21
Release date 4th August 1950
Country : USA
Running time : 110 mins
Genre : Drama
Starring Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich Von Stroheim
Screenplay by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder
Directed by Billy Wilder
This is a rare example of Hollywood attacking itself. It paints a very disturbing picture of the movie industry which was too much for studio bosses like Louis B. Mayer who hated the picture.The film is smart and sophisticated in its dialogue in the best Billy Wilder tradition but everyone in it has it seems a tragic story to tell, it is a melancholy film but not in the sense that it is depressing, it holds your attention from the first frame to the last.
Of course the most tragic story of all is that of silent film legend Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson in a legendary performance), a lady who believes she will return to movies and still gets loads of fan letters (actually written by butler Max played by great silent film director Erich Von Stroheim). Norma is unaware the world has passed her by, that Hollywood has discarded her like a paper cup, other films have shown the movie industry's habit of doing this but the effect has been as devastating as shown here. Then finally we have Joe Gillis played perfectly by William Holden who becomes caught in Norma's world and cannot escape, rather like a film noir hero, and the film definitely has the noir style.
Wilder
apparently approached Mary Pickford (!) at one point for the role
of Norma before kicking himself for not thinking of Swanson
since she had been Paramount's top star in the Twenties. Ironically Von
Stroheim had directed her in Queen Kelly (1929) and been sacked by her
in the middle of production, though by 1950 there were no hard
feelings. The film uses excerpts from Queen Kelly (1929) and other
silent film stars appear as the "waxworks" in a poker game : H.B
Warner, Anna Q. Nilsson and Buster Keaton. Norma wants to make Salome
and get directed once again by DeMille. The great
director still working at Paramount made a cameo appearance on the
stages while filming Samson and Delilah (1949), appropriate in that it
was DeMille who had established Swanson as a dramatic actress after her
time at Mack Sennett's Keystone.
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Written content copyright Derek McLellan,2005.
Copyright © The Fedora Chronicles
