Star Rating: 3Length of Film: 1 Hour and 58 minutes
Director: Billy Wilder
Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Jack Webb, Franklyn Farnum, Larry J. Black, Eric von Stroheim (Actor in Supporting Role), Nancy Olson (Actress in a Supporting Role), John F. Seitz (PhotographYy), Doane Harrison, & Arthur P. Schmidt (Editing)
*This movie is in Black and White
The movie starts out with a man face first in a pool, DEAD! It flashbacks 6 months were we meet Joe Gillis, a well-known screenwriter who's having some financial troubles. He's also the narrator throughout the movie which gets really annoying. Joe tries to get away from debt collectors who want to repossess his car, and gets in a car chase ( a really terrible car chase, because they can't even stay in the correct lane. Awful...) Joe gets a flat tire and turns into a driveway on Sunset Blvd. It is a run down mansion. Debt collectors drive off, not noticing he pulled off the road, so Joe parks his car into the abandoned garage...or so he thought it was abandoned.
The butler calls Joe into the house, thinking he was an individual to help bury the owner of the houses pet chimp. (who would have a pet chimp...oh yes, a rich silent picture actress, very strange and has NOTHING to do with the plot of the movie).
Joe Gillis: Wait a minute. Haven’t I seen you before? I know your face.
Norma Desmond: Get out. Or shall I call my servant?
Norma: I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.
I think those quotes sum up the personality of Norma Desmond. Norma hires Joe to help her write a screenplay for her "comeback", but she's really hiring him for her own personal reasons. She showers Joe with gifts, suits, and allows him to move into the house, the same room where her 3 husbands lived. Joe notices that there's no locks on any of the doors. Max, the butler states that it was by the doctors orders; she has had too many suicide attempts in the past. New Years Eve comes, and Norma hires and orchestra; just for the two of them. Joe freaks out and leaves and attends a party with some of his other writers friends. He calls the house, to ask Max to pack up his belongings, and Max tells Joe that Norma just slit her wrists and tried to commit suicide (hmmm....we call that starving for attention). Joe rushes back to the house,
and at midnight he allowed her to kiss him,
or more…(they never showed sex scenes in the 50’s, so i'm not really sure if they had sex, but that's my take on it.)
Every night, Joe would sneak out of Norma's house to meet up with Betty, a reader for Paramount Pictures, who dreamed of being a writer, and they collaborated to write a screenplay. You can put two and two together to figure out what kind of relationship forms between the two of them.
This movie is about jealousy, greed, possession, power, insanity, murder, and money. This movie is worth watching. I mean, it's not amazing, and a movie I would buy and put on my movie shelf, but it's worth seeing, especially if you want to know who was face down in the pool, and see all the crap Norma does to get attention and to stay a "STAR". Gloria Swanson, who plays Norma, does a great job playing crazy.
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