The Music Hall In Sunset Boulevard
A segment of life in Hollywood is being spread across the screen of the Music Hall in Sunset Boulevard. Using as the basis of their frank, caustic drama a scandalous situation involving a faded, aging silent screen star and a penniless, cynical young scriptwriter, Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder (with an assist from D. M. Marshman, Jr.) have written a powerful story of the ambitions and frustrations that combine to make life in the cardboard city so fascinating to the outside world.
Sunset Boulevard is by no means a rounded story of Hollywood, past or present. But it is such a clever compound of truth and legend—and is so richly redolent of the past, yet so contemporaneous—that it seemingly speaks with great authority. Sunset Boulevard is
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Aside from the natural, knowing tone of the dialogue, the realism of the picture is heightened by scenes set inside the actual iron-grilled gates of the Paramount Studio, where Norma Desmond goes for an on-the-set visit with her old comrade, Cecil B. DeMille himself. And the fantastic, Babylonian atmosphere of an incredible past is reflected sharply in the gaudy elegance of the decaying mansion in which Norma Desmond lives.
The hope that propels young people to try their luck in Hollywood is exemplified by Betty Schaefer, a studio reader with writing ambitions who is beautifully portrayed by Nancy Olson. Fred Clark makes a strong impression as a producer working for his second ulcer, and there is heartbreak in a simple card game scene where "the wax works," as Gillis cynically refers to Norma 's friends, includes Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H. B.
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But while all the acting is memorable, one always thinks first and mostly of Miss Swanson, of her manifestation of consuming pride, her forlorn despair, and a truly magnificent impersonation of Charlie Chaplin.
Sunset Boulevard is a great motion picture, marred only slightly by the fact that the authors permit Joe Gillis to take us into the story of his life after his bullet-ridden body is lifted out of Norma Desmond 's swimming pool. That is a device completely unworthy of Brackett and Wilder, but happily it does not interfere with the success of Sunset
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