Ready For My Close-Up

It's the pictures that got small ... -- Picture courtesy of Paramount

by blogSpotter
Turner Classic Movies has become one of my favorite channels now. They run film festivals that honor specific people in the industry such as Alfred Hitchcock or Kirk Douglas. They also run movies without commercial interruptions, with small segments between movies for critics to dissect the movie just seen. It's as if someone created a channel just for the "movie nut". Thank you, Turner Classic.

Two nights ago, I watched one of the best movies ever made (it's in AFI's top 20), Sunset Boulevard. The movie is both a black comedy and a camp classic -- it provided fodder for a Carol Burnett skit many years later. It's considered film noir, although the style and content make it seem newer than 1950. The movie tells the story of Joe Gillis -- a handsome, young, down-on-his-luck Hollywood screenwriter. In running from repo men (chasing him to repossess his car), he dashes into the hidden driveway of Norma Desmond's secluded Sunset Boulevard manse. Norma is a semi-retired silent screen legend, age 50. Norma has a devoted live-in servant Max, a servile and vaguely sinister man also in his senior years. She mistakes Joe for an undertaker (summoned to bury a family "pet") and invites him in. From here, things develop and Joe becomes Norma's personal writer (fixing her unfixable Salome script). Joe ultimately becomes Norma's gigolo boy toy, -- showered with clothes, gifts and unwanted demonstrations of middle-aged, faded-star affection.

I won't rehash the plot much further. Sunset Boulevard is a classic in so many ways -- it has at least two lines of famous dialog:

"I'm still big. It's the pictures that got small".
"I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille."

The movie is fast-paced and witty --- you might have to watch it three times to catch all the repartee. Joe Gillis is cynical and originates quite a few of the lines targeting Hollywood execs. The movie innovated some things -- techniques like filming a man floating face down in a pool, meshing film noir with dark comedy. It also set the bar for other movies (Play Misty For Me, The Player) that deal with women "scorned" and/or Hollywood elites. Even Rocky Horror Picture Show gets a big inspiration from Sunset Boulevard. The script was written and directed by Billy Wilder, a short little rotund Jewish émigré who engineered some of the best movies of the 20th century (Some Like It Hot, The Apartment).

Interesting side notes. Pola Negri was approached for the role of Norma, but her accent was too thick. Mary Pickford was going to be asked but it was determined that she'd be morally incensed by such a role. Greta Garbo thought it was tawdry and beneath her. Gloria Swanson turned out to be the perfect match anyhow -- still beautiful at 50 and intrigued by the part. (In fact, it was the role of a lifetime!) Montgomery Cliff backed out of the part and gave the Joe Gillis role to William Holden -- excellent break for an excellent actor. It's interesting that in 1950, 50 seemed insurmountably old. In 2008, we have Madonna still strutting in tights, and Cher still singing. How old is old anyway?

If you want to watch the quintessential Hollywood story, catch Sunset Boulevard. There is talk that the 1990's Broadway musical version will soon be brought to the screen. Nothing would be better than to see this production in color, with modern actors and a 21st century interpretation.

© 2008 blogSpotter