BIG'S BIG MOVIE LIST

     But, when audio came into motion pictures, many silent film stars found themselves in trouble. Norma Talmadge, despite working with a voice coach, could only produce a shrill Brooklyn squeal. John Gilbert, incapable of sounding like anything other than a canary, ultimately stopped making films and drank himself to death. Many others with disagreeable voices suffered similar fates, and those that were able to ride the wave into the sound era were doomed to dissolve into obscurity as the next generation came sweeping in.

 

       Billy Wilder's 1950 masterpiece “Sunset Boulevard” is an examination of the darker side of the movie industry in its years after the death of the silent era (MGM Studio head Louie B Mayer told Wilder he should've been “tarred, feathered, and horse-whipped” for the depiction). Our protagonist is average B-movie writer Joe Gillis (William Holden), living in dire straits in a small Los Angeles apartment. Not making any money, his creditors are threatening to repossess his car. After successfully ducking them for some time, they spot him driving and pursue him, and fter a chase down Sunset Boulevard, Joe evades the two men by pulling into a driveway and out of sight, but not before blowing out a rear tire.   

  

     This strange kismetic event brings Joe to hide his car in the garage of the seemingly abandoned mansion, when he is spotted by an older woman in sunglasses in a second story window (Gloria Swanson) and beckoned inside by her butler Max (Eric von Stroheim).

Joe steps into the Xanadu-esque pallazzo of aging silent firm star Norma Desmond (the name Norma inspired by Norma Talmadge), a vainglorious middle-aged woman with histrionic personality disorder of the worst kind. Joe is mistaken for a coffin-maker, and is ordered by Norma to make a coffin for her beloved and recently deceased ape (that's right).

 

     Clearing the confusion, Joe reveals that he is a writer hiding out from his creditors, and Norma soon offers him a job adapting her life story into a screenplay. In spite of witnessing the tremendous red flag that is an ape funeral, Joe accepts the job and begins a long journey down a rabbit hole of deceit, lust, and Hollywood intrigue, all while staring into the eyes of a woman who is gradually descending into deeper and deeper madness.

 

     This film definitely deserves its critical acclaim and ranking. The cinematography is sharp, the dialogue is crisp, and the story is well oiled and well directed. Gloria Swanson's portrayal of Norma Desmond is hauntingly brilliant, and balances William Holden's supremely average performance. The “Desmond Mansion” is like a character in itself, a big withering unkempt wonder. Set aside the ape--a strange early symbolic demonstration of Norma's batshittedness-- and this movie is spectacular for its time and place.