Respond to these rapid questions in our Sunset Blvd quiz and we will tell you which Sunset Blvd character you are. Play it now.
In Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Boulevard,” a forgotten silent film icon is depicted as she lives in exile in a bizarre mansion, watching her old movies and daydreaming of a return. However, it is also a love tale, and the love prevents it from turning into a freak show or a mere waxwork. With her grasping talons, theatrical mannerisms, and grandiose delusions, Gloria Swanson delivers her best performance as the silent star Norma Desmond. The tricky part of the writer half her age who permits himself to be kept by her is played deftly by William Holden. Erich von Stroheim, who plays Norma’s devoted butler Max, lends the movie its emotional resonance and authenticity despite its gothic flamboyance. His performance is what keeps the movie together.
Many of the silent stars present at the film’s premiere identified personal details because the story is so brutally honest and so closely based on real events. Max von Mayerling, a former great silent director who is now limited to serving as the butler of the lady he once directed and was married to, is the character where it cuts closest, not even Norma. The similarities to von Stroheim, who directed Swanson in “Queen Kelly” (1928), whose credits also included “Greed” and “The Merry Widow,” are obvious. Von Stroheim only directed two sound films and was forced to act as Nazi martinets and parodies of himself in other people’s movies.
In “Sunset Boulevard,” Holden’s character Joe Gillis, a young author, attends a screening of one of Desmond’s vintage silent films. Runs the projection is Max. It’s from the movie “Queen Kelly.” Swanson and von Stroheim briefly assume their own roles. When Joe is later relocated to the large mansion, Max leads him to an elaborate bedroom and says, “That was the husband’s room.” Max is referring to himself; he was the first of her three spouses and was so devoted to her fame that he was willing to return as a servant and feed her illusions as well as forge her fan mail.
Swanson’s portrayal of Norma Desmond skates dangerously close to parody in one of the greatest film performances ever; Swanson takes enormous risks with theatrical sneers, swoops, and posturing, holding Norma at the edge of madness for most of the picture, before allowing her slide over. She might not be taken seriously by us. Max steps in at this point. We believe because he believes it and because he has dedicated his life to her memorial. His love persuades us that Norma must possess a quality worthy of love, which in turn helps to explain how Joe can embrace her.
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Of course, Norma is not an aged crone. In the movie, she is only 50 years old, making her younger than actors like Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve. When a magnifying glass is placed in front of Norma’s eyes during her beauty makeover, we are astounded by how smooth Swanson’s skin is. The point of “Sunset Boulevard” is that Swanson has aged not in the body but in the mind; she has become fixed at the moment of her fame and lives in the past. Swanson was a health nut in real life who avoided the sun, which undoubtedly protected her skin (she was 53 when she made the film).
The characters’ initial creators were known to Billy Wilder and co-author Charles Brackett. How realistic Wilder ventured to be was unusual. His names were genuine. (Darryl Zanuck, Tyrone Power, Alan Ladd). Norma’s bridge opponents, cruelly referred to by Gillis as “the waxworks,” are the silent film actors Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H.B. Warner. He took inspiration from reality; for example, when Norma pays Cecil B. De Mille a visit at Paramount, the director is actually working on the real-life movie “Samson and Delilah” and refers to Norma as “little fellow,” just as he did with Swanson. If you substituted von Stroheim for Max von Mayerling when Max the Butler informs Joe, “There were three young directors who showed promise in those days, D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille and Max von Mayerling,” it would be a fair representation of von Stroheim’s status in the 1920s.
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Because it recognizes the lies even when Norma doesn’t, “Sunset Boulevard” is still the greatest cinematic drama ever created. The silent celebrity and the broke author have a classic conversation when they first meet inside the silent star’s mansion. He remarks, “You used to be huge. I am big, Norma says in response, which is a wonderful line. The images themselves shrunk. Nobody really recalls Joe’s subsequent statement, “I knew there was something wrong with them.”
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Joe has many justifications for accepting Norma’s offer of a private screenwriting position from the plot. He doesn’t want to return to his work as a newspaperman in Dayton even though he is broke, behind on his rent, and in danger of having his car repossessed. Holden plays the character with a veiled vulnerability and self-loathing, but he is not entirely unwilling to prostitute himself. He fills out the paperwork to indicate that he doesn’t want Norma’s presents, but he accepts them anyway, including the gold cigarette cases, the platinum watch, the suits, the shirts, and the shoes. He claims to be taken aback on New Year’s Eve when she holds a party exclusively for the two of them, but he must have known from the beginning that she wants a young man to reassure her that she is still attractive in addition to a writer.
The good part about Norma is that she doesn’t make life miserable. She isn’t monotonous. She has a charming side, as seen when she puts on a pantomime for Joe, portraying a Max Sennett bathing girl before performing a passable rendition of Chaplin’s Tramp. Her histrionics and dramaturgy are amusing. Joe is open to staying. More empathy between Joe and Max, who have so much in common, is the only element the movie is missing.
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Of course, Joe first encounters young, blond Betty (Nancy Olson), a writer for Paramount, early in the film. She is intended to be married (to a young Jack Webb), but she falls in love with Joe as soon as he starts sneaking out of the mansion to work on a screenplay with Betty. He feels attracted to her but resists, in part because he doesn’t want her to learn the reality and in part because he prefers the way of life Norma provides. And… possibly because he, like Max, has been enchanted by her? His speech has a cutting edge and can be harsh. (When she makes a suicide threat, he responds, “Oh, Norma, wake up. You would be committing suicide in a deserted home. The crowd departed twenty years ago. But there is also some sadness. He calls her a “poor devil” for continuing to wave triumphantly at a parade that had long since moved on.
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I’ve seen “Sunset Boulevard” a lot of times, and at the University of Virginia, I even broke it down shot by shot. On this most recent viewing, however, I was impressed by how much it reminded me of the 1964 Japanese drama “Woman in the Dunes.” Both stories center on males who are confined to a woman’s residence or hiding place and who flatly refuses to release them. They struggle, thrash around a little, look for ways to get out, but deep down they are happy to be prisoners and may even enjoy it. Both women require a male to assist them in restraining the sands’ relentless advance—in Norma’s case, the sands of time.
Billy Wilder produced more movies that remain relevant and enjoyable today than any other notable filmmaker from the heyday of Hollywood. The list of titles, which includes “Double Indemnity,” “Ace in the Hole,” “Some Like It Hot,” “The Apartment,” “The Lost Weekend,” “Stalag 17,” “Witness for the Prosecution,” and “Sabrina,” is astounding. And who else can present two candidates for the top two closing phrases ever? “Nobody’s perfect” is a line from the movie “Some Like It Hot.” And from Norma Desmond’s “Sunset Boulevard,” “There’s nothing else. Out there in the dark, it was just the two of us, the cameras, and those wonderful individuals. Mr. De Mille, I’m set for my close-up, all right?
For more personality quizzes check this: Alien Quiz.
