SUNSET BOULEVARD (’50) & The Effects of Star-Power

“Sunset Boulevard” (‘50)

This piece was originally published at The Nu Romantics Facebook group.

“I was big Dahling! It was the pictures that got small!”

Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in a publicity still for “Sunset Boulevard.”

Ready for your close-up? This piece will examine a darkly romantic noir, from the canon of truly great cinema: Billy Wilder’s epic, gothic look at the rotten, corrupting underbelly of Hollywood life and star pressure’s psychosis producing effects: Sunset Boulevard (1950), which can be watched on Netflix in the US.

Sunset Boulevard tells the swan song of washed-up B-Movie writer Joe Gillis (William Holden), who is on the run from repo men looking to repossess his car in 1950. The film starts in a very unusual way, with the typical noir voice-over (sans spoilers). Joe hasn’t sold any scripts recently, nor even any stories. He’s not making his rent and barely has cash to eat. As LA is a city basically laid out around the automobile, taking Joe’s car…