the clip joint: Sunset Boulevard (1950)”I am big… It’s the pictures’ that got small”

SUNSET BOULEVARD 1950

Joe Gillis: You’re Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
Norma Desmond: I ‘am’ big. It’s the ‘pictures’ that got small.

Sunset Blvd Poster

Director Billy Wilder’s gritty and gothic noir starring Gloria Swanson as the iconic faded starlet, Norma Desmond and William Holden as Joe Gillis. Co-starring Erich Von Stroheim as the faithful Max Von Mayerling.

Bill, Gloria and Erich-Sunset Blvd promo shot

Set in 1950s Hollywood the story surrounds the outrageously batty recluse Norma Desmond, goddess of the silent-screen living in a world of self-delusion within the walls of her decaying Sunset Boulevard mansion. Her only companion is her ex-husband turned butler Max who idolizes her, once having been her director when she was a star.

Norma’s mania creates the grand dreams of a comeback to pictures. One day Joe Gillis stumbles onto her property needing a mechanic Norma first mistakes Joe as an employee of the funeral home who’ve been sent to take care of her old chimpanzee who has just passed away. Joe a hack-writer becomes Norma’s lover, but soon gets entangled in a web of madness and murder.

Swanson and Holden lobby card Sunset Blvd

gloria swanson & william holden 1950 - sunset boulevard

Holden and Stroheim Sunset Blvd Lobby Card

Gloria as Norma

Ready for my close up

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See you round the Boulevard-MonsterGirl

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