Sunset Blvd.

Sunset Blvd.
August 25, 1950
Paramount
Drama
VHS
B-

This movie is entertaining for the most part, even if it doesn't live up to its reputation.  (And I know Billy Wilder can do much better.)  The main characters, even the "nice girl," are unscrupulous.  (She's cheating on a surprisingly un-deadpan Jack Webb.)  But unlike in Kind Hearts and Coronets, their immorality isn't particularly enjoyable.  Still, it's interesting to see the story unfold, told in flashback by a dead man.  The look of the film, especially the creepy old mansion, works well in black & white, although some scenes are too poorly lit to see details.  And I like that many people play themselves (like Cecil B. DeMille), and in fact Paramount Studios plays itself.  Gloria Swanson is playing a nightmare version of herself in a way, as Norma Desmond, while William Holden would portray other cynical young men as the decade went on.  And, yes, I laugh at the idea of Norma being old at 50 in the way I laugh at Mary being a spinster librarian in It's a Wonderful Life.  Oh, and this is probably my first movie to have a car-phone in it.

This time Frank O'Connor plays a courtier.  Robert Emmett O'Connor (I assume no relation), who plays the older guard at the gate, was Henderson in A Night at the Opera.  Tiny Jones was in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle.  H.B. Warner, who plays himself here, was Mr. Gower in It's a Wonderful Life.  Hedda Hopper also plays herself here, but eleven years earlier in The Women she was a fictional gossip columnist.

Although Buster Keaton contributed to some of the MGM Marx Brothers scripts, this is his first onscreen appearance in my film collection, but far from his last.  (Thank you, AIP.  I think.)  Kenneth Gibson would be in Ma and Pa Kettle in Waikiki.  Fred Clark, who's Sheldrake, would be Mr. Babcock in Auntie Mame.