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Title: Sunset Blvd. (1950)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| William Holden | ... | Joe Gillis | |
| Gloria Swanson | ... | Norma Desmond | |
| Erich von Stroheim | ... | Max Von Mayerling | |
| Nancy Olson | ... | Betty Schaefer | |
| Fred Clark | ... | Sheldrake | |
| Lloyd Gough | ... | Morino | |
| Jack Webb | ... | Artie Green | |
| Franklyn Farnum | ... | Undertaker | |
| Larry J. Blake | ... | 1st Finance Man (as Larry Blake) | |
 |
Charles Dayton | ... | 2nd Finance Man |
| Cecil B. DeMille | ... | Cecil B. DeMille | |
| Hedda Hopper | ... | Hedda Hopper | |
| Buster Keaton | ... | Buster Keaton | |
| Anna Q. Nilsson | ... | Anna Q. Nilsson | |
| H.B. Warner | ... | H. B. Warner | |
In Hollywood of the 50's, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone with her butler and driver Max Von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was her director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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I have yet to see a Billy Wilder film that I haven't loved, and Sunset Boulevard is definitely one of those films. It's interesting to watch the film during different times in one's life when I was a child watching this film, I thought the story was good and that Norma Desmond (Swanson) was a pretty scary lady. In my teens/college years, I appreciated it as a certified classic and for its commentary on Hollywood. Now, in my late 20's and early 30's I found it to have a different impact on me I was saddened by Desmond's mental illness, and when she makes her final descent down her staircase and utters her famous line as the camera pans the faces of the people around her, so full of pity, and the care her butler/ex-husband takes to make sure she's happy for maybe the last time in her life made more of an impact on me than any other time in the 20-odd times I've seen this film. There are only a small handful of central characters in Sunset Boulevard and they are so richly written that this film will remain timeless. There are not a lot of `dated' themes in this film the circle of life that is Hollywood isn't going to be much more evolved in 2050 than it was in 1950. If you haven't seen this film, watch it because there is something for just about anyone in this film.
--Shelly