Sunset Boulevard (styled in the main title on-screen as SUNSET BLVD.) Before he became a kept man for Norma Desmond, he was thinking of wrapping up the whole Hollywood deal and trying to get his old job back as a newspaperman in Dayton, Ohio. About 10 minutes later, Holden passed out and died from blood loss. When Norma visits Cecil B. Since he had classic good looks, an expressive voice, and was an excelle What is the streaming release date of Sunset Blvd. Since her part required her to gaze at the newsreel cameramen and "fans" (the waiting police) gathered in the foyer below, she couldn't watch where she placed her feet. In their scene together in Artie's bathroom Gillis mentions to Betty in his dramatic flirtation about having spent "12 years in the Burmese jungle", when coincidentally, just a few years later his character, Shears, finds himself lost there in David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai. She reportedly told Clift shed kill herself if he made the movie. He played Bogarts kid brother in Sabrina, Holdens third film with director Billy Wilder, in 1954. The statuette on the telephone table at Artie Green's new years party is a model of the Philistine god, Dagon. Oh, and while were at it, Wilder didnt submerge any cameras to get that underwater shot. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). Like most old things in L.A., the house has since been replaced by an office building. Glenn Close, who portrayed Norma Desmond on stage, also played a character who dramatically cut her wrists over a man she was in love with in the film "Fatal Attraction. When Norma is telling Joe about how rich she is, she mentions a beach house and downtown real estate. [12] Swanson later said, "Bill Holden was a man I could have fallen in love with. According to Billy Wilder, it was von Stroheim's idea to use a clip from Queen Kelly (1932) in Sunset Blvd. The movie opens with a shot of a dead guy floating face down in a pool, and the dead man himself tells us that its Joe Gillis getting bloated in the chlorine. Peavey died in a San Francisco asylum, where he was being treated for syphilis-related dementia, in 1931. Throughout Hollywood history many film stars, and/or single films, were responsible for saving ailing studios. He was perfection on- and off-screen. The antique car used as Norma Desmond's limousine is an 1929 Isotta-Fraschini Tipo 8A, a luxury car made in Italy, and once belonged to 1920s socialite Peggy Hopkins Joyce. Mary Pickford lived in seclusion, away from the public eye, while both Mae Murray and Clara Bow had well documented struggles with mental illness. He contributed to Altvariety, Chiseler, Smashpipe, and other magazines. Wilder and his co-writers reversed several elements, and there was no official connection between the movie and Waugh's book. Billy Wilder was actually friendlier with the other leading gossip columnist of the day, Louella Parsons. In the scene where Norma is showing Joe her silent movies, one of them is Queen Kelly (1932), which was filmed at Paramount's Astoria Studios in Astoria, Queens, NY. In 1998 the American Film Institute selected this as the 12th greatest film of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time. The original nitrate negatives for the film have long disappeared. )[19], He took third billing for The Country Girl (1954) with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly, directed by George Seaton from a play by Clifford Odets. True to character, Von Stroheim refused to leave Paris to attend the Academy Awards ceremony, and declared that his nomination for best supporting actor should've been for best actor. She puts on a show playing a Max Sennett bathing girl and Charlie Chaplins Tramp character, though Maxs bad timing is a little too on the nose. Getty Mansion aka Norma Desmond's home in "Sunset Boulevard" midway The Homicide Squad, complete with detectives and newspapermen, are responding to a call about a murder from one of those great big houses in the ten thousand block of Sunset Boulevard, a 22-mile block that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown LA to the Pacific Ocean. [49], His death was noted by singer-songwriter Suzanne Vega, whose 1987 song "Tom's Diner", about a sequence of events one morning in 1981, included a mention of reading a newspaper article about "an actor who had died while he was drinking". After Salome, she planned to make another picture and another picture. Sometimes its interesting to see just how bad, bad writing can be. (1950), Cecil B. DeMille, who plays himself in the film, directed H.B. At the end, they stood and cheered for Gloria Swanson's return. Paramount always labeled that studio as its Long Island Studios. LAS COSAS DEL QUERER", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sunset_Boulevard_(film)&oldid=1142173541, Best Overall New Extra Features Library Release. Sunset Blvd. by Billy Wilder, Billy Wilder, William Holden, Gloria Wilder's version is the one they went with (he was the director, after all), but the argument marked a turning point for him, and he decided never to work with Brackett again. The Den of Geek quarterly magazine is packed with exclusive features, interviews, previews and deep dives into geek culture. When he drives Norma to Paramount Pictures at the studio gates, the car was pulled with a rope by off-camera grips. During the shopping excursion, Norma remarks that if Joe is not careful, he'll need a cutaway. Make-up designer Wally Westmore found that Gloria Swanson's face belied her age and wanted to make her look older. [32] Also in 1974, Holden starred with Paul Newman and Steve McQueen in the critically acclaimed disaster film The Towering Inferno,[33] which became a box-office smash and one of the highest-grossing films of Holden's career. April 17, 2019 6:00AM. There's a little dig in the scene when Cecil B. DeMille finds out that Paramount has been calling Norma Desmond because it wants to rent her car for "the Crosby picture." When Joe and Norma sit down to watch one of her old movies, Joe pulls out a cigarette and places the bottom end in his mouth. It was not particularly successful. The name "Norma Desmond" was chosen from a combination of silent-film star Norma Talmadge and silent movie director William Desmond Taylor, whose still-unsolved murder is one of the great scandals of Hollywood history. Editorial Reviews. Minters mother Charlotte Shelby was a manipulative stage mother who owned a rare .38 caliber pistol that fired unusual bullets very similar to ones found inside Taylor. He starred in Sam Peckinpahs masterwork Western The Wild Bunch. Sunset Boulevard English audio Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond, an aging silent-film queen, and William Holden, as the struggling young screenwriter who is held in thrall by her madness,. [23][24] Picnic was his last film under the contract with Columbia. The princess in love with a holy man, she dances the dance of the seven veils. Whether he was the washed up screenwriter of Sunset Boulevard or the reluctant hero of The Bridge on the River Kwai, Holden kept audiences engrossed. He earned an Oscar nomination for "Sunset Boulevard" and won an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 for his role in "Stalag 17," per IMDb. Erich von Stroheim dismissed his participation in this film, referring to it as "that butler role.". Zach Laws, Chris Beachum. Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Sunset Blvd. (1950) - Trivia - IMDb Holden had his most widely recognized role as "Commander" Shears in David Lean's The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) with Alec Guinness,[25] a huge commercial success. Holden appeared uncredited in Prison Farm (1939) and Million Dollar Legs (1939) at Paramount. Erich von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in Queen Kelly (1932), plays Max the butler, who serves as the projectionist in the scene. Haines, whose career had ended because of his homosexual off-screen life, was too happy in his new profession as an interior decorator to want to call attention to his past as an actor. Sunset Boulevard, Clip, William Holden, Gloria Swanson, 1950 Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," edited by Steven Schneider. Billy Wilder's terrifying valentine to Hollywood, Sunset Boulevard (1950), features one of the most indelible of all screen performances: Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond. Some speculated it was because he was dating an older woman at the time (actress Libby Holman, 16 years his senior) and didn't want people to think the movie was a parody of that relationship. (Gloria Swanson's TV star - she has one for TV and one for film - is very near by at 6301 Hollywood Blvd). Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, and Greta Garbo turned down the role. The film's narrative structure bears a marked resemblance to that of American Beauty (1999). In a case of life mirroring art, she outlived him. Wilder told the actors to kibbutz and let him shuffle. The British author's satirical The Loved One was published in 1948, after Waugh had spent time in Hollywood observing the film industry and, of all things, the funeral industry. When Joe Gillis says, "They'll love it in Pomona," most people assume (correctly) that Pomona is intended to be representative of just about any average American town. Forensic evidence recovered at the scene suggested that he was conscious for at least half an hour after the fall. This parallel narrative--two perspectives from the same character, one omniscient, the other blissfully ignorant--that converge at the moment of Joe's death, are a major reason the film retains such dramatic and emotional power. He received an eight-month suspended sentence for vehicular manslaughter. But in 1957, Paramount formally asked Desmond to stop, the studio bosses having decided not to grant permission after all. The drugstore where Joe Gillis meets up with his old movie industry friends is Schwab's Pharmacy, then a real pharmacy/soda fountain at the intersection of Sunset Blvd. Charles Brackett and Wilder were just as adamant that nothing in their scripts should be changed, and nothing new added. The next decade saw Holden's career flourish. She felt that Wilder used her name in a past-tense context, and she was offended. Norma telling studio guard Jonesy that without her there would be no Paramount Studios is not a far-fetched notion. Billy Wilder had worked on a script for a Swanson picture years earlier called "Music in the Air (1934)" and had forgotten about it. Norma Desmond promised she would never desert her audience again. Talk! A disagreement over the montage where Norma puts herself through hell getting thinner and younger for her comeback nearly resulted in physical violence: Brackett thought it was too mean, while Wilder felt it was necessary to show what lengths a desperate actor would go to in Hollywood. The one on the Paramount studio soundstage; the one whose driveway William Holden ducks into at 10060 Sunset Blvd; and the one used for the exteriors, which is the one shown here. In her private screening room, with butler Max running the projector, Norma cuddles up with Joe to watch one of her own films. The actor's second major breakthrough occurred when Wilder cast him in the lead of the. Brackett and Wilder worked together on more than a dozen movies including The Lost Weekend. When Powers returned to California, she went to his penthouse apartment in Santa Monica but couldn't get in. So funny that it took away from the rest of the picture. This ushered in the peak years of Holden's stardom. In later interviews, Davis admitted that she thought Swanson's work in the film was absolutely outstanding. Swanson argued that a woman like Norma would have been obsessed with her appearance and would have done her utmost not to look old. He made two more films with Olson: Force of Arms (1951) at Warner Bros. and Submarine Command (1951) at Paramount. William Holden: The Golden Boy of Vintage Hollywood - Variety Our friendship never waned. (1950) in Australia? In July 1941, he married 25-year old actress Brenda Marshall, who commanded five times his income. William Holden returns to find that Gloria Swanson has tried to slash her wrists in 'Sunset Boulevard', directed by Billy Wilder. Microphones would catch the last gurgles, and Technicolor would photograph the red, swollen tongues. In the penultimate scene, as Max tells Norma that "the cameras have arrived," the high strings in composer Franz Waxman's Oscar-winning score quote a chord from Richard Strauss's "The Dance of the Seven Veils" from his opera "Salome". Mrs. Getty's home had to be completely re-decorated to give it the oversized grandeur needed for the film. Billy Wilder originally approached William Haines to play one of Norma's bridge partners. There were three young directors who showed promise in those early days of silent film, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. It's the *pictures* that got small. Taylor had $78 in his wallet, a silver cigarette case, a Waltham pocket watch, and a two-carat diamond ring on his finger when his body was found, so cops quickly ruled out robbery as the motive. Cecil B. DeMille had a pet name for Gloria Swanson: "Young Fellow". It opened on Broadway at the Minskoff Theater on November 17, 1994, ran for 977 performances and won the 1995 Tony Awards for Best Musical, Book and Score. The undertaker, who appears for a few seconds early on with the white casket for Norma's deceased pet chimp, was veteran actor Franklyn Farnum, who played extras in over 1,000 films during his lengthy but unsung career. At Cecil B. DeMille's first appearance, his on-set cry of "Wilcoxon!" In 2007 the American Film Institute ranked this as the #16 Greatest Movie of All Time. According to the Los Angeles Times, the actor long experienced alcoholism, and though he was able to avoid drinking when with lover Stefanie Powers, it ultimately helped pave the way for his death. "[13] Paramount reunited him with Nancy Olson, one of his Sunset Boulevard costars, in Union Station (1950). "I knew he was off the wagon," she recalled in her memoir "One from the Hart." Sands disappeared after the murder. Swanson supplemented many of the costumes with her own accessories and jewelry. Swanson herself reportedly asked him to do it. There were no shortage of suspects. Erich von Stroheims Max von Mayerling is equally awestruck, still caught in the wake of Normas star dust. William Holden says his birthday is December 21st. Gloria Swanson's career was not revitalized by this film. Louis B. Mayer's reaction is well documented but Mae Murray also found the film offensive. Well, they kissed, and kissed, and kept kissing, and the crew began to snicker, and finally Marshall's voice rang out: "Cut, dammit!" Gillis smokes unfiltered cigarettes in the film. She said it was a blackmail scheme gone wrong. The old movies needed neither color nor dialogue. The butler stonewalls Joe from the outside world until hes rolling up twenties tight enough snort through to deal with even the shortest withdrawal from the big empty house. At the end of her acceptance speech, she paid him a personal tribute: "I loved him very much, and I miss him. You see, this is my life, she promised. The home was built in 1923 for businessman William O. Jenkins. a mean old woman who looks and acts a little like Ma Bates if she'd been dead for several years but was somehow still just as talkative and feisty. It was widely known as a top Hollywood hangout for many actors, directors, writers and producers. Now I had two favorite movies - aside from "Gone With The Wind" of course - both from 1950, "Sunset Boulevard" and "All . Von Stroheim didnt know how to drive, and the scene where hes driving the exotic leopard-upholstered Isotta-Fraschini was shot as the car was being towed. A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return. Still, whatever hard feelings there may have been between Swanson and von Stroheim, they were gone by the time Sunset Boulevard came along. Norma's bed originally belonged to French actress/singer Gaby Deslys. Sunset Boulevard now begins with police cars racing to Norma Desmond's house, where a dead body is floating in the pool. I know your face. The "Desmond mansion" was located not on Sunset Blvd. The four films were released between August 1950 and November 1951. The exterior shots were of a house located not on Sunset but Irving Boulevard, near the corner of Wilshire, owned by the J. Paul Getty family. You used to be in silent pictures. [45], According to the Los Angeles County Coroner's autopsy report, Holden bled to death in his apartment in Santa Monica, California, on November 12, 1981, after lacerating his forehead from slipping on a rug while intoxicated and hitting a bedside table. "We didn't need dialogue. Sunset Boulevard mixed fiction with the realities of filmmaking. West wanted to rewrite her dialogue. On the basis of this film and largely due to his continuing association with director Billy Wilder, Holden would reach the zenith of his career from 1950-'57. Holden himself claimed that he, too, could picture his end. According to a statement director King Vidor made in 1968, the Los Angeles police detective who was assigned to the case was told to lay off about a week into the investigation. Norma Desmond says that she paid $28,000 for the Isotta-Fraschini car in 1929. Wilder, ever the merry prankster, told Holden and Olson to keep kissing until he called "cut": he was going to fade out at the end of the scene, and he needed to make sure the kiss didn't end prematurely. The studio needed an actor who the audience could believe wrote a story about Okies in the Dust Bowl that played on a torpedo boat by the time it hit the screen. This page was last edited on 28 February 2023, at 22:44. At Paramount, he was in a comedy with Ginger Rogers that was not particularly popular, Forever Female (1953). . They had to have the ears of the old place, too. He earned an Oscar nomination for "Sunset Boulevard" and won an Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954 for his role in "Stalag 17," per IMDb. Later in the film Max tells Gillis that he was the silent-movie director who discovered Norma and put her in films. Normand was the last person known to have seen Taylor alive and she was grilled by the Los Angeles Police Department as a result. Their relationship makes the film as much a love story as it is a noir film, because if ever there is a femme fatale, it is Norma Desmond. of quiet desperation at the end of a relationship when nothing's really making sense and I sort of had the image of William Holden at the beginning of Sunset Blvd. Clift was also wary of appearing in the film because he, like the character of Joe, was having an affair with a wealthy older former actress, Libby Holman. It said so on the chart from her astrologer, who read DeMilles horoscope. Born William Beedle Jr. on April 17, 1918, he was 21 when he got his first starring role as the classical fiddle playing boxer in Golden Boy in 1939. "[13] And Wilder commented "Bill was a complex guy, a totally honorable friend. And that young man who was found floating in the pool of her mansion, with two shots in his back and one in his stomach, was nobody important, really. All I know is that she's meshuggah, that's all. Florabel Muir, the New York Daily News Hollywood correspondent, thought Peavey was the murderer and tried to ambush him into a confession. These include Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Rudolph Valentino, Rod La Rocque, Vilma Bnky, Mabel Normand, Marie Prevost, Pearl White, and Douglas Fairbanks.