Billy Wilder

*****
5/5

Even the title of this dark, deeply satisfying work of cinematic genius can be read as a metaphor for the Hollywood machine. Master director Billy Wilder's witty, brilliantly constructed Tinseltown satire is both canny and knowing about the film industry and souls unfortunate, and yet willing, enough to be caught in it's wheels. The stark story of former movie queen Norma Desmond, haunted by memories of her past greatness ('I am big. It's the pictures that got small'), is greatly aided by superb casting, notably of silent-movie siren Gloria Swanson, who brings a desperate, vampiric glamour to her role. William Holden, a last minute replacement for Montgomery Clift, is also excellent as the doomed writer who narrates the film in flashback from the scene of his death. Savage, dark and wholly original.
 

(1950)   
US   B/W   105 mins