on her. Earlier movies seldom present this dynamic so openly or make it such a strong focal point of the story.
This film helped catapult Holden to stardom, too. It wasn’t long after that he won a Best Actor Academy Award for Stalag 17 (1953) and became the number one box-office star (1956).
There’s plenty to admire about Wilder’s filmmaking choices. Like his Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard benefits from its flashback format and voiceover narration by a dying—or, in this case, already dead—character. Wilder and company could have shot this in color, but chose monochrome to remain true to the noir aesthetic. (Interestingly, this was the final significant Hollywood movie shot on a nitrate negative, a film stock that created incredibly rich black-and-white visuals.)
As much as he was admired by critics and scholars for daring to make a film this scathing about Hollywood and its dark underbelly, Wilder was severely criticized by his peers and risked major blowback.
Most impressively, Wilder deftly balances shifting tonalities in Sunset Boulevard, which can quickly pivot between being cynical and sincere, elegiac and upbeat, droll and deadly serious. And one can easily admire how Wilder populates his picture with both facsimile characters and genuine celebrities who are distorted for the screen. Appreciate how, despite this being her comeback triumph, Swanson risks attracting negative attention for years of failing to be cast in a Hollywood picture; von Stroheim straddles the line between stellar performance and walking parody of his former self; and ponder the unflattering cameos by the real-life Buster Keaton and Hedda Hopper.
Deep Focus Review essayist Brian Eggert
is fascinated by “how Wilder dares to imitate life with his art, yet always with a wry sense of morbid humor… For each of Sunset Boulevard‘s strangest moments, there’s a real-life counterpart warped for the purposes of the film, some of them horrifying, some of them endearing…Wilder carefully uses Holden’s greenness, as well as (Swanson) and von Stroheim’s desperation to create something truly uncommon, fascinating, and brilliant…Before anyone else was willing to remark on their own industry with such scathing representation of Hollywood’s grotesque underworld, Sunset Boulevard lays bare Tinseltown’s flashy allure.”
Themes are as abundant as the cynicism dripping from Gillis’ mouth. Sunset Boulevard is certainly about the dangers of living a lie, glorying in the past, and not evolving as a person or artist. Norma resides in a delusional fantasy world and refuses to learn or accept the truth: that she is no longer in demand or attractive to audiences. She can’t escape the sins of pride, vanity, and obsession with self-image.
But it’s also a treatise on determinism and dark fate. It’s crucial that the story begins at the end and is told in flashback, as many classic noirs are. Joe, our protagonist, is dead, but he’s ironically telling his story as a voiceover narrator from beyond the grave. This makes us believe that the character’s fate is predestined: We know upfront how his luck will sour. Recall, as well, how Max presciently announces to the stranger who has wandered into Norma’s mansion, “Madame is waiting for you upstairs”; they each happen to be screenwriters, and they each happen to be single – but it feels like more than mere coincidence. And reflect on how Joe keeps running into Betty, as if they’re star-crossed lovers destined to fall in love. Ruminate on how Joe is a fly doomed to be ensnared in a spider’s web – becoming entangled in the trap of Norma’s twisted life, from which he can’t easily extricate himself. When he tries for the final time, the spider woman devours her prey.
Sunset Boulevard further preaches how Hollywood needs to reckon with its past and change with the times. This movie was made in an era when the film industry was challenged in several ways and the Hollywood system was faltering. Studios were forced to sell off their owned theaters, deal with congressional investigations that turned into a communist witch hunt and resulted in blacklists, and compete with increased competition from television. The message here is that the old money and antiquated forces that built Hollywood (as exemplified by Norma and her mansion) could no longer prop up modern Tinseltown. The industry needed to evolve and adapt to changing times.
Concurrently, Sunset Boulevard serves as a sad commentary on how quickly talent can become a disposable commodity – forgotten or ignored by the fickle public and corporate America in its greedy pursuit of profit.
Per critic Pamela Hutchinson with The Guardian: “The film industry in Sunset Boulevard is shown to be on its last legs. Paramount producer Sheldrake is ill with stress; Gillis is broke and only one rejection letter away from quitting show-business for “a copy-desk in Dayton, Ohio”; his friend Artie is stuck on a disastrous shoot in Arizona; Betty the script-reader is optimistic that she can make films that matter, but even she has been through the mill, rejected as a wannabe starlet…Sunset Boulevard is twice as chilling a film when you realise that Desmond made Paramount Studios a success, rather than the other way around. The faltering movie business was built not on fragile foundations of an art form doomed to obsolescence, but on stronger, more ambitious grounds than it occupied in 1950.”
The movie also warns of the consequences of enabling – Max makes matters infinitely worse because he keeps feeding Norma’s ego with lies and faux attention from filmmakers and imaginary fans – and reminds us that there are no shortcuts to success: Hard work, real talent, and lots of luck are required. Ponder how Joe is down on his luck as a Hollywood writer but decides to take up Norma’s offer to live with him and write for her. Ultimately, he pays for this opportunistic shortcut with his life.
The scalpel-sharp script by Wilder and Brackett is most responsible for keeping Sunset Boulevard evergreen in the 21st Century. The extraordinary writing is responsible for a film that can boast of several all-time great scenes and quotable lines. The contrast in the two main characters’ personalities (and the acting styles of Swanson versus Holden) makes for a fascinating study. Joe’s demeanor is cool and cynical, his mindset modern, and his mannerisms realistic and credible. Norma’s movements, expressions, and speech, by contrast, are stylized, exaggerated, overdramatic, and grandiose; she creates a grotesque and creepy impression that plays on the opposite spectrum.
Cinemablend reviewer Brian Holcomb
wrote: “One of the great joys of the film is watching the way in which William Holden's naturalistic performance clashes with an actress and performance style from an earlier age. This tension actually generates a great deal of the film's oddball humor, since every moment Norma is seen striking grotesque poses and being ‘dramatic’ is quickly undercut by Joe's matter-of-fact expressions.” The noir and horror elements also serve as a delicious juxtaposition to the comedic and satiric qualities infused in this movie. This genre mashup and disparate stew of styles create an unforgettable film experience among viewers who can appreciate a sharp wit and ironic tone.
Read more...
Posts
