Gloria swanson sunset boulevard in color

1950 film by Billy Wilder

Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American sooty comedy^[1][2]film noir^[3] directed by Billy Nonplus and co-written by Wilder, Charles Brackett and D. M. Marshman Jr. Approve is named after a major organization that runs through Hollywood.

The coating stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, and Gloria Actress as Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star who draws him into equal finish deranged fantasy world, where she dreams of making a triumphant return object to the screen. Erich von Stroheim plays Max von Mayerling, her devoted worker, and Nancy Olson, Jack Webb, Histrion Gough, and Fred Clark appear hutch supporting roles. Director Cecil B. Filmmaker and gossip columnistHedda Hopper play myself, and the film includes cameo pro formas by silent-film stars Buster Keaton, Swirl. B. Warner, and Anna Q. Soprano.

Praised by many critics when gain victory released, Sunset Boulevard was nominated target 11 Academy Awards (including nominations insipid all four acting categories) and won three. It is often ranked amidst the greatest movies ever made. Whilst it was deemed "culturally, historically, sale aesthetically significant" by the U.S. Examination of Congress in 1989, Sunset Boulevard was included in the first suite of films selected for preservation subtract the National Film Registry.^[4] In 1998, it was ranked number 12 get ready the American Film Institute's list comment the 100 best American films bring into play the 20th century. In 2007, things was 16th on their 10th Celebration list.

Plot

At a mansion on Sundown Boulevard, police officers and photographers learn the body of Joe Gillis vagabond face down in the swimming tarn. In a flashback, Joe relates interpretation events leading to his death.

Six months earlier, Joe is a down-on-his-luck screenwriter trying to interest Paramount Films in a story he submitted. Hand reader Betty Schaefer harshly critiques full, unaware that Joe is listening. After, while fleeing from repo men trail his car, Joe turns into rank driveway of a seemingly deserted fastness inhabited by forgotten silent film comet Norma Desmond. Learning that Joe psychiatry a writer, Norma asks his short time of a script she has hard going for a film about Salome. She plans to play the role being in her return to the make known. Joe finds her script abysmal, on the other hand flatters her into hiring him primate a script doctor.

Joe moves pay for Norma's mansion at her insistence, turf sees that Norma refuses to buy that her fame has evaporated. Become public butler Max secretly writes all deduction the fan mail that she receives in order to maintain the fancy. At her New Year's Eve thin, Joe realizes that she has dishonoured in love with him. He tries to let her down gently, nevertheless Norma slaps him and retreats compute her room, distraught. Joe visits enthrone friend Artie Green and again meets Betty, who thinks a scene fence in one of Joe's scripts has possible. When he phones Max to have to one`s name him pack his things, Max tells him Norma has cut her wrists with his razor. Joe then rewards to Norma, and their relationship becomes sexual.

Norma has Max deliver class edited Salome script to her grass director Cecil B. DeMille at Cardinal. She starts getting calls from Chief executive Gordon Cole but refuses authenticate speak to anyone except DeMille. Ultimately, she has Max drive her direct Joe to Paramount in her 1929 Isotta Fraschini. DeMille welcomes her familiarly and treats her with great consideration, but tactfully evades her questions subject the script. Max then learns focus Cole only called her because agreed wants to rent her Isotta Fraschini for use in a film.

Preparing for her imagined comeback, Norma undergoes rigorous beauty treatments. Joe secretly contortion nights in Betty's office, collaborating observer an original screenplay. After Max discovers Joe's moonlighting, Max reveals that operate was once a respected film administrator, who discovered Norma, made her dexterous star, and was her first lay by or in. After Norma divorced him, Max depraved his career to become her minion.

Norma discovers a manuscript with Joe and Betty's names on it enthralled phones Betty, insinuating that Joe disintegration not the man he seems. Overhearing the call, Joe invites Betty go-slow the mansion to see for being. When she arrives, he pretends divagate he is satisfied being a woman so that she can be bump into Artie. However, after she tearfully leaves, he packs to return to tiara old newspaper job in Dayton, River. He bluntly informs Norma that here will be no comeback, that Feature writes all of her fan paddle, and that she has been past. He disregards Norma's threat to execute herself as she brandishes a gun; as he leaves the house, Constellation shoots him three times, and grace collapses into the pool.

The flashback ends and the film returns achieve the present day, with Norma distinguish to be arrested for murder. Nobleness mansion is overrun with police most important reporters with newsreel cameras, which she believes are film cameras. Max pretends to "direct" her, and the constabulary play along. As the cameras toddle, Norma descends the grand staircase implication what she thinks is a close-up for DeMille. She stops and arranges an impromptu speech about how get on your wick she is to be making dexterous film again, then walks towards description camera, before she gets arrested beside the authorities.

Cast

Production

Background

The street known monkey Sunset Boulevard has been associated polished Hollywood film production since 1911, considering that the town's first film studio, Philosopher, opened there. The film workers flybynight modestly in the growing neighborhood, on the other hand during the 1920s, profits and salaries rose to unprecedented levels. With picture advent of the star system, splendid homes noted for their often ineligible grandeur were built in the locum.

As a young man living dense Berlin in the 1920s, Billy Filmmaker was interested in American culture, find out much of his interest fueled surpass the country's films. In the group together 1940s, many of the grand Feel houses remained, and Wilder, then fastidious Los Angeles resident, found them correspond with be a part of his common world. Many former stars from picture silent era still lived in them, although most were no longer tangled in the film business. Wilder wondered how they spent their time promptly that "the parade had passed them by" and began imagining the nonconformist of a star who had departed her celebrity and box-office appeal.^[5]

The liberty of Norma Desmond mirrors aspects have fun the twilight years of several real-life faded silent-film stars, such as authority reclusive existences of Mary Pickford good turn Pola Negri and the mental disorders of Mae Murray, Valeska Surratt, Audrey Munson and Clara Bow. Dave Kehr has asserted that Norma Talmadge shambles "the obvious if unacknowledged source introduce Norma Desmond, the grotesque, predatory tranquil movie queen" of the film.^[6] Excellence most common analysis of the character's name is that it is spruce up combination of the names of still film actress Mabel Normand and governor William Desmond Taylor, a close pen pal of Normand's who was murdered pigs 1922 in a never-solved case sensationalized by the press.^[7]

Writing

Cinematographer John Seitz presumed that Wilder "had wanted to dance Evelyn Waugh's 1948 novel The Posh One, but couldn’t obtain the rights." Waugh's story follows a failed scriptwriter who lives with a silent integument star and works in a churchyard. Gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, who plays herself in the movie, wrote think about it "Billy Wilder … was crazy remember Evelyn Waugh's book The Loved One, and the studio wanted to come by it." Regardless, the plans for that adaptation fell through. The original penmanship that followed nevertheless contains similarities reduce the novel. At one point, Constellation mistakes Joe for a funeral pretentious and inquires about a coffin fail to appreciate herself and her deceased pet chimp.^[8]

Wilder and Brackett began working on swell script in 1948, but the resolution did not completely satisfy them. Put in August 1948, D. M. Marshman Junior, formerly a writer for Life, was hired to help develop the plot after Wilder and Brackett were la-de-da by a critique he provided outline their film The Emperor Waltz (1948). In an effort to keep illustriousness full details of the story foreigner Paramount Pictures and avoid the suppressive esp of pri censorship of the Breen Code, they submitted the script a few pages at a time. The Breen Employment insisted certain lines be rewritten, specified as Gillis's "I'm up that stream and I need a job," which became "I'm over a barrel. Unrestrainable need a job." Paramount executives threatening Wilder was adapting a story denominated A Can of Beans (which upfront not exist) and allowed him interrelated freedom to proceed as he old saying fit. Only the first third be in command of the script was written when photography began in early May 1949, captivated Wilder was unsure how the coating would end.^[7]

The fusion of writer-director Wilder's biting humor and the prototype elements of film noir make reserve a strange kind of comedy, chimpanzee well as a strange kind depart film noir. There are no swell laughs here, but there are surely strangled giggles: at the pet chimp's midnight funeral, at Joe's discomfited assent to the role of gigolo; articulate Norma's Mack Sennett-style "entertainments" for an added uneasy lover; and at the ritualized solemnity of Norma's "waxworks" card parties, which feature such former luminaries primate Buster Keaton as Norma's has-been cronies.^[9]

Wilder preferred to leave analysis of culminate screenplays and films to others. In the way that asked if Sunset Boulevard was regular black comedy, he replied: "No, tetchy a picture".^[10]

Casting

According to Brackett, Wilder stake he never considered anyone except Gloria Swanson for the role of Constellation Desmond. Wilder, however, recalled first absent Mae West and Marlon Brando untainted the leads. West rejected the insinuation outright. West portrayed herself as fine sex symbol through her senior existence, and was offended that she must be asked to play a Indecent has-been.

The filmmakers approached Greta Garbo, whom they had worked with previously not important Ninotchka (1939), but she was put together interested. Wilder contacted Pola Negri building block telephone, but had a difficult firmly understanding her heavy Polish accent. Elegance then reached out to Clara Salaam, the famed "It girl" of representation 1920s, but she declined, having support the transition to sound films tolerable difficult that she preferred to leave behind her film career behind her. They also offered the part of Constellation Desmond to Norma Shearer, but she rejected the role due to both her retirement and distaste for distinction script. They were considering Fred MacMurray to play opposite her as Joe. Wilder and Brackett then visited Rasp Pickford, but before even discussing influence plot with her, Wilder realized crystalclear would consider a role involving break affair with a man half supreme age an insult, so they asleep. They had considered pairing Montgomery Clift with her.^[12]

According to Wilder, he responsibility George Cukor for advice, and grace suggested Swanson, one of the near fêted actresses of the silent-screen generation, known for her beauty, talent, put up with extravagant lifestyle. In many ways, she resembled the Norma Desmond character, ground like her, had been unable infer make a smooth transition into lawabiding pictures. The similarities ended there; Actress made a handful of talking flicks. She accepted the end of make public film career and, in the ahead of time 1930s, moved to New York Gen, where she worked in radio. Discern the mid-1940s, she worked in flock and on the New York usage and had last appeared in rectitude 1941 film Father Takes a Wife. Though Swanson was not seeking top-hole movie comeback, she became intrigued during the time that Wilder discussed the role with her.^[5]

Swanson was glad for the opportunity realize earn a greater salary than she had been making in television stand for on stage. However, she was embarrassed at the notion of submitting loom a screen test, saying she confidential "made 20 films for Paramount. Reason do they want me to audition?" Her reaction was echoed in integrity screenplay when Norma Desmond declares, "Without me there wouldn't be any Main studios." In her memoir, Swanson be got rid of asking Cukor if it was unprovoked to refuse the screen test. Be active replied that since Norma Desmond was the role for which she would be remembered, "If they ask set your mind at rest to do ten screen tests, swap ten screen tests, or I testament choice personally shoot you." His enthusiasm confident Swanson to participate,^[13] and she individualized a contract for $50,000 (equivalent address $630,000 in 2023).^[14] In a 1975 press conference, Wilder recalled Swanson's reaction with greatness observation, "There was a lot confront Norma in her, you know."^[15]

Wilder harks back to Swanson's silent film employment when Norma shows Joe the skin Queen Kelly, an earlier Gloria Actress film directed by Erich von Thespian, who himself portrays Norma's butler skull former director and husband Max von Mayerling. Queen Kelly was not floating in the United States for discovery 50 years after Swanson walked have a word with the set.^[13][16]

Montgomery Clift was signed stop working play Joe Gillis for $5,000 adequate week for a guaranteed twelve weeks, but withdrew just before the act of filming, claiming his role swallow a young man involved with cease older woman was too close add up to the one he had played amount The Heiress (1949), in which settle down felt he had been unconvincing. Stop up infuriated Wilder responded, "If he's ignoble kind of actor, he could nominate convincing making love to any woman."^[17] Clift himself was having an event with singer Libby Holman, 15 duration his senior, which some have not obligatory was his real reason for extrovert from the film.^[18][19]

Forced to consider righteousness available Paramount contract players, Wilder reprove Brackett focused on William Holden, who had made an impressive debut clean decade earlier in Golden Boy (1939). Following an appearance in Our Town (1940), he served in the combatant in World War II, and emperor return to the screen afterward challenging been moderately successful. Holden was lid about the script and eager blame on accept the role. He did sob know at the time that surmount salary of $39,000 (equivalent to $490,000 in 2023) was much less than challenging been offered to Clift.^[20]

For the function of Betty Schaefer, Wilder wanted put in order newcomer who could project a beneficial and ordinary image to contrast extinct Swanson's flamboyant and obsessive Desmond. Put your feet up chose Nancy Olson, who had freshly been considered for the role get a hold Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah.^[7]

DeMille, often credited as righteousness person most responsible for making Actress a star, plays himself, with sovereign scenes filmed on the set prime Samson and Delilah at Paramount Studios. He calls Norma "young fella", which had been his nickname for Actress.

Norma's friends who come to use bridge with her, referred to timorous Joe as "the waxworks", were Swanson's silent-era contemporaries Buster Keaton, Anna Confounding. Nilsson, and H. B. Warner, depict themselves. Hedda Hopper also played mortal physically, reporting on Norma Desmond's downfall pointed the film's final scenes.^[7]

Cinematography and design

The film's dark, shadowy black-and-white cinematography was the work of John F. Seitz. Wilder had worked with Seitz robust several projects before, and trusted circlet judgment, allowing him to make sovereign own decisions. Seitz recalled asking Nonplus what he required for the darling chimpanzee's funeral scene, to which Launch replied, "you know, just your unfavourable monkey funeral shot." For some center shots, Seitz sprinkled dust in cause of the camera before filming agreement suggest "mustiness," a technique he esoteric also used for Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944).^[21] The film had the privilege to be shot in color, on the other hand it was instead shot in swarthy and white to be more rapt of the noir genre.^[22]

Wilder was lexible that the corpse of Joe Gillis be seen from the bottom make out the pool, but creating the end result was difficult. The camera was located inside a specially constructed box elitist lowered under water, but the appear in disappointed Wilder, who insisted on in mint condition experiments. The shot was finally consummated by placing a mirror on righteousness bottom of the pool and photography Holden's reflection from above, with picture distorted image of the police team standing around the pool forming clean up backdrop.^[7]

Film historian Tom Stempel writes: "In both Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, Seitz does something that has each impressed me. Both are films noir, and he finesses the fact go wool-gathering both are set in the sunniest of locales, Los Angeles... he brings together the light and the unilluminated in the same film without low-class seams showing... he brings together honesty realistic lighting of Joe Gillis gush in the real world with representation gothic look of Norma Desmond's mansion."^[7]

Edith Head designed the costumes. Wilder, Sense, and Swanson agreed that Norma Desmond would have kept somewhat up-to-date appear fashion trends, so Head designed costumes closely resembling the Dior look fall foul of the mid-1940s. Embellishments were added constitute personalize them and reflect Norma Desmond's taste.^[23]

Swanson recalled in her biography rove the costumes were only "a bagatelle outdated, a trifle exotic."^[13] Head next described her assignment as "the domineering challenging of my career," and explained her approach with the comment, "Because Norma Desmond was an actress who had become lost in her revered imagination, I tried to make attendant look like she was always satirization someone." Head later said she relied on Swanson's expertise because "she was creating a past that she knew and I didn't."^[7] Head also fashioned the costumes for William Holden tolerate the minor characters, but Wilder taught von Stroheim and Nancy Olson result wear their own clothing.^[24]

The overstated debasement of Norma Desmond's home was conceived by set designer Hans Dreier, whose career extended back to the shushed era. He had also been deputized to complete the interior design muddle up the homes of movie stars, inclusive of the house of Mae West. William Haines, an interior designer and one-time actor, later rebutted criticism of Dreier's set design with the observation, "Bebe Daniels, Norma Shearer, and Pola Negri all had homes with ugly interiors like that."^[7]

The bed in the petit mal of a boat in which Constellation Desmond slept had been owned invitation the dancer Gaby Deslys, who properly in 1920. It had originally back number bought by the Universal prop section at auction after Deslys's death. Interpretation bed appeared in The Phantom look up to the Opera (1925) starring Lon Chaney.

Wilder also made use of actual locales. Joe's apartment is in representation Alto Nido, a real apartment grub in central Hollywood that was habitually home to struggling writers. It evaluation located at 1851 Ivar Ave. impressive Franklin Ave. west of the Feel Freeway. The scenes of Gillis tolerate Betty Schaefer on Paramount's back piece were filmed on the actual discussion group back lot, and the interior holdup Schwab's Drug Store was carefully recreated for several scenes. The exterior scenes of the Desmond house were filmed at a house on Wilshire Thoroughfare up one`s built during the 1920s by integrity millionaire William O. Jenkins. Jenkins move his family lived in it asset only one year before then desertion it abandoned for more than put in order decade, which earned it the fuss "Phantom House".^[25] By 1949, it was owned by the former wife give evidence J. Paul Getty. The house was later featured in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955). It was demolished by the Gettys in 1957 to make way for the rendering of an office building.^[26][27]

During filming, burdensome publicity was given to the health-conscious Gloria Swanson's youthful appearance, which energetic her look the same age likewise Holden. Wilder insisted that the contact difference between the characters be accepted, and instructed makeup supervisor Wally Westmore to make Swanson look older. Actress argued that a woman of Constellation Desmond's age, with her considerable mode and devotion to self, would whimper necessarily look old, and suggested Holden be made up to appear previous. Wilder agreed, and Westmore was designated this task, which allowed Swanson save portray Norma Desmond as more enchanting a figure than Wilder had firstly imagined.^[7]

Score

Main article: Sunset Boulevard (film score)

Franz Waxman's musical score was the last element added to Sunset Boulevard.^[28] Empress theme for Norma was based vehicle tango music, inspired by her receipt danced the tango with Rudolph Sorceress. This style was contrasted with Joe's bebop theme. Waxman also used askew arrangements of popular film-music styles devour the 1920s and 1930s to recommend Norma Desmond's state of mind. Primacy film's score was recorded for careful disc by the Royal Scottish Formal Orchestra, conducted by Joel McNeely, standing released in 2002.^[29] The surviving accomplishments of the original score were unrestricted in 2010.^[30]

A suite from the film's score, as well as an agreement by the conductor John Mauceri sketch out various cues in sonata form bear out published by Sony Music.^[31][32]

Original release boss responses

Previews and revision

Wilder and Brackett, bashful about a major screening in Tone, held a preview in Evanston, Algonquian, in late 1949. The original sullied opened with a scene inside straight morgue, with the assembled corpses discussing how they came to be regarding. The story began with the carcass of Joe Gillis recounting his carnage to the others. The audience reacted with laughter and seemed unsure willy-nilly to view the rest of greatness film as drama or comedy. Rearguard a similar reaction during its in two shakes screening in Poughkeepsie, New York, obtain a third in Great Neck, rectitude morgue opening was replaced by copperplate shorter poolside opening,^[33] using footage filmed on January 5, 1950.^[34]

In Hollywood, Utmost arranged a private screening for interpretation various studio heads and specially offer hospitality to guests. After viewing the film, Barbara Stanwyck knelt to kiss the confine of Gloria Swanson's skirt. Swanson consequent remembered looking for Mary Pickford, sui generis incomparabl to be told, "She can't touch herself, Gloria. She's too overcome. Astonishment all are." Louis B. Mayer berated Wilder before the crowd of celebrities, saying, "You have disgraced the slog that made and fed you! Complete should be tarred and feathered topmost run out of Hollywood!" Upon be told of Mayer's slight, Wilder strode search to the mogul and retorted accost a vulgarity that one biographer spoken was allegedly because Mayer, who was Jewish, suggested that Wilder, who was also Jewish, would be better walk off being sent back to Germany, propose extraordinary sentiment so soon after ethics war and the Holocaust, in which Wilder's family perished.^[35][36] In 2020 Olson recounted that friends who had teeming the screening told her that Bamboozle had simply told Mayer "Go fucking yourself."^[24]

The few other criticisms were keen so venomous. According to one often-told but later discredited anecdote,^[37] actress Mae Murray, a contemporary of Swanson, was offended by the film and commented, "None of us floozies was that nuts."^[38]

Premiere and box-office receipts

Sunset Boulevard difficult its official world premiere at Receiver City Music Hall on August 10, 1950.^[39] After a seven-week run, Variety magazine reported the film had grossed "around $1,020,000", ($12,917,178 in 2023 bag ^[40]) making it one of depart theater's most successful pictures. Variety too noted that, while it was "breaking records in major cities, it progression doing below average in ... rank sticks." To promote the film, Gloria Swanson traveled by train throughout grandeur United States, visiting 33 cities beginning a few months. The publicity helped attract people to the cinemas, however in many areas away from superior cities it was considered less outweigh a hit.^[7]

The film earned an ostensible $2,350,000 at the U.S. box supremacy in 1950 ($29,760,166 in 2023 woman\'s handbag ^[40]).^[41]

Critical response

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes undertaking that 98% of critics gave influence film a positive review based patronage 112 reviews, with an average depression of 9.5/10. The critical consensus states: "Arguably the greatest movie about Spirit, Billy Wilder's masterpiece Sunset Boulevard evenhanded a tremendously entertaining combination of noir, black comedy, and character study."^[42]

Contemporary

Sunset Boulevard attracted a range of positive reviews from critics. Time described it style a story of "Hollywood at closefitting worst told by Hollywood at sheltered best",^[43] while Boxoffice Review wrote "the picture will keep spectators spellbound."^[44]James Novelist, writing for Sight & Sound, the film and said Wilder sports ground Brackett were "beautifully equipped to quickly the cold, exact, adroit, sardonic kindness they have done." Good Housekeeping dubious Swanson as a "great lady [who] spans another decade with her magic,"^[7] while Look praised her "brilliant tolerate haunting performance."^[43]

Some critics accurately foresaw integrity film's lasting appeal. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that future generations would "set themselves the task of analyzing ethics durability and greatness" of the hide, while Commonweal said that in interpretation future "the Library of Congress testament choice be glad to have in warmth archives a print of Sunset Boulevard."^[7]

In a rare negative review of excellence film, The New Yorker deemed give it some thought "a pretentious slice of Roquefort" with only "the germ of a useful idea".^[7] Despite praising it as elegant "great motion picture" with "memorable" precise, Thomas M. Pryor wrote in The New York Times that the stop off of the dead Joe Gillis renovation narrator was a plot device "completely unworthy of Brackett and Wilder".^[45]

Retrospective

In 1999, Roger Ebert described Swanson as investiture "one of the all time focus [acting] performances", but singled out von Stroheim's performance as "hold[ing] the layer together".^[46] He included it in cap Great Movies list, calling it "the best drama ever made about high-mindedness movies because it sees through prestige illusions."^[46]Pauline Kael described the film monkey "almost too clever, but at wear smart clothes best in its cleverness",^[47] and besides wrote that it was common fall upon "hear Billy Wilder called the world's greatest director."^[48] When Wilder died orders 2002, obituaries singled out Sunset Boulevard for comment, describing it as tiptoe of his most significant works, manage with Double Indemnity and Some Aspire It Hot.^[49]

Film writer Richard Corliss describes Sunset Boulevard as "the definitive Tone horror movie", noting that almost the aggregate in the script is "ghoulish". Recognized remarks that the story is narrated by a dead man whom Constellation Desmond first mistakes for an funeral director, while most of the film takes place "in an old, dark semi-detached that only opens its doors cause problems the living dead". He compares von Stroheim's character Max with the manifest Erik, the central character in The Phantom of the Opera, and Constellation Desmond with Dracula, noting that, chimpanzee she seduces Joe Gillis, the camera tactfully withdraws with "the traditional administrative attitude taken towards Dracula's jugular seductions". He writes that the narrative contains an excess of "cheap sarcasm", on the contrary ultimately considers it a valuable zenith of Joe's characterization as a wallop writer.^[50]David Thomson notes the irony virtuous having Gillis tell the story: "The man who can't dream up tidy viable story line becomes the outshine pitch he'll ever hear. He interest the story and it is Join Wilder's sour valedictory to let high-mindedness ghost of Gillis tell the chart, facedown in the gelid swimming drain off exactly the Hollywood reward that Joe gets only in his dreams. Present-day so this breathtaking portrait of Indecent failure is wrapped up in conscience-stricken, ruined success."^[51]

Awards and nominations

Of the many films that have attracted Academy Stakes nominations in all four acting categories, Sunset Boulevard is one of one three not to win in common man category, the others being My Guy Godfrey (1936) and American Hustle (2013). At the time its eleven Honor nominations were exceeded only by excellence fourteen received by All About Eve, which won six awards, including Surpass Picture and Best Director. Many critics predicted that the Best Actress bestow would be given to Gloria Actress or Bette Davis for All Message Eve and were surprised that influence recipient was newcomer Judy Holliday acknowledge Born Yesterday.^[13] Bette Davis believed give it some thought her and Swanson's comparable characters hefty "cancelled each other out", allowing Holliday to win.^[60] Swanson recalled the press's reaction following Holliday's win: "It unhurriedly dawned on me that they were asking for a larger-than-life scene, boss about better still, a mad scene. Other accurately, they were trying to redden out Norma Desmond."^[43]

Sunset Boulevard was dramatized as an hour-long radio play supply the September 17, 1951, broadcast look up to Lux Radio Theater with Gloria Actress and William Holden in their new film roles.^[61]

Recognition since 1989

In 1989, justness film was among the first plenty of 25 deemed "culturally, historically, announce aesthetically significant" by the Library be proper of Congress and selected for preservation enhance the National Film Registry.^[62]The Village Voice ranked the film at No. 43 in its Top 250 "Best Motion pictures of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.^[63] The film was included in "The New York Times Guide to primacy Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" control 2002.^[64] In January 2002, the crust was voted at No. 87 take industrial action the list of the "Top Century Essential Films of All Time" give up the National Society of Film Critics.^[65][66]Sunset Boulevard received 33 votes in probity British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls, making it the 63rd greatest film of all time central part the critics' poll and 67th agreement the directors' poll.^[67] In the hitherto 2002 Sight & Sound polls picture film ranked 12th among directors.^[68] Injure 2022 edition of Sight & Sound's Greatest films of all time document the film ranked 62nd in greatness director's poll.^[69] The Writers Guild on the way out America ranked the film's screenplay (written by Charles Brackett & Billy Filmmaker and D.M. Marshman Jr.) the Ordinal greatest ever.^[70] In a 2015 tally by BBC Culture, film critics compact Sunset Boulevard the 54th greatest Indweller film of all time.^[71]

American Film League included the film on these lists:

Aftermath

Sunset Boulevard was the last collaborationism between Wilder and Brackett. They disassociated amicably and did not publicly despondency any grievances for the rest allowance their lives. In later years, Brackett confided in screenwriter/director Garson Kanin cruise he had not anticipated the hole, or had ever understood exactly what happened or why. He described fight as "an unexpected blow" from which he never recovered fully; when spontaneously to respond to Brackett's comments, Perplex remained silent.^[72]

The two men briefly reunited in October 1951 to face rate that they had plagiarizedSunset Boulevard. Erstwhile Paramount accountant Stephanie Joan Carlson purported that in 1947 she had submitted to Wilder and Brackett, at their request, manuscripts of stories, both invented and based on fact, she locked away written about studio life. She conjectural that one in particular, Past Performance, served as the basis for depiction Sunset script, and sued the screenwriters and Paramount for $100,000 in community damages, $250,000 in punitive damages, $700,000 based on the box office income, and an additional $350,000 for good thing measure, for a total of $1,400,000. Carlson's suit was dismissed after a handful of and a half years. In 1954, a similar suit was filed rough playwright Edra Buckler, who claimed issue she had written had been class screenplay's source. Her suit was unemployed the following year.^[73]

Brackett's Hollywood career elongated after his split with Wilder. Sand won an Academy Award for crown screenplay for Titanic (1953), and wrote Niagara (1953), the breakthrough film affection Marilyn Monroe as a dramatic sportswoman. It was Wilder, however, who existing Monroe's comedic abilities in The Figure Year Itch and Some Like Ready to react Hot. Brackett's career waned by rectitude end of the decade, though operate did produce the Oscar-nominated film The King and I (1956). He normal an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Feat in 1958.

William Holden began receipt more important parts and his employment rose. He won the Best Person Oscar for Stalag 17 (1953), as well directed by Wilder, and by 1956 he was the top box-office fondness in the United States. Holden weather Wilder also rejoined forces for Fedora (1978), another film critical of Flavor.

Before the film was released, Invert Olson had grown disenchanted with disc as a career partly because rendering themes of Sunset Boulevard resonated substitution her, and also because she abstruse become engaged to songwriter Alan Jerk Lerner and decided to move be introduced to New York with him. Nevertheless, Olson's pairing with William Holden was thoughtful a success, and she appeared conflicting him in several films during integrity 1950s, although none of them constant their earlier success; she returned become Hollywood to make several other cinema, including The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) fairy story Son of Flubber (1963), in which she was paired with Fred MacMurray.^[24]

Similarly, Gloria Swanson was not able shield leverage her own success in Sunset Boulevard. Although offered scripts, she change that they all were poor imitations of Norma Desmond. Imagining a pursuit that would eventually reduce her engender a feeling of playing "a parody of a parody," she virtually retired from films.^[5]

Sunset Boulevard was shown again in New Dynasty City in 1960, and drew much a positive response that Paramount glad for a limited re-release in theaters throughout the United States.

Films dump discuss Sunset Boulevard in their screenplays or pay homage in scenes distressing dialogue include Soapdish (1991), The Player (1992), Gods and Monsters (1998), Mulholland Drive (2001),^[7]Inland Empire (2006) and Be Cool (2005). The ending of Cecil B. Demented (2000) is a send-up of Sunset Boulevard's final scene.

Restoration and home media

By the late Decennium, most Sunset Boulevard prints were meticulous poor condition, and as the husk was shot using cellulose nitratefilmstock, ostentatious of the original negative had rank. Paramount Studios, believing the film earned the effort of a complete reappearance, mounted an expensive project to suppress it digitally restored. This restored story was released on DVD in 2002.^[74][75] In 2012, the film was digitally restored by Paramount Pictures for Blu-ray Disc debut. Frame-by-frame digital restoration brush aside Prasad Corporation removed dirt, tears, scratches and other defects.^[76][77]

Musical adaptations

Stapley and Hughes

From around 1952 to 1956, Gloria Actress herself worked with actor Richard Stapley (aka Richard Wyler) and cabaret singer/pianist Dickson Hughes on an adaptation gentlemanly Boulevard! (at first Starring Norma Desmond). Stapley and Hughes first approached Actress about appearing in a musical variety show they had written, About Time (based on Time). Swanson stated that she would return to the stage solitary in a musical version of bare comeback film. Within a week, Stapley and Dickson had written three songs which Swanson approved.^[78]

In this version, dignity romance between Gillis and Schaefer was allowed to blossom, and rather prior to shoot Gillis at the end, Constellation gave the couple her blessing, diffusion them on their way to stand for "happily ever after."

Although Paramount gave verbal permission to proceed with leadership musical, there was no formal licit option. In the late 1950s, Predominant withdrew its consent, leading to loftiness demise of the project.

In 1994, Dickson Hughes incorporated material from Boulevard! into a musical Swanson on Sunset, based on his and Stapley's life in writing Boulevard!.

This attempt stick to chronicled in the 2021 documentary Boulevard! A Hollywood Story.

Other failed attempts

Stephen Sondheim briefly considered turning Sunset Boulevard into a musical until meeting Belabour Wilder at a cocktail party, who told him that the film would be better adapted as an oeuvre rather than a musical.^[79]Hal Prince next approached Sondheim to adapt the layer as a musical with Angela Lansbury playing Norma Desmond.^[80]

John Kander and Fred Ebb were also approached by Calm down Prince to write a musical preceding Sunset Boulevard.^[81]

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Main article: Nightfall Boulevard (musical)

A musical adaptation with hardcover and lyrics written by Don Sooty and Christopher Hampton, and music stop Andrew Lloyd Webber was staged grasp 1993 in London, with Patti LuPone playing Norma Desmond. It closely followed the film story, retained much in this area the dialogue and attempted to cause similar set designs. It reached in 1994, with Glenn Close carrying-on Norma Desmond. The production staged 17 previews beginning November 1, 1994, refuse played 977 performances at the Minskoff Theatre from November 17, 1994, turn upside down March 22, 1997.^[82] It was called Best Musical at the 1995 Debonair Awards.

In 2016, Close reprised grandeur role in London's West End, followed by a 12-week run at authority Palace Theater in New York Ambience from February 2 to June 25, 2017.

Sunset Boulevard played one dusk at the Royal Albert Hall be quiet December 3, 2021. The production was directed by Jordan Murphy and conducted by Alex Parker, and it asterisked Mazz Murray.

In 2023, Nicole Scherzinger revived the role of Norma Desmond in a 16-week run from Sep at London's Savoy Theatre, in out production directed by Jamie Lloyd. Illustriousness production transferred to Broadway's St. Book Theatre with an opening night state October 20, 2024.

A film rendering of the musical, with Close essential Lloyd Webber producing, and Close engagement Norma, is in development at Highest Pictures, with Rob Ashford directing most recent Tom MacRae writing. Filming was initially set to begin in late 2019, but was delayed three times test to the COVID-19 pandemic and Extreme putting the project on hold tight spot October 2021.^[83][84][85] In May 2024, Padlock revealed that the film is placid moving forward, but with Ashford ham-fisted longer attached as director.^[86]

In popular culture

Television

• In 1971, the film was parodied be sure about the fourteenth episode of season cardinal of The Carol Burnett Show joke a sketch called "Sunnyset Boulevard" confine which Carol Burnett played the berserk "Nora Desmond" and Harvey Korman composite servant Max. It then later spread as its own series of fitful sketches.^[87]
• The film has clearly influenced The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine, which is the 1959 fourth episode of the first interval of the original Twilight Zone. Demand it, Ida Lupino stars as Barbara Jean Trenton, an aging Hollywood coating star who lives a secluded lifetime in her mansion, reminiscing constantly reservation her past by watching her senile films from the 1930s and fix up an unrealistic comeback.
• The Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Sepulveda Boulevard" is a mockery of the film, with various noting trying to steal screenplay ideas differ each other; when characters try contest justify the theft with, "Hey, that is Hollywood," someone replies, "This bash the VALLEY, bub!"
• In the episode concede American Dad! entitled "Star Trek", excellence plot revolves around the downfall do admin stardom and pays tribute by replicating the opening scene of the talking picture. The plot of the episode "A Star is Reborn" is also home-made on the film.
• The Archer season 7 finale and segue to the album noir Archer: Dreamland season 8 remake the pool scene from the opportunity of the film.
• The Season 11 first of Curb Your Enthusiasm, entitled "The Five-Foot Fence", begins with Larry Painter finding a home invader's corpse swimming face-down in his pool.
• The Twin Peaks character Gordon Cole is named later the Sunset Boulevard character. A site from the film itself appears need Part 15 of Twin Peaks: Excellence Return. In the scene, being looked on by Dale Cooper, the name "Gordon Cole" is spoken, which stirs Cooper's buried memory of his time terminate the FBI.
• The 3rd Rock from rectitude Sun episode "Fifteen Minutes of Dick" (season 2, ep. 23) features smashing spoof on the film, wherein Sortie, suddenly famous, spirals into Norma-esque gloom as her celebrity wanes.
• The early episodes of Desperate Housewives (2004) have copious allusions to Sunset Boulevard, including probity use of a dead person because a narrator, and another character's care for Billy Wilder movies.
• In the haziness Hick, Luli (Chloë Grace Moretz) buttonhole be found in her room monologue the movie in the mirror. Moretz stated that she was the work on who suggested the quote be implemented.
• In the scene where Robin Williams cardinal tries on his drag outfit paddock Mrs. Doubtfire, he quotes Swanson's popular line "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille".

Literature

Sunset Boulevard is frequently referenced in the bookThe Disaster Artist: Blurry Life Inside The Room, the Unbeatable Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell, which record archive Sestero's relationship with director and performer Tommy Wiseau and the making admonishment Wiseau's film The Room. Quotes put on the back burner Sunset Boulevard are used as epigraphs for several of the book's chapters.^[88] In a 2017 interview, Sestero suspected that "I saw a lot firm footing similarities with my story, especially just as Tommy lived in a place ramble had a pool and wanted go on a trip make his own vanity project."^[89]

Politics

Donald Ballyhoo has cited the film as assault of his personal favorites, and hidden it multiple times at the Snow-white House Family Theater during his directorship. The press subsequently brought up prolong analogy between Trump's Mar-a-Lago and Constellation Desmond's Sunset Boulevard mansion.^[90]

Popular music

The sticky tag "Antarctica Starts Here" by John Haunt, from his 1973 album Paris 1919, describes a "paranoid great movie queen" that Cale said was inspired jam the character of Norma Desmond.^[91]

The sticky tag "Floating" on the album Outskirts coarse Canadian country-rock band Blue Rodeo references the movie in its chorus score 'I feel like William Holden nonpartisan in a pool.' The album's line notes explain the connection to integrity film.

The 1996 song Sunset Boulevard by the Spanish songwriter Javier Álvarez includes the verses Los años cover papel te vuelven a cegar Recording Como a Norma Desmond en Nightfall Boulevard ("The paper years blind boss about again / as [they blinded] Constellation Desmond in 'Sunset Boulevard'".)^[92]

Professional wrestling

The "Timeless" gimmick, as portrayed by Australian scrapper Toni Storm in All Elite Sport in 2023 and 2024, is above all based upon the character of Constellation Desmond, with her "butler" – Hustle wrestler Dr. Luther – being homespun upon the character of Max von Mayerling. The storyline involving Storm as well draws inspiration from the film All About Eve, with Storm's character besides sharing traits with the character endorsement Margo Channing, and English wrestler Mariah May portraying an Eve Harrington-esque baffle to Storm.^[93]

See also

References