This poster was made for the classic drama Sunset Boulevard, a true trailblazer of a film, the story of how a desperately broke writer becomes the kept man of a faded screen star—the immortal silent film queen Norma Desmond. The role of Desmond is played by Gloria Swanson, who at first seems eccentrically lost in her own glorious past, but eventually reveals herself as deranged and dangerous. It’s a difficult, bizarro role, highly stylized, requiring utter conviction and complete faith in script and direction. While the movie is considered a film noir, it’s also a mix of melodrama, black comedy, Hollywood satire, and suspense. With all these ingredients the entire production could have fallen in like a house of cards, and probably would have four times out of five, but director Billy Wilder, along with Swanson, William Holden, and Erich von Stroheim, give everything they have. Swanson’s acting is operatically over-the-top, deliberately so, even cringefully so, but she crafts an all-time screen role. No matter how bonkers she gets, you never stop pitying her, and that’s the key. Sunset Boulevard, a film that walks the highest wire of believability without losing its balance, is a mandatory watch. It premiered today in 1950.
