Sunset Boulevard (1950)

d. Billy Wilder / USA / 110 mins.


Few movies would be brazen enough to begin with a shot of the main character dead, seen from the point-of-view of the floor of the swimming pool where he drowned (among other things), his voice from the afterlife gritty and firm in the film's narration. Fewer still would actually get better from that point onward. Both characteristics apply to Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, a 1950 masterpiece that both satirizes the pomposity of Hollywood and sends flowers to its funeral. Rarely is a film so good that it takes conventional storytelling devices and breaks their hearts.

The man in the pool is Joe Gillis (William Holden), a struggling screenwriter who eventually comes to hide out at the dilapidated mansion of a reclusive silent movie star named Norma Desmond (do I actually need to say it's Gloria Swanson?). It's best to summarize as little as possible, but suffice it to say we get an intimate portrait of Norma's fall from grace when Joe agrees to help her polish a screenplay in return for keeping the repo men away. The two actors were not the first choices for their respective roles, but as is so often the case, they are the best. Holden adroitly delivers the proper balance of masculine pride and manic desperation to Joe Gillis; he needs Norma's benefaction enough that it is difficult to complain about her insufferable and jealous meddling in his professional and personal affairs. Swanson as Norma is still, of course, everything the role has come to be known for: moody, delusional, narcissistic, and oblivious, but also forgotten and fragile. It is one of those truly great performances in movie history – overplayed to perfection, simultaneously parodic and pained, a generous cocktail of humanity and artifice kicked up with a shot of sheer insanity.

Sunset Boulevard premiered in 1950, halfway through the first century of film and the year cinema burned Hollywood's false idols to the ground. Also hitting theaters that year were Joseph Mankiewicz's All About Eve, which exemplified actress bitchiness and swept the Oscars, and Nicholas Ray's In a Lonely Place, which starred Humphrey Bogart as a violent screenwriter suspected of murder. Although the story of Joe and Norma is essentially fiction, the script – co-written by Wilder, Charles Brackett, D.M. Marshman Jr. – continually strives to place the events inside an authentically real Hollywood, boosting the film in its entertainment value and making its satire more cohesive. Wilder uses as few fictional characters as possible, but even then so many of them feel like talking shadows. The most notable are ex-silent star Swanson and silent film director Erich von Stronheim, who plays Norma's devoted servant Max (among other things). Von Stronheim's work in silent films is regarded well, but he was among the many who failed to transition into sound. Indeed, when Norma shows Joe a scene from one of her silent movies, it's actually Swanson in a silent film actually directed by von Stronheim. The real life cameos for Sunset Boulevard include director Cecil B. DeMille and gossopi columnist Hedda Hopper, appearing as themselves, as do Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, and Buster Keaton appear as Norma's card-playing friends luxuriously dressed for no one. The characters all speak in Hollywood parlance, and Norma talks of her respect for Greta Garbo and does a pantomime of Charles Chaplin.

The acting, directing, and writing are all topnotch, and any film lucky enough to have Holden and Swanson as stars and Wilder as a director and writer would have a more than fair shot at being called great. But its the presence of all the other elements that make Sunset Boulevard an entirely wondrous experience. The famed Edith Head designed the costumes. The cinematography was spearheaded by John F. Seitz, who worked extensively in silent films and saw much success in the sound era, including Wilder's best noirs (this film, Double Indemnity, and The Lost Weekend). Cinematic music is so frequently overlooked despite its power to make a film feel complete, but no discussion of Sunset Boulevard is over without mentioning Franz Waxman's memorable and atmosphere score.

What to make of the fact that the most famous parts of the film are its beginning, with Holden's character dead in the pool, and its ending, with Swanson's character inching her way down the staircase, proclaiming she is "ready for my close-up"? Well, for one, the knowledge of either does not necessarily spoil the movie. (For another, the swimming pool sequence wasn't even the original opener, but fortunately for history we ended up with the swimming pool.) There's little irony lost in the realities that this film, devoted to revealing the artificial nature of the film industry, would be remembered for its two most cinematic scenes. They are hypnotic bookends to a great film, and for all the attention lavished on the dramatic ending, it is nevertheless resonant – the same way Terry Malloy's "I coulda been a contender" speech resonates in the heart of On the Waterfront despite countless overplaying and mimicry.

The voice-over narration from a dead man is often maligned by storytelling purists who perceive it as gimmicky. If used in another film I might be inclined to agree, but consider this: Sunset Boulevard is a film about second chances. Joe is failing as a screenwriter and needs a second chance to pay his debts; Norma Desmond has fallen from the surly bonds of celebrity and desperately wants a comeback (although she'd argue with you on whether that's the right word); and Max is serving Norma in a second chance, if not as her director then as her butler, the best position to shield her from herself and from a world that has stopped caring. Not counting his work for Norma, telling his story from the afterlife and cutting through the facades of Hollywood (thus cracking open the story's darkness) is Joe's second chance. Ironically enough, the story told by a dead screenwriting character who never saw success was good enough to earn Wilder, Brackett, and Marshman Academy Awards for their original screenplay.

It's difficult to pick Wilder's most accomplished film because so many of them are just too damn good. As a director and a writer, the man had a streak of genius running from 1944 to 1960 that included Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Stalag 17, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment, and those are only the great ones. He dabbled in noir as skillfully as comedy. He was nominated for writing Oscars twelve times and directing Oscars eight times. But at the end of the day, you'll probably have to wager that Wilder will be most remembered for this masterfully eviscerating noir.

Hey, it's not a bad way to be remembered, either.

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The Maltese Falcon (1941)

d. John Huston / USA / 101 mins.


If this were another film, I'd say the actors of The Maltese Falcon all shine in their roles. But "shine" is the wrong word to describe this moody, edgy, and terrifically dark debut film from the legendary John Huston. Instead, allow me to say they flicker, like the hot dancing flame on a Zippo wick, and it's thrilling to watch them all burn.

Many consider The Maltese Falcon the birth of film noir, although that's not entirely accurate. Fritz Lang had been directing films in America before World War II that included all the essential elements of noir, and the film widely recognized as the first official noir was Stranger on the Third Floor, released one year earlier in 1940. Considering the pent-up energy The Maltese Falcon balls into an entertaining ferocity though, I can see why it would be tempting to want to bestow it the title of numero uno noir. Still, even if it's not the first technical noir, it's easily the first real success of the genre. After this adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novel was brought to the screen, the careers of Huston and Humphrey Bogart were never the same, to the say the least.

Bogart stars as the steely Sam Spade, the private detective to end all private detectives. He's cold, sharp, fiercely intelligent. Spade stands in the center of an orbiting cast of oddballs, played by the likes of Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, and Lee Patrick. I mentioned before how great the performances are, and they're all certainly worth mentioning again for their conniving, slimy self-interest, particularly Astor's now-infamous femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessy.

Huston had been writing films for Warner Bros. for nearly a decade before he won the right to direct one of his own. His version of The Maltese Falcon was the third version made. A Pre-Code 1931 version was prohibited from re-release and a 1936 version, called Satan Met a Lady, was a comedy that co-starred Bette Davis. Given the green light for this film, Huston combined the advanced footwork of Alfred Hitchcock (he storyboarded extensively) with the burgeoning experimental styles of filmmaking that allowed for liberal use of shadow and conservative use of light. In addition to directing, Huston penned the script, too, wisely adhering closely to Hammett's original text. The film has an unmistakably icy bite in its screenplay (it's source of that famous line "the stuff that dreams are made of"). Consider these words from Spade, spoken with Bogart's rugged slur:

Well, if you get a good break, you'll be out of Tehachapi in 20 years and you can come back to me then. I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck. Yes, angel, I'm gonna send you over. The chances are you'll get off with life. That means if you're a good girl, you'll be out in 20 years. I'll be waiting for you. If they hang you, I'll always remember you.

The film is not without weaknesses, particularly its convoluted plot which is essentially a hollow framework where the characters can wander around and bounce off each other's fists. They're all in pursuit of a famed black bird – that much we know – and they're all willing to muzzle and elbow one another to get it. I can say that once you've watched the film and tried to understand what's going on, you'll realize how futile it is to follow; subsequent viewings improve when you're free to focus on the performers and the technical aspects. Huston and his cinematographer, the famed Arthur Edeson, helped formulate so much of what would be endlessly imitated in the rest of the golden era of noir. The Maltese Falcon may not have been the first noir, but it's certainly among the best.

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