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Format: VHS
Jan 1996
Not Rated
Recording Mode: Mono
Sound: HiFi
Closed Captioned
100 min.
B&W
UPC: 097360492736 |
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In general items shipped via Media Mail should arrive in 2-9 days (excluding Alaska and Hawaii) from the time of shipping
* ML=ships from multiple locations, AE/AP/AA=ships from U.S. Military location.
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Details
Movie Description
Billy Wilder's masterpiece SUNSET BOULEVARD, a corrosive black comedy that remains the most memorable assault on the emptiness and vanity of the movie business, stars William Holden as young, down-and-out screenwriter Joe Gillis. Narrated in flashbacks by the now-deceased scribe, the film unwinds the series of events that left him lying face down in a pool. Unable to sell his most recent chef-d'oeuvre, and in hock up to his eyeballs, Joe stashes his car in the driveway of what appears to be an abandoned mansion on Sunset Boulevard while trying to elude some persistent repo men. Closer inspection reveals the decrepit property to be inhabited by grandiose former silent movie goddess Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), and her zombie-like manservant Max (Erich von Stroheim). Upon hearing that he's a writer, the lonely but still wealthy woman offers to pay him generously to stay at the house and work on her "comeback" script on the life of Salome. Although spooked by the people and the surroundings, in desperate straits, Joe takes the job, little suspecting the madness of the netherworld he's entered. Wilder's merciless portrait of the dangers of a profession that trades in fantasy cagily couples the cynical amorality of the never-was with the near-psychotic narcissism of the has-been to reveal the vacuity of wealth and the transience of fame.
Synopsis
One of Billy Wilder’s finest films and maybe the best film ever made about Hollywood, this precisely directed black comedy, in which a hack screenwriter shacks up with a delusional former silent screen star, is a bitter and relentless examination of Hollywood’s dark side. Told in a noir-style flashback, starting on the day that fate brought the two together, the story plays out in arch tones that pay tribute stylistically to the golden age before sound.
Film Notes
SUNSET BOULEVARD was an original selection to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1989.
Erich Von Stroheim, who plays Norma's butler, Max Von Mayerling, was himself a famous silent film actor and director with whom Gloria Swanson had worked. In fact, a clip of the film QUEEN KELLY is used in the film. (Norma screens it for Joe in her home). QUEEN KELLY, produced by Joseph Kennedy, was only partially finished when Swanson desperately cabled Kennedy complaining of Von Stroheim's directorial tactics and (supposed) reckless disregard for money. Von Stroheim was subsequently fired from the shoot, an event alluded to in SUNSET BOULEVARD.
SUNSET BOULEVARD showcases some of Hollywood’s biggest players as themselves, including Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, and Buster Keaton. Among the famous stars and directors of the silent era who appear in the film are Anna Q. Nilsson and H. B. Warner.
A theatrical version of SUNSET BOULEVARD, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, premiered in London in 1993, starring Patti LuPone. Glenn Close took the role of Norma in the Los Angeles version and, in 1994, reprised it for the Broadway premiere.
According to Mason Wiley and Damien Bona's INSIDE OSCAR, among the actors and actresses considered for the part of Joe Gillis were Montgomery Clift and Fred MacMurray; those offered the role of Norma Desmond included Mae West, Mary Pickford, and Pola Negri.
Industry Reviews
"...Gloria Swanson gives her greatest performance....The movie cuts close to the bone....SUNSET BOULEVARD remains the best drama ever made about the movies..."
Chicago Sun-Times - Roger Ebert (06/17/1999)
"...A mordant masterpiece about two victims of self-deception who destroy each other and themselves....The movie is unimprovable..."
Entertainment Weekly - Mark Harris (11/29/2002)
"These days, it seems like 1950's best movie."
USA Today - Peter Johnson (02/17/2004)
Quotations
"All right, Mr. DeMille. I'm ready for my close-up."--Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson)
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