SB is p terrific, but all the 'good girl' Nancy Olson stuff (cept maybe her first scene where she delivers the bad review of Joe's script) is unbearable. And Manny Farber pointed out the sledgehammer obviousness of the store clerk's "WELL, IF THE LADY IS PAYING" leer as a bad moment.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:32 (ten years ago) link
but you should see Wilder's Fedora when it gets unleashed on multi platforms next month -- a grimmer Hwood fairytale with a smarter Holden character.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:34 (ten years ago) link
had never heard of that til I saw you mention it on the other thread. the dubbing thing sounds pretty odd
― Οὖτις, Monday, 22 September 2014 16:36 (ten years ago) link
that clerk looks like Thomas Dewey
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:36 (ten years ago) link
but Fedora has no shots of Bill Holden emerging wet from swimming pool.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:37 (ten years ago) link
he appears briefly in tighty whities tho!
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:40 (ten years ago) link
i think SB is also one of Lynch's top 5 favourite films ever.
― Zeno, Tuesday, October 20, 2009 12:06 PM (4 years ago)
yeah, for sure. from an interview with Lynch in the book Lynch on Lynch (Lynch! Lynch!!!):
Q: I understand that you screened Sunset Boulevard for everyone before you began filming Eraserhead. Why that movie?A: Sunset Boulevard is in my top five movies, for sure. But there wasn’t anything in particular about it that related to Eraserhead. It was just a black-and-white experience of a certain mood.
A: Sunset Boulevard is in my top five movies, for sure. But there wasn’t anything in particular about it that related to Eraserhead. It was just a black-and-white experience of a certain mood.
― Karl Malone, Monday, 22 September 2014 16:48 (ten years ago) link
xp in 1978
― a guy named Christian White who represents the typical white Christian (Eric H.), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:56 (ten years ago) link
not sure any other Golden Age star did so... even at sixty
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 22 September 2014 16:59 (ten years ago) link
^ RIP.
Morbs would be jovially disappointed in me for not ever having seen Sunset Blvd but I plan to remedy that in a couple of weeks - there's a 16mm print screening in Hackney.
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 9 November 2021 12:42 (two years ago) link
Bill Holden? He’s been dead for…oh.I second his recommendation of the film Fedora, not to be confused with the erstwhile restaurant of the same name. https://www.nycgo.com/articles/fedorable-slideshow
― Exploding Plastic Bertrand (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 9 November 2021 12:50 (two years ago) link
well i finally saw it, in a glorious (actually not glorious) 16mm reduction print, with optical sound track, at the Castle Cinema. actually the quality was not terrible. What a film. Holden's curdled rejection of love at the end was genuinely shocking to me. and Gloria Swanson, i mean what is there to say. I get it now. All the amazing lines, sure ("we didn't need dialogue then! we had FACES!") but she travels across the lines like a spirit animal, just amazing. probably the greatest single moment for me is when she stands up during the private screening of one of her own movies, with the light flickering across her face, she holds up a claw-like hand, i don't even remember what she was saying, but that image, the memory of cruel command, still lingering like an aftertaste, the light washing over her.. sheesh
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 November 2021 09:47 (two years ago) link
Famous image, I think.
https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/sunset-boulevard-1950-wallpapers-2.jpg?resize=768%2C432
― clemenza, Monday, 29 November 2021 15:11 (two years ago) link
yes, that scene but there’s an eerier shot where it’s just her and the light is actually strobing over her as she speaks, and the effect is like a horror movie, like the bride of frankenstein or something
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 November 2021 15:51 (two years ago) link
IIRC it's an "I'll show them all" moment as she's running up the Salome project.
― Milm & Foovies (Eric H.), Monday, 29 November 2021 16:07 (two years ago) link
she’d make such an incredible salome!!
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 November 2021 16:42 (two years ago) link
Her Chaplin impersonation was first-rate too.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 29 November 2021 16:50 (two years ago) link
^^^^ favorite part of Waxman's score there, too
― Milm & Foovies (Eric H.), Monday, 29 November 2021 17:17 (two years ago) link
yeah, incredible. she had it down.
i DIED during her parasol bit. in a bathing costume, standing on a side table, twirling and twirling and jumping into bill holden's disgruntled lap. oh she was so happy.
i'm sure acres has been written on holden's cynicism - 'pictures that mean something? oh, that was last year' and you're rooting so hard for him to snap out of it that you're even rooting for him to steal his friend's girl. but he's too honorable for that - or too cynical? that you don't know where one stops and the other begins is part of the genius of the ending.
paris review interview with wilder re: SB here: https://cinephiliabeyond.org/sunset-boulevard-billy-wilder-charles-bracketts-sobering-exposure-dark-side-hollywood/
as well as an early script where the first scene would have been set in a morgue, with holden's 'spirit' conversing with the other corpses.
― Tracer Hand, Monday, 29 November 2021 17:34 (two years ago) link