A struggling writer (William Holden) on the run from creditors turns into the driveway of faded silent movie star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson). She hires him to live with her and write her next screenplay but her disconnect with reality quickly becomes apparent.

The popularity of silent films is often forgotten with time, but it’s key to remember that at the turn of the 20th century the stars of cinema were the most famous people walking the earth. They accrued power & wealth to an extent that is unmatched today in the entertainment business, despite the celebrity-focused culture we live in.

It’s equally important then to think of the impact audio had on the industry. We may see it as something that changed the medium but it was more than that; it split the art form cleanly in two. It’s like comparing a book to a painting - they both might involve forms on a page, but otherwise they are worlds apart.

The result of course was a subset of society that remained richer than almost anyone else yet in the public eye had fallen completely off the face of the earth. The extremes of fame and obscurity provide fascinating material for Wilder to dig into, and make a commentary about the industry that remains relevant to this day.

Gloria Swanson’s story in real life matches that of her character. She was a huge silent film star, whose career almost ended with the advent of dialogue. It is not easy to say how much her situation influenced her performance, but there’s no doubt that in Sunset Boulevard she creates one of the most memorable characters ever put to film.

Wilder constantly cuts to shots of the door handles in her house - all missing on advice from her doctor to ease her psychological woes. This makes the house a slightly surreal place to be - it’s grand and it’s lavish but it’s just a little off.

Swanson manages to mirror this in Norma Desmond. She still has her charm and beauty but she yearns to be young and relevant to the point of madness.

She’s a force to be reckoned with in this film, but she also gives off a subtle understanding of the reality of her situation. It’s an extra dimension to the character that makes her more interesting, and ultimately more harrowing because she appears to have made a concious decision to choose this lifestyle.

Holden fades a little but serves as a shoe-in the door for the audience. It can’t be easy to come up against someone like Swanson, who is clearly the centre of attention. He does succeed in making a good down-on-his-luck noir character and gives us a well grounded point of view.

One other stand-out performance is Erich von Stroheim who plays Max, Norma’s ageing butler. He’s stern, mysterious and fiercely defensive of the film star. There’s an odd relationship at play there and sure enough as the film goes on we find out that he was an old director on a few of her films. Not only that, but he was her first husband, and has been writing fake fan mail for her to read every day.

Again this is an auto-biographical character - von Stroheim was once a great director in the days of silent cinema.

The house serves almost as a character in itself. Holden’s character likens it to Mrs. Haversham, grand, old, classy, but stuck in the past and in need of care. Wilder cleverly points to this in subtle ways. We see damp in the background, cracked walls, torn curtains; anything that is not in use looks worn out. It’s yet another reflection of Norma Desmond’s state of mind.

Sunset Boulevard is a masterpiece of satire with an unforgettable central performance, held together by a director absolutely at the top of his game.

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While evading a team of repo men, a struggling writer stashes his car in the garage of what he thinks is an abandoned Beverly Hills mansion. Soon spotted by the resident, a delusional former silent film star, he agrees to step inside and spies opportunity in her desperation. She’s been working on a crappy screenplay, the crux of a comeback effort, and he figures he can bleed a few months’ salary out of a rewrite. She agrees, even invites him to live in the palace rent-free, but as their arrangement grows beyond mere professional courtesy, he begins to question which of them is the spider and which the fly.

A faded silent starlet herself, Gloria Swanson shines anew as Norma Desmond, the unhinged actress who thinks she’s doing the studio a favor by emerging from retirement. Like a triumphant former queen back from exile, this misguided character believes she’s bigger than the scene, but in truth it’s Swanson’s performance that’s oversized. Manic and complex, her unsettling depiction plucks every note from pride to despondency, manipulating her target(s) and the audience alike. She plays well with costar William Holden, whose straight delivery lends gravitas while his inner conflict grows increasingly panicked. Although the opening scene surprisingly spoils his fate, both characters remain sharply written and unpredictable right to the inevitable climax.

Hollywood does love a film about itself, and this one was certainly blessed with an embarrassment of accolades. Nominated for nearly a dozen awards at Oscar time, its constant winks and nods to the industry could have easily felt cheap and pandering. Instead, they enrich the fabric without overshadowing the tapestry. Quick, wonderful cameos from the likes of Buster Keaton and Cecil B. DeMille reinforce crucial plot points, while the backstage pressures of life among the silver screen’s less-celebrated feeds directly into the drama. A sad, sardonic glimpse at the harsh realities of the business and the avenues some stars navigate after the never-ending gala has moved on without them.

"Sunset Boulevard" has a special place in my heart as one of the first classics that interested me in cinema. It still works great after 70 years as it's a simple, straightforward, but focused film that manages to deal with timeless themes with sarcasm and intelligence without having no arthouse pretentiousness or making no life-changing statements. Video quality aside, there is nothing I would change about it.

The characters are iconic thanks to the fact that they are played by actors that actually experienced the dawn of the silent era and the struggles to survive in the ever-changing Hollywood industry. Forgotten silent era diva Norma Desmond is played by Gloria Swanson, who was herself a faded star who lost her job due to the advent of sound films. Her butler and former director Max is played by Erich von Stroheim, who happens to have directed some of Gloria Swanson's classics (one of them gets even projected in Norma's living room). Director Cecil DeMille plays himself, and other silent era actors and old Hollywood personalities like Buster Keaton also have cameos.

I also loved how, in the end, none of the characters is really positive. Norma and Max are self-delusional and unable to accept that the world around them has changed, they would do anything to prevent their dream from falling apart. Joe and Betty represent the "young" Hollywood, but they are blinded by their ambition and egoism to the point they both chose to embark on a clandestine affair, even though they owe everything to their partners.

First-person narration by the already dead protagonist Joe Gillis makes the film even more fascinating. Gillis is a talentless but arrogant screenwriter who succumbed to Hollywood's trap of fame, and it feels almost ironic that "Sunset Boulevard" could have been the first successful screenplay in his career.

The dialogues tend to be over the top at times, but they perfectly suit Norma's character and lifestyle. Gillis' cynical tone in the narration, combined with the awareness of his tragic fate, also manages to make us understand that we are not dealing with the usual melodramatic sentimentality of Hollywood.

Gloria Swanson is a treat to watch in Sunset Blvd. In any other film she would have come off as overly dramatic, but as a washed-up silent era diva she is absolutely perfect with all of the accompanying hand-wringing, dramatic head angles, and intense eye glares. It's old school acting, where theatre was more of an influence than realism.

William Holden's Joe is a typical macho hero of the Golden age: sounding grumpy and slightly shouty, but simultaneously emotionally blank. He typically calls his much younger love interest "kid", grabs her by the shoulders and smashes his mouth into hers as his interpretation of a passionate scene. I sort of dislike him. He takes advantage of Norma's wealth, but then acts like it's a burden, age shaming her to no tomorrow.

At the same time, the movie is a wonderful satire of the realities of Hollywood. How said that a woman past her early thirties is considered a has-been with no prospects? While not as bad nowadays, the practice seems to persist, with most movie moms with teen children being played by 30-year-olds.

The structure is also neat, being told from the point of view of a murdered man. In the end, this film has an unmistakable tinge of gothic fiction - a tale of a haunted house, where the haunting is the apparition of regret, old glamour gone shabby, and madness. The monologue and snappy lines also put it squarely into a film noir territory - the quality kind, not overdone to death. Billie Wilder was a visionary filmmaker.

"Gillis" (William Holden) is a down-at-heel script writer who is struggling to keep his head above water. Not having had any successes for a while, his car is about to be repossessed and his erstwhile boss "Sheldrake" (Fred Clark) has nothing for him. On the run from the pursuing repo men, he turns his car into the drive of a decaying old mansion. Hiding his car in the garage, he is mistaken by the house's owner for an undertaker - she has a small matter that needs attending too! Realising her error she demands he leave, but not before he mentions what he does for a living. She has a script. Hundreds of pages of script - and she offers him a job, champagne and caviar if he will edit and refine it so "Norma Desmond" (Gloria Swanson), a retired former silent movie star, can present it to her favourite director Cecil B DeMille and restart her glorious career. Initially just seeing dollar signs, he agrees and what now ensues is a masterfully crafted story of love, dependency, ambition and delusion in which Swanson absolutely shines. It's clear to us from the outset that her grasp on reality is somewhat limited, and but for her dedicated factotum "Max" (Erich von Stroheim) she might well have fallen victim to her own depression many years ago. Holden is also on solid form here, his initial selfishness starts to morph into something more, he begins to care for this woman whose head is increasingly in the clouds, and upon whom she is becoming more reliant. The dialogue is delivered via a mix of Holden's quite honest narrative and the conversations between the characters delivering some of the best lines in cinema - "I'm still big - it's the world that's got smaller!". The mental decline and instability of "Desmond" is expertly displayed here by a star who new a thing or two herself about the silent film scene, and who brings her facial expressions, her mannerisms and her generally star-studded demeanour to bear really effectively as the audience gradually realise that nothing here is going to pan out as it seems - or as anyone wants. Von Stroheim underplays his supporting role with aplomb and though I didn't really love the sub-plot with Nancy Olson's "Betty Schaefer" - it took away from the intensity of the main storyline - it did to serve to illustrate just how powerful jealousy can be. This is a super film, that still captivates on a big screen and is really well worth sitting down to watch.,