All Time Best Pictures--#7

As we countdown the WGA’s list of all-time best screenplays, we come to #7, Sunset Blvd. [1950] written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman Jr. The film tells the story of an out-of-work screenwriter who stumbles into the driveway of a fading silent movie star who wants him to collaborate with her on writing a film. Like many actors of the time, Norma Desmond was a silent star whose voice wasn’t good enough to carry her into talkies. But she can’t accept that fact and continues to live in the past, planning for her big comeback.

The original script was printed with the title A Can of Beans, because the writers were afraid the studio wouldn't support a script that might be seen as negative about the business. They were proven right. When the film came out, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer reportedly screamed at Wilder: 'You bastard! You have disgraced the industry that made you and fed you! You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood!”

Take a look at a clip from this “disgraceful” film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMTT0LW0M_Y

If you haven’t seen the film, you may be surprised by the narration—but it’s not narration that’s been layered on the clip. It’s narration from the screenwriter in the film, Joe Gillis. And Gillis is a particularly interesting character.

Do watch this film—it opens with the writer, Gillis, narrating about how his body came to be face down in the swimming pool… so we have a dead guy narrating the story. That, in and of itself, was quite ground-breaking.

Said co-writer Charles Bracket: 'Sunset Blvd came about because Wilder, Marshman and I were acutely conscious of the fact that we lived in a town [that] had been swept by a social change as profound as that brought about in the old South by the Civil War. Overnight, the coming of sound brushed gods and goddesses into obscurity. We had an idea of a young man, happening into a great house where one of the ex-goddesses survived. At first, we saw her as a kind of horror woman an embodiment of vanity and selfishness. But as we went along, our sympathies became deeply involved with the woman who had been given the brush by 30 million fans.'

Once again it comes down to character. We’re interested in the screenwriter at the beginning, who is clearly dead as the story starts, and we want to find out how he got that way. But as the film unfolds, it’s the Norma Desmond character that captures our attention. We can’t believe she’s so out of it that she doesn’t realize that her time has passed. Get over it, take a walk, read a book—your days of film stardom are history, we want to say to her. But when she goes to the studio actually believing in this comeback, you feel SO sorry for her…and seeing that there’s no hope for her in the end… kind of makes your skin crawl.

Do we like her as a character? Probably not, or at least, not much. But how she got to be who she is and how she behaves now are absolutely fascinating.

Once again, it’s a compelling character that moves this film forward, that helps it become the classic that it is.

Copyright © Diane Lake

22Mar20

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com