Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Sunset Boulevard, like other classic films of the time like Casablanca and Gone With The Wind has unfortunately been overshadowed by their endings to the point that that all people can remember them by. Before I saw it, i thought it was a story about an old melodramatic actress whose glory days where behind her (which it sorta is...) but that she was the protagonist because she's the focus of any incidental talk about the film.
But as much as i love Gloria Swanson playing the iconic faded silent movie star, Norma Desmond- it's sad to me that everything else gets forgotten about. For one, this film is sensationally darkly humorous; but of course it is... It's Billy Wilder. He deftly mixes the humor with this bleak almost ghost-story like plot of the older woman gentrifying this young man in Hollywood. Then there's William Holden as the youngsters man that she almost imprisoned in her house- it's the best thing I've seen him in because his character is sharp, witty and human in his sense that he just wants the easy life and his ambition doesn't really stretch as far as he'd like.
I guess what people have loved about Sunset Boulevard over the last 60years was that it was 'meta' before 'meta; obvious it a Hollywood story made by Hollywood but it's litter with cameos of people playing themselves, most substantially Cecil B. DeMille. Add the the fact that Gloria Swanson was a silent movie star who saw her popularity fade after the talkies began and the man playing the lady's butler is Erich von Stroheim- one of the most prolific European silent film directors. What I'm trying to say is that no-one made films like this and no one else probably made anything remotely similar until Singin In The Rain (... 2years later.. Still though...)
But then who can deny the pull of Norma Desmond? A cynic might argue that it's just the most broad overacting ever seen but the woman's callous wit and deep self-doubt is completely magnetic. Her decent into madness is completely understandable and her actions seem completely excusable if not justified.
Sunset Boulevard is a classic because it's story and themes, especially in today's through-away celebrity culture are particularly apt and still as fresh as it was 60years ago...

I watched Sunset Boulevard (1950) on FilmFour.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Citizen Ruth (1995)...