SUN NEVER SETS ON SUNSET BLVD

The classic movie about Hollywood , Sunset Blvd, is having its 60th anniversary. It premiered at the Radio City Music Hall on August 10, 1950, where it shattered non-holiday attendance records. For a film noir about 1950 era Hollywood reflecting on fading 1920s era movie stars, it's amazing that it has remained so relevant. That it has is thanks to the acting and directing -which were outstanding. But it's the writing that's sublime.

The story of faded glory, youthful ambition, and desparate attempts to hold on to to the Hollywood dream is forever being relived. The script by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder makes a great story, but it's the one-liners that pepper our vocabulary today. "All right Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my close-up,"  says Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond above. Earlier in the movie, reflecting on her silent films, she said, "We didn't need dialogue, we had faces," and "I am big, it's the pictures that got small."  The movie continually reflects on itself and Hollywood history, a hall of mirrors for old movie fans. At left above is Erich von Stroheim, who plays Norma's butler, but is now "directing" her final "scene", since in the story he was once her director, and who in Hollywood once really was her director. She is dressed as Salome, whose part she once really played, descending the staircase to the theme music from The Dance of the Seven Veils.

Cecil B. De Mille at right plays himself in the movie as Norma's former director, and of course he really was Swanson's former director, although Billy Wilder at left directs both of them.

Edith Head designed the costumes for the film, including Gloria Swanson's wardrobe. Here is Miss Head's costume sketch for Swanson's opening scene as Norma Desmond. When you look closely you'll notice in the movie, as in this design sketch, that the outfit is not a skirt but  are pants worn under a hostess dress. The liner fabric was changed in the final productiion.

This is Edith Head's costume design sketch for Norma Desmond's visit to the Paramount Studio and Mr. De Mille. The final costume was modified. Gloria Swanson had always been fashion conscious. She suggested the feathered hat instead of the headpiece above as a way to emphasize her movie-role ties to an earlier Hollywood. Edith Head designed Swanson's wardrobe for the role of Norma Desmond as being someone still chic, but with a hint at her old glamour days.

This is the final version of the costume Gloria Swanson wears when she visits her old movie studio lot.

Edith Head is pictured here with Gloria Swanson at the time of shooting Sunset Blvd. Star and designer got along well, and they respected and understood each other. When Edith Head first started at Paramount in 1923, Gloria Swanson was treated there like a queen.

 

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William Holden and Gloria Swanson play out a scene at Norma's mansion. The house is full of photos of Swanson from old movies. The house too had its Hollywood connection. It was depicted as an old Sunset Boulevard mansion, "..stricken with a kind of creeping paralysis." where all the old movie stars used to swim in its swimming pool. And to add to its fading glory, Norma has bridge parties with silent film stars such as Buster Keaton, H.B. Warner (who played Jesus in De Mille's King of Kings in 1927), and Anna Q. Nilsson. In real life the mansion had belonged to J. Paul Getty and was located on Wilshire Blvd. before it was torn down,  but not before its pool was used for a scene in Rebel Without a Cause.


But William Holden too makes the movie work. As co-star Nancy Olson related at the recent TCM Film Festival, Holden made the movie during a personal dry spell, drinking heavily and himself facing the taste of desparation that breathed down Joe Gillis's neck. The film's greatness is based on the strength of its characters. And as the characters vainly hope for in the film, Holden himself really did make a comeback after Sunset Blvd.  As the film ended at a  wrap screening for Paramount's stars, it was said that Barbara Stanwyck wept as she kissed  the hem of Swanson's silver lame gown in reverence.  In 2007, Sunset Blvd was ranked the 16th greatest film of all time by the American Film Institute, and the Library of Congress placed it in the National Film Registry as one of the 25 landmark films of all time.

While the sun doesn't set on Sunset Blvd, it's appeal lies in darkness. As Norma Desmond says, "Just us, the cameras, and those lovely people out there in the dark!"