The story of an aging film queen, who refuses to accept that stardom has ended for her, and the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness.
"The story of an aging film queen, who refuses to accept that stardom has ended for her, and the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness."@en
"A harsh look at Hollywood in which an aging silent-movie queen makes a tragic attempt to return to stardom.an."
"A forgotten star of the silent screen lives with her memories of the past in a decaying mansion on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard. A cynical young screenwriter exploits her and becomes fatally enmeshed in her world of vanity and delusion. (Circulates)."
"Fiction. Drame. Hollywood, 1949, Joe Gillis, scénariste dépourvu d'argent, accepte l'hospitalité d'une ancienne gloire du muet, Norma Desmond qui vit en recluse sur Sunset Boulevard. Norma confie à Gillis une adaptation de Salomé avec laquelle elle espère faire son retour sur les écrans. Joe entre à contrecĖur dans ce rêve insensé et passe insensiblement du statut d'employé à celui de gigolo. Avec William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Cecil B. de Mille, Buster Keaton."
"Struggling Hollywood writer Joe Gillis becomes entangled with reclusive silent film star Norma Desmond, whose madness destroys them both."@en
"The bizarre and bitter tribute to vanished glory is widely regarded as the ultimate Hollywood-on-Hollywood film, a story told by a dead man, a screen writer floating face down in a swimming pool. He has been kept by a psychotic ageing silent movie queen living on illusions which ultimately collide with reality."@en
"Pursued by creditors, Joe swerves into a driveway of a seemingly abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. He finds Norma, an ex-screen queen dreaming of a dramatic comeback and her husband/servant living there. She takes a fancy to Joe and, learning that he is a scriptwriter, persuades him to help her with her comeback screenplay. Being broke he accepts. He falls in love with a young script reader, but Norma breaks up their romance, setting tragedy into motion."@en
"Pursued by creditors, Joe swerves into a driveway of a seemingly abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. He finds Norma, an ex-screen queen dreaming of a dramatic comeback and her husband/servant living there. She takes a fancy to Joe and, learning that he is a scriptwriter, persuades him to help her with her comeback screenplay. Being broke he accepts. He falls in love with young script reader, but Norma breaks up their romance. Thinking she is mad, he tries to leave, but Norma kills him."@en
"The story of an aging film queen who prepares for her grand comeback to stardom."@en
"Joe Gillis is found floating face down in the swimming pool of Norma Desmond. The dead Gillis narrates his story. Pursued by creditors, he swerves into a driveway of a seemingly abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. He finds Norma Desmond, an ex-screen queen dreaming of a dramatic comeback, and Max von Mayerling, her former director and husband and now her servant, living there. She takes a fancy to Gillis and, learning that he is a scriptwriter, persuades him to help her with her comeback screenplay. Being broke he accepts. He falls in love with young script reader Betty Schaefer, but Norma breaks up their romance. Thinking she is mad, he tries to leave, but Norma kills him. Max, hoping to coax Norma into police custody, directs the big staircase scene which she believes is the highlight of her comeback movie."@en
"Joe Gillis is found floating face down in the swimming pool of Norma Desmond. The dead Gillis narrates his story. Pursued by creditors, he swerves into a driveway of a seemingly abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. He finds Norma Desmond, an ex-screen queen dreaming of a dramatic comeback, and Max von Mayerling, her former director and husband and now her servant, living there. She takes a fancy to Gillis and, learning that he is a scriptwriter, persuades him to help her with her comeback screenplay. Being broke he accepts. He falls in love with young script reader Betty Schaefer, but Norma breaks up their romance. Thinking she is mad, he tries to leave, but Norma kills him. Max, hoping to coax Norma into police custody, directs the big staircase scene which she believes is the highlight of her comeback movie."
"Pursued by creditors, Joe swerves into a driveway of a seemingly abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. He finds Norma, an ex-screen queen dreaming of a dramatic comeback and her husband/servant living there. She takes a fancy to Joe and, learning that he is a scriptwriter, persuades him to help her with her comeback screenplay. Being broke he accepts. He falls in love with a young script reader, but Norma breaks up their romance. Thinking she is mad, he tries to leave, but Norma kills him in a scene which she believes is the highlight of her comeback movie."@en
"Mentre il suo cadavere galleggia nella piscina di una villa, la voce fuori campo dello sceneggiatore Joe Gillis ripercorre la storia della sua relazione con Norma Desmond, anziana diva del muto che vive isolata insieme al maggiordomo, immersa nel culto del passato e nella vana attesa di un ritorno sul set: convinto a scriverle una sceneggiatura, Gillis ne diventa il mantenuto, l'amante ed infine la vittima. (Mereghetti)."@it
"A story set in Hollywood, in which an ageing silent-movie queen makes a tragic attempt to return to stardom."@en
"A harsh look at Hollywood in which an aging silent-movie queen makes a tragic attempt to return to stardom."@en
"A harsh look at Hollywood in which an aging silent-movie queen makes a tragic attempt to return to stardom."
"Een vergeten ster van de zwijgende film leeft met haar butler in het verleden. Een scenarioschrijver van B-films woont als gigolo bij hen in."
"Un scénariste criblé de dettes vit aux dépends d'une ancienne vedette qui espère revenir à l'écran."
"Joe Gillis, a hack screenwriter, hides from car repossessors in the garage of a deserted-looking mansion which proves to be the grotesque home of Norma Desmond, retired silent screen star. Joe takes refuge there, with a nominal job of rewriting Norma's hopeless 'comeback' screenplay. Weeks pass; feeling more and more like a kept man, Joe grasps at reality in the form of a clandestine friendship with script reader Betty Schaefer, but it's too late..."
"A forgotten, aging silent film star plans her comeback with the help of a young writer."
"A forgotten, aging silent film star plans her comeback with the help of a young writer."@en
"Joe Gillis is a down-on his luck screenwriter. Pursued by creditors, he swerves into a driveway of a seemingly abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. He finds Norma Desmond, an faded movie star, dreaming of a comeback lives there. She takes a fancy to Gillis and persuades him to help her with her comeback screenplay."
"Swanson stars as fading film star Norma Desmond and Holden plays the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness. Von Stroheim plays Desmond's discoverer, ex-husband, and butler."
"Pursued by creditors, Joe swerves into a driveway of a seemingly abandoned Sunset Boulevard mansion. He finds Norma, an ex-screen queen dreaming of a dramatic comeback and her husband/servant living there. She takes a fancy to Joe and, learning that he is a scriptwriter, persuades him to help her with her comeback screenplay. Being broke he accepts. He falls in love with young script reader, but Norma breaks up their romance. Thinking she is mad, he tries to leave, but Norma kills him. scene which she believes is the highlight of her comeback movie."@en
"Swanson stars as fading film star Norma Desmond and Holden plays the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness. Von Stroheim plays Desmond's discoverer, ex-husband, and butler."@en
"Joe Gillis, bankrupt screenwriter, hides from car repossessors in the garage of a deserted-looking mansion which proves to be the grotesque home of Norma Desmond, retired silent screen star. Joe takes refuge there, with a nominal job of rewriting Norma's hopeless 'comeback' screenplay. Weeks pass; feeling more and more like a kept man, Joe grasps at reality in the form of a clandestine friendship with script reader Betty Schaefer, but it's too late."
"A harsh look at Hollywood in which an aging silent movie-queen makes a tragic attempt to return to stardom."@en
""Early one morning, police arrive at a large house on Sunset Blvd. in Beverly Hills, where a man's body floats face down in the pool: Six months earlier, while down on his luck, screenwriter Joe C. Gillis is living at the Alto Nido apartments in Hollywood, California. Joe is served with a court order commanding him to relinquish his car or pay $290 in back payments by noon the next day. Hoping to make a quick deal, Joe meets with Paramount studio producer Sheldrake to peddle a baseball/gambling picture he has written, but is turned down. While in Sheldrake's office, Joe encounters studio reader Betty Schaefer, who pans the script as formulaic. Sheldrake then refuses him a personal loan, as does his agent. Despairing, Joe makes plans to return to Dayton, Ohio, where he worked as a newspaper copy writer. While driving down Sunset Blvd., he spots the two men who are trying to repossess his car and successfully eludes them, but then has a blowout. He coasts into the driveway of a dilapidated 1920s mansion and hides the car in an empty garage. Joe then enters the house, where stoic butler Max von Mayerling orders him upstairs to consult with 'madame' immediately. Joe soon discovers that he has been mistaken for a mortician, who is due to arrive with a baby coffin for 'madame's' dead pet chimpanzee. Joe recognizes the faded woman as Norma Desmond, once a famous silent movie star. When she rails against modern talking pictures, Joe tells her that he is a screenwriter. Excitedly, she announces that she is planning a return to the screen in a story she is writing about the Biblical figure Salomé. When Norma discovers Joe is a Sagittarius, she is convinced of their compatibility and hires him to edit her lengthy screenplay for $500 per week and puts him up in a room over her garage. The next day, Joe awakens to find that all his belongings have been moved from his apartment, and that Norma has settled his debts. Although he is angry at Norma for her presumption, he acquiesces because he so desperately needs a job. Joe soon learns that Norma's fragile but enormous ego is supported by the scores of fan letters she still receives, and two or three times a week, Max projects her silent pictures on her living-room movie screen. As Norma and what Joe calls 'the waxworks,' Hollywood old-timers Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and H. B. Warner, are playing bridge one night, two men arrive and tow away Joe's car. To appease the distraught Joe, Norma arranges for Max to refurbish her old Isotta-Fraschini, an extravagant Italian sports car. The once reclusive Norma becomes increasingly controlling. After a rain storm soaks Joe's room, she has him moved into the bedroom adjacent to hers, where her three former husbands slept. When Joe notices that none of the bedroom doors have locks, Max explains that Norma's bouts of melancholy are often followed by suicide attempts. Joe then realizes that Max has been writing Norma's fan letters so that she will not feel completely forgotten. On New Year's Eve, Norma stages a lavish party for herself and Joe, but he flies into a rage because he feels smothered. Feeling rejected, she slaps him, and he leaves the house. At a lively party at the home of his friend, assistant director Artie Green, Joe again meets Betty, who is engaged to Artie, and is excited about one of Joe's stories. Joe asks to stay for a few weeks, and Artie agrees to put him up. When he calls Max to have his things sent over, however, Max tells him that Norma slit her wrists with his razor blade. Joe returns to the house at midnight and finds Norma weeping at her own stupidity for falling in love with him. She pulls him to her and they kiss. After Norma recovers, she has the pool filled, and announces that she has sent her script to Paramount's director of epics Cecil B. DeMille, with whom she made twelve pictures. One night, Joe sees Artie with Betty at Schwab's Pharmacy. Although Betty tells him she has nearly sold one of his stories, Joe says he has given up writing, and leaves. Norma later gets a call from Paramount, but refuses to take the call because DeMille has not called her himself. Finally, Norma visits the studio unannounced. While Norma receives the long-awaited attention she craves on DeMille's set, Max learns that the earlier call was an inquiry about her car, which the studio wants to use for a film. While on the lot, Joe sees Betty, who is busy revising his story, and agrees to collaborate with her on the script in her off-hours. Norma misinterprets DeMille's pitying kindness for a deal, and a staff of beauty experts descends on her house to ready her for the cameras. Betty and Joe, meanwhile, meet repeatedly in the late evenings, and he begins to care for her, but keeps his other life with Norma a secret. One night, Max reveals to Joe that he was once an influential Hollywood director who discovered Norma when she was sixteen and made her a star. After he became Norma's first husband, she left him, but when Hollywood abandoned her, he gave up his prosperous career to return to serve her as a butler. Eventually, Norma, suspicious that Joe is involved with another woman, finds his and Betty's script and goes into a deep depression. Meanwhile, Betty receives a telegram from Artie, who is filming in Arizona, asking her to marry him immediately. She confesses her love to Joe, and he admits he wants her, too. When he arrives home that evening, however, he catches Norma calling Betty to expose him as a kept man and giving her the Sunset Blvd. address. When Betty arrives, Joe bitterly explains that he is Norma's companion. Betty urges him to leave with her immediately, but he tells her he is bound to 'a long term contract with no options' and allows her to leave. He then packs, with the intention of moving back to Ohio, and returns all of Norma's gifts. Joe then tells her that there will be no film of Salomé, that the studio only wants to rent her car, and that her fans have abandoned her. Shouting that 'no one ever leaves a star,' Norma shoots Joe twice in the back and once in the stomach, sending him to his death in the pool. A throng of reporters and policemen surround the house, but the police are unable to get Norma out of her bedroom, until Max directs the Paramount newsreel crew to set up their equipment at the bottom of the stairs, and tells Norma that the cameras have arrived. In a state of delusional shock, Norma descends the stairs as Salomé while Max tells the cameramen to start rolling. At the bottom of the stairs, Norma announces, 'I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille'"--AFI catalog, 1941-1950."
"Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, an ageing silent film queen, and William Holden as the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen's most memorable characters in Billy Wilder's immortal Sunset Boulevard. The film was winner of three Academy Awards in 1950 - Best Story and Screenplay, Black and White Art Direction and score for a Dramatic Picture. Wilder's masterful orchestration of this shadowy tale makes it a true cinematic classic. From the unforgettable opening sequence through the inevitable unfolding of tragic destiny, Sunset Boulevard is the definitive statement on the dark and desperate side of Hollywood. Erich Von Stroheim as Desmond's discoverer, ex-husband, and butler, and Nancy Olson as the bright spot in unrelenting ominousness, are equally memorable. "Alright, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.""@en
"Swanson stars as fading film star Norma Desmond and Holden plays the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness in this statement on the dark and desperate side of Hollywood."@en
"Swanson stars as fading film star Norma Desmond and Holden plays the struggling writer who is enthralled by her madness."@en
""A silent screen diva longing for a return. A young screenwriter longing for a break. A career girl waylaid by a broken heart. Throwing in a mysterious butler and a dead chimp, Wilder's film is one of the most painful studies of fractured innocence ever to reach the screen". Billy Wilder [1950]."@en
"Feature film from the USA. Drama. In 1950s Hollywood, an out-of-luck screenwriter happens upon the mansion of former silent-era film star Norma Desmond, who takes him in to script her comeback."
"À Hollywood, Joe Gillis, scénariste criblé de dettes, entre au service de Norma Desmond, une ancienne vedette du cinéma muet qui veut faire un retour à l'écran. Celle-ci vit seule dans une demeure baroque avec un domestique, Max, autrefois son metteur en scène et qui entretient maintenant ses illusions de gloire. Bien que conscient du déséquilibre de Norma. Joe se laisse vivre à ses dépens et devient même son amant. Lorsqu'il décide de partir pour rejoindre une jeune fille dont il s'est épris, Norma l'abat."
"Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, an ageing silent film queen, and William Holden as the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen's most memorable characters in Sunset Boulevard. Winner of three Academy Awards, director Billy Wilder's orchestration of the bizzare tale is a true cinematic classic. From the unforgettable opening wequence throught the inevitable unfolding of tragic destiny, the film is the definitive statement on the dark and desparate side of Hollywood. Erich von Stroheim as Desmond's descovered, ex-husband and butler, and Nancy Olson as the bright spot in unrelenting ominousness, are equally celebrated for their masterful performances."
"Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, an aging silent film queen, and William Holden as the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness, create a classic Hollywood tale."@en
"A harshlook at Hollywood in which an aging silent-movie queen makes a tragic attempt to return to stardom."
"A harshlook at Hollywood in which an aging silent-movie queen makes a tragic attempt to return to stardom."@en
"The story of Norma Desmond, an aging film queen, who refuses to accept that stardom has ended for her and the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness."
"The story of Norma Desmond, an aging film queen, who refuses to accept that stardom has ended for her and the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness."@en
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New York Public Library, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive.
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Theatrical productions New York (State) New York 1991-2000.
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