Sunset Boulevard
By Kit Macdonald
"All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up."
If you've ever wondered where this saying comes from, look no further than Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder's superb 1950 satire about the silent-film era, the cruelly fleeting nature of fame and Hollywood's dreadful treatment of ageing stars, which appears to have changed depressingly little in the three quarters of a century since. The line is spoken by Gloria Swanson in the course of her haunting performance as Norma Desmond, a faded beauty and silent film star living in isolation who is desperate to rekindle her lost silver-screen glories.
The film's other standout performance comes from William Holden as Joe Gillis, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who sees an opportunity in Norma's delusional chasing of her former glories but ends up trapped in her decaying mansion and in the dark fantasy world she has created around herself. A searing commentary on the dark sides of Hollywood with film noir and gothic melodrama ingredients in the mix too.