Sunset Blvd. (Paramount Pictures) : To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the original release of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Blvd., the movie is being re-released for viewing on the big screen.
The big screen (and not a Broadway theater) is the place to see this movie about the movies narrated by dead screenwriter Joe Gillis (a handsome William Holden). Gillis, on the verge of chucking it all and returning to Ohio as a Hollywood failure, has an odd run of luck. While being chased through the streets of Hollywood by the repo-men who have come to repossess his car, Gillis has a flat tire and pulls into the “interesting” driveway of an enormous, run-down mansion—”a great, big white elephant of a place” with an “unhappy look.”
Once inside, he meets former silent-film star Norma Desmond (the glorious Gloria Swanson), a woman who has been “sleepwalking along the giddy heights of her lost career,” and her devoted manservant (and former husband) Max (Erich Von Stroheim).
Desperate for money and a place to hide out, Gillis moves into a room above Desmond’s garage (and eventually into the main house), and accepts a gig doing a “patch-up job” on the script Desmond has been working on for her return to the big screen.
I don’t want to give too much away, especially for anyone who hasn’t already seen this masterpiece (or the ridiculous Andrew Lloyd Weber stage musical), so I’ll just recommend that you make it a point to take a trip to Sunset Boulevard.
On a scale of 1 to 10: 9
Opening July 14 at The Music Box.