Joe Gillis
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The street known as Sunset Boulevard has been associated with Hollywood film production since 1911, when the town's first film studio, Nestor, opened there. The film workers lived modestly in the growing neighborhood, but during the 1920s, profits and salaries rose to unprecedented levels.
- Overview
- Production notes and credits
- Cast
- Academy Award nominations (* denotes win)
Sunset Boulevard, American film noir, released in 1950, that is often cited as one of Hollywood’s greatest films, especially noted for Gloria Swanson’s portrayal of a fading silent-film star. The movie is named after the iconic street that runs through Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, Calif. Deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” to America’s film heritage, it was among the first films selected in 1989 for inclusion in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry.
(Read Lillian Gish’s 1929 Britannica essay on silent film.)
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A sharp critique of the film industry, Sunset Boulevard centres on the delusional aging film queen Norma Desmond (played by Swanson), who lives in a ramshackle mansion with her butler and former husband (Erich von Stroheim) while planning a doomed comeback. When Desmond takes on frustrated young screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) as her lover, his attraction to a younger woman and his disgust with his own inability to leave the pampered life Desmond offers him culminates in murder.
(Read Martin Scorsese’s Britannica essay on film preservation.)
•Studio: Paramount Pictures
•Director: Billy Wilder
•Writers: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D.M. Marshman, Jr.
•Music: Franz Waxman
•Gloria Swanson (Norma Desmond)
•William Holden (Joe Gillis)
•Erich von Stroheim (Max Von Mayerling)
•Nancy Olson (Betty Schaefer)
•Picture
•Director
•Lead actor (William Holden)
•Lead actress (Gloria Swanson)
•Supporting actor (Erich von Stroheim)
•Supporting actress (Nancy Olson)
- Lee Pfeiffer
- Gary Susman
- Freelance Writer
- Initially, Wilder (above) and writing partner Charles Brackett conceived the story as a comedy about a has-been actress making a comeback, and they imagined Mae West as the star.
- George Cukor, a director famed for his sensitivity toward actresses, suggested Swanson, another glamorous silent actress who hadn't successfully transitioned into the sound era.
- To hide what they were making, from both Paramount brass and the Production Code censors, Wilder and Brackett told everyone they were making a comedy called "Can of Beans."
- To play kept man Joe Gillis, the filmmakers cast Montgomery Clift, but the rising young star dropped out two weeks before the shoot. His given reason was that the affair between a young man and an older woman was too similar to what he'd done in "The Heiress," but the real reason may have been Clift's off-camera relationship with older singer Libby Holman.
Mar 11, 2003 · Written by Adrian Hennigan. Billy Wilder's 1950 drama "Sunset Boulevard" wasn't the first movie to hold a mirror up to Hollywood. But it was the first to show it warts'n'all. Take a trip down...
Oct 25, 2024 · It does almost feel like a radio play – kudos to sound designer Adam Fisher. It’s also a love-letter to the brilliance of music supervisor and director Alan Williams, diving headfirst into Andrew Lloyd Webber ’s much-cherished score and orchestrations and finding new hints of gold. What emerges is a strong case for Sunset being considered ...
Oct 13, 2023 · Sunset Boulevard continues its run at the Savoy Theatre until 6 January 2024, with tickets on sale below. Featured In This Story. Theatre and cinema collide at the Savoy Theatre.
Aug 10, 2021 · Sunset Boulevard is just as striking today as it was in 1950 because it shows us just how convoluted the concepts of free will and liberty are. A promising directorial talent Max von Mayerling (played by Erich von Stroheim) is reduced to the state of a cuckold by Norma, his ex-wife.
