Rating: Summary: I Am the ll year old reviewer below (Ditto signs go here) Review: SUNSET BOULEVARD is wonderfully witty, comic and black, and a shocking and intense heart-accelerating film. It is elegant and glamorous, the feel of Hollywood glamour to the screen. The profound context of a faded actress, bitter and resentful when sound came to the movies. The movie allows you to sympathize Desmond and the fall of the silents, but then haves your pity turn into horror when the true madness is scene. Pretty scary.... really... A masterpiece. One of my favorites of all-time! This is one of the best of the 50's, often compared with ALL ABOUT EVE(a great movie, too). Gloria Swanson gives a great performance and Billy Wilder did a great job, too.
Rating: Summary: Dead Man Tells the Tale Review: When you start the movie and the good guy is face down in the pool, well you now this ain't no Disney movie. This movie starts dark and ends with a chill. Pay attention to the naration. Usually naration is bad thing, hear it will make the story. A crazy, desparate woman trying to maintain her youth and her hopes of being a star again clings on to a man years her younger. Holden playing a roten dirty man looking for a bcuk play the part of "boy toy" well, till his own desire for self respect gets in the way. Then Bam, Bam face down in the pool. When Norma Desmond comes down the stairs "I'm ready for my close up Mr. Demil." the hair will stand up on your neck. This one is a keeper.
Rating: Summary: : ) Review: Face down in the poolHolden tells story of star Still big (small pictures)
Rating: Summary: greatest film ever made! Review: This is what great movies are all about! Sunset Boulevard is without peers! I truly believe it stands head and shoulders above every film ever made! There is only one Norma Desmond and it is Gloria Swanson! I defy anyone to take their eyes off her when she is on the screen! This film is electrifying and Miss Swanson is riveting! Five stars are not enough to review this one! The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and should have won them all!
Rating: Summary: Still one of the best 'Hollywood Goes Wrong' films Review: The casting of Gloria Swanson as the tragic, wallowing, washed-up Norma Desmond is a revelation in Billy Wilder's masterpiece SUNSET BOULEVARD. William Holden stars as Joe Gillis, who accidentally stumbles into Norma's comatose world and she asks (or rather orders) him to edit her script she has written, her own return, in 'Salome'. She gradually traps him into staying. First into the room above the garage, and later into the bedroom next to hers. She feels nothing can hurt her, after all her has Joe, Max her butler and she is a STAR! But someone is going to unknowlingly crush her world. Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson) who is in love with Joe, will drive Norma to the edge. The stunning final sequence is amazing in its distortion and its macabre. Franz Waxman's score is tremendous and hauntingly intense. Two thumbs up!
Rating: Summary: My Jaw Dropped Review: How could I have missed such an amazing movie for so long? Maybe because it's become such a presence in our cultural landscape that the concept seemed "old." Maybe it's the poor imitators. I haven't been sucked in by a movie like this in ages. Wow. I'm still staggering. All of the acting is amazing. The jaded characters. The tragic moments when Gloria Swanson re-experiences, for short periods, the thrills that she's been living for. It is so amazingly haunting. This movie is so much more than the famous ending line. I am so grateful that this film didn't meet the same fate as Queen Kelly (the film that Norma and Joe watch in her house). Somebody should be doing something special for this film's 50th anniversary.
Rating: Summary: The greatest Hollywood movie ever! Review: This movie is the greatest Hollywood film of all time. It perfectly captures the story of a writer, an aging star, and the price of fame. Billy Wilder has never done anything like this. The dialouge is sheer genius as it cackles the pure sarcasim and realism of 1950's Hollywood. And of course who could forget the famous curtain line spoken by Gloria Swanson "Alright Mr. DeMille I'm ready for my close up". That line has stayed through our minds ever since this is purely cinema magic.
Rating: Summary: My Favorite Billy Wilder Film! Review: A truly outstanding and classic noir black comedy! A career highpoint for director Wilder and actors Swanson,Holden and legendary silent filmmaker Erich Von Stroheim("Greed","The Wedding March"). A clever and witty screenplay written by Wilder,Brackett,and Marshman jr. Filled with many memorable lines:"I am big.It's the pictures that got small." "All right,Mr.DeMille,I'm ready for my close-up." But mostly this film is really just a tour de force for Swanson. She's the one who is really amazing. I'm sure many will agree with me on this. She was robbed of an Oscar that rightfully belonged to her! It's not hard to miss,but look out for the brief cameos of other 20's and 30's screen legends: Cecil B. DeMille,Hedda Hopper,H.B. Warner and my personal favorite... Buster Keaton. One of the few films you'll ever watch that you can say is perfect. Truly Hollywood at it's best!
Rating: Summary: Among the best ever made Review: Joe Gillis, a failed writer played with an efficient cynicism by William Holden, blows out a tire escaping the repo man, limps into the driveway of an old Sunset Blvd mansion to hide, and thus enters a decadent world that traps him like a babe in a sticky womb. In this morality-tale, a la Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, we learn that even an accidental gigolo earns his keep, and then some. The voice-over and frame are appropriately reminiscent of a Forties' radio show, perhaps "Inner Sanctum" or "The Shadow." The images, from Gloria Swanson's greasy face and spidery fingers, to Eric Von Stroheim's wheezy organ, to the lighted pool with Joe's face down in it, ("This is where you came in") are indelible. This is a great movie, built on character and story, well-crafted amidst the haunting atmosphere of an "undead" Hollywood. They don't make them like this anymore, truly.
Rating: Summary: almost perfect Review: This is a wonderful movie -- I would say that it is the best among Wilder's many great films (although "Some Like It Hot" and "Double Indemnity" are stiff competition). Swanson, Holden, and von Stroheim give perfect performances, and the cameos by real Hollywood giants are flawless (not until "The Player" did a director get so many friends to help with his movie). The weakness, and it isn't that bad, is Nancy Olson as the ingenue love interest -- she just isn't up the role. I admit that she was better than I expected from her roles in Disney movies (she was the pretty housemaid in "Pollyanna", for example), but the movie loses its edge when she's on screen. It isn't a big role, but it is an important one, so the movie isn't quite perfect...
|