Sunset Boulevard’s Creepy New Year
What time are the guests supposed to be here?
Don’t even think about gloomy lonely New Year’s Eves until you watch this classic scene from Sunset Boulevard (1950).
It is a dreary dungeon of a walking silent movie dream, dripping with Hollywood decay.
At filming Gloria Swanson was 50, playing the has-been-and-went screen siren Norma Desmond. Gloria really fit the bill back in the day, she was 15 in her first film Song of the Soul (1914).
William Holden, 31, is the washed up screenwriter Joe Gillis, who can’t seem to find that hook, that hot tagline, that little kernel that could jumpstart his career. So he has moved in with the fading star. A kept man with an LA Woman. There is a first time for everything.
And don’t forget the genius director picking up madam’s messes. Here, Erich von Stroheim, 64, is a shadow of the visionary who directed Greed (1924). Now he plays her butler, but once he was her boyfriend!
Sunset Boulevard is streaming on Amazon if you need a good New Year’s Eve silver screen jolt.
If you would rather drive around Hollywood and see where this was filmed, hop in your Porsche Spyder, squeal the tires across Deadman’s Curve and go to Movie Locations.
And be sure to be ready for your closeup!
Happy New Year!