Sunset Boulevard
Screening: 8 November 2004
USA 1950
Directed by Billy Wilder
Leading players ~ Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim.
111 minutes
Synopsis
This classic film noir is the choice of Film Society Patron, Harry Patterson, and, by way of introduction, he will be telling us what makes it compulsive viewing.Sunset Boulevard tells the story of Norma Desmond (Swanson), an elderly, faded star of silent movies. She is ever hopeful of a comeback and asks failed screenwriter Joe (Holden) why he has taken so long to visit her, oblivious to the fact that he merely turned into her driveway in a desperate attempt to avoid the men from the finance company who want to repossess his car. She engages him to write a treatment of Salome in which she will star; a concept that clearly indicates her loss of reason.
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It is a scorchingly acidic portrait of the American motion picture industry in its prime and represents one of director Billy Wilder’s best works.Patron’s choice to be introduced by Harry Patterson.
