This movie is brilliant! The script is so sharp and witty and compelling it makes me ask myself what I’m doing with my life as a writer. The acting is flawless: William Holden and Gloria Swanson perfectly complement each other.
Sunset Boulevard (1950) certainly had a lot of influence on many filmmakers (the opening of American Beauty is a clear homage to Sunset), and I bet David Lynch loved this movie, just to name a couple.
The imagery is so dreamlike and unnerving: a beautiful Hollywood mansion in a state of early decay, just like the past-her-prime actress who inhabits the place. She is compared to Miss Havisham by broke screenwriter Joe (Holden), and Norma Desmond (Swanson) is indeed a slightly-grotesque yet glorious mess.
Their sun-soaked, boozy relationship culminates with Joe’s eventual murder, and we see Joe as we did in the beginning of the film, face down in a pool.
Poor guy always wanted a pool…
Cheers,
MMM