Directed by:
Billy WilderCinematography:
John F. SeitzComposer:
Franz WaxmanCast:
William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Franklyn Farnum, Jack Webb, Lloyd Gough, Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
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. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Rudy Germane
USA
Best movies:
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Spartacus (1960)
Anne Bauchens
USA
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Sunset Boulevard (1950)
William Meader
USA
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Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Kenneth Gibson
USA
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Sunset Boulevard (1950)
The Big Sleep (1946)
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Ralph Montgomery
USA
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Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Hello, Dolly! (1969)
Ottola Nesmith
USA
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Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Archie Twitchell
USA
Best movies:
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Mighty Joe Young (1949)
Union Pacific (1939)
Alan Marston
USA
Best movies:
The Godfather: Part II (1974)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Chinatown (1974)
Julia Faye
USA
Best movies:
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
The Ten Commandments (1956)