Review of Sunset Boulevard (1950) by Kenneth L — 18 May 2011

Wow. This is one of the best movies ever made. Period. Everything about it, from the script to the performances to the direction, is just incredibly good. It's also extremely dark, especially for a 1950 movie, so that I'm a little surprised it was so well-received when it came out.

The story is original and fascinating. A down-on-his luck screenwriter (William Holden), by pure chance, ends up walking into the enormous but empty mansion of an aging silent movie star (Gloria Swanson, actually an aging silent movie star at the time) who still lives in 20-year-old delusions of grandeur. She hires him to touch up the insane script she has written for herself, and the story goes from there. The Oscar-winning screenplay is one of the best ever written, and has at least three classic lines that will stick in my memory for a while. You've probably heard some version of the line, "All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my closeup," but once you hear that line in its original context and full impact, it's unforgettable. This has to be one of the very best endings I've ever seen in a movie.

At the center of the film is Gloria Swanson, and her performance is one of the best ever, in any movie. She plays the Miss Havisham-like movie star with lots of leering, gesticulating, astonished whispers, and melodramatic posturing, but she's not at all overacting; rather, she is perfectly playing a character whose entire life is overacting. It's always obvious that there's something deeply wrong with her, and yet you sympathize with her a little. As good as Judy Holliday was in Born Yesterday, Swanson should have won the Best Actress Oscar for 1950. Her performance is absolutely mesmerizing.

There are three other very good performances surrounding Swanson, as well. William Holden is great as the opportunistic screenwriter. He knows he is dealing with a crazy woman, but you can believe his motivations for staying around as long as he does. Erich von Stroheim is also excellent as Max the butler, a character who takes on more depth and significance as the movie goes on. Nancy Olson injects some normality into the film as the somewhat typical nice young girl, but even her character is interesting and can think for herself. This movie is so good it can afford to have Buster Keaton himself show up for a cameo.

As I said, the script by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and D.M. Marshman, Jr. is one of the best ever written, in terms of both plot development and especially dialogue. Wilder's direction is also masterful in classical Hollywood terms. It may have something to do with the DVD I got, but the crystal-clear black-and-white cinematography is amazing. It will help if you approach this movie armed with some knowledge of old Hollywood movies, because it references real actors and directors and producers, but it's not necessary. Even if the rest of the movie was bad, the ending would still make it a great movie. All together, it's seriously damned amazing.