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 wit 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 his 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.In the final scene, Norma (Gloria Swanson) is coaxed down to be arrested by the illusion that she is filming a movie scene. Max, played by famed German director Erich von Stroheim, is perceived to be Cecille B. DeMille by the now deranged Norma. Here is the script:
E-47 STAIRCASE AND LOWER HALLAnd now the movie version:
Max makes his way down the stairs through the crowd
of newsmen to the newsreel cameras, which are being
set up in the hall below.
MAX
Is everything set up, gentlemen?
Are the lights ready?
From the stairway comes a murmur. They look up.
Norma has emerged from the bedroom and comes to the
head of the stairs. There are golden spangles in
her hair and in her hand she carries a golden scarf.
The police clear a path for her to descend. Press
cameras flash at her every step.
Max stands at the cameras.
MAX
Is everything set up, gentlemen?
CAMERAMAN
Just about.
The portable lights flare up and illuminate the
staircase.
MAX
Are the lights ready?
2ND CAMERA MAN
All set.
MAX
Quiet, everybody! Lights!
Are you ready, Norma?
NORMA
(From the top of the
stairs)
What is the scene? Where am I?
MAX
This is the staircase of the palace.
NORMA
Oh, yes, yes. They're below,
waiting for the Princess ...
I'm ready.
MAX
All right.
(To cameramen)
Camera!
(To Norma)
Action!
Norma arranges the golden GILLIS' VOICE
scarf about her and proudly So they were grinding
starts to descend the stair- after all, those cam-
case. The cameras grind. eras. Life, which can
Everyone watches in awe. be strangely merciful,
had taken pity on Norma
Desmond. The dream she
had clung to so des-
perately had enfolded
her...
At the foot of the stairs Norma stops, moved.
NORMA
I can't go on with the scene.
I'm too happy. Do you mind,
Mr. DeMille, if I say a few words?
Thank you. I just want to tell
you how happy I am to be back in
the studio making a picture again.
You don't know how much I've missed
all of you. And I promise you
I'll never desert you again, because
after "Salome" we'll make another
picture, and another and another.
You see, this is my life. It always
will be. There's nothing else -
just us and the cameras and those
wonderful people out there in the
dark... All right, Mr. DeMille,
I'm ready for my closeup.
FADE OUT.
THE END
Here's an interesting bit of trivia about the movie's equally famous opening scene:
Originally opened and closed the story at the Los Angeles County Morgue. In a scene described by director Billy Wilder as one of the best he'd ever shot, the body of Joe Gillis is rolled into the Morgue to join three dozen other corpses, some of whom - in voice-over - tell Gillis how they died. Eventually Gillis tells his story, which takes us to a flashback of his affair with Norma Desmond. The movie was previewed with this opening, in Illinois, Long Island, New York, and Poughkeepsie, New York. Because all three audiences inappropriately found the morgue scene hilarious, the film's release was delayed six months so that a new beginning could be shot in which police find Gillis' corpse floating in Norma's pool while Gillis' voice narrates the events leading to his death. Distortion caused by water meant that this scene had to be filmed via a mirror placed on the bottom of the pool.If you haven't screened Sunset Blvd. recently, do yourself a favor and watch it again.
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3 comments:
this is a GREAT movie. I read somewhere that Norma Desmond's name was taken from Mabel Normand (one of the first female screenwriters/producers/performers, in the 1920s) and a rich man who was accused of shooting another man involved with Mabel Normand.
or something like that.
As PERFECT as this film is, I find it somewhat harrowing to watch, if only because, like everyone else here, I fancy myself a scriptwriter wanna-be and this film slices and dices that lifestyle so completely.
I even find films like The Player and Swimming With Sharks easier to digest than watching William Holden flail and struggle in such utter desperation.
Because, let's face it, that could just as easily be any one of us floating face-down in Ms. Desmond's swimming pool, eh?
SUNSET BOULEVARD is the best movie about the film industry ever made. Superb.
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