Sunset Blvd.
- Director: Billy Wilder
- Writer: Charles Brackett; Billy Wilder
- Producer: Charles Brackett
CGiii Comment
Swanson is as camp and as demented as a Tasmanian Devil wearing a pink tutu.
It is a ham-acted oddity - praised beyond comprehension.
Still...weirdly riveting.
Trailer...
The(ir) Blurb...
The story, set in '50s Hollywood, focuses on Norma Desmond, a silent-screen goddess whose pathetic belief in her own indestructibility has turned her into a demented recluse. The crumbling Sunset Boulevard mansion where she lives with only her butler, Max who was once her director and husband has become her self-contained world. Norma dreams of a comeback to pictures and she begins a relationship with Joe Gillis, a small-time writer who becomes her lover, that will soon end with murder and total madness.
Cast & Characters
William Holden as Joseph C. 'Joe' Gillis;
Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond;
Erich von Stroheim as Max Von Mayerling;
Nancy Olson as Betty Schaefer;
Fred Clark as Sheldrake;
Lloyd Gough as Morino;
Jack Webb as Artie Green;
Franklyn Farnum as Undertaker - Chimp's Funeral;
Larry J. Blake as First Finance Man;
Charles Dayton as Second Finance Man;
Cecil B. DeMille as Himself;
Hedda Hopper as Herself;
Buster Keaton as Himself - Bridge Player;
Anna Q. Nilsson as Herself - Bridge Player;
H.B. Warner as Himself - Bridge Player