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    Sunset Boulevard
    Sunset Boulevard
    Sunset Boulevard
    Ebook141 pages24 minutes

    Sunset Boulevard

    By Billy Wilder

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Sunset Boulevard (1950) is one of the most famous films in the history of Hollywood, and perhaps no film better represents Hollywood's vision of itself. Billy Wilder collaborated on the screenplay with the very able Charles Brackett, and with D. M. Marshman Jr., who later joined the team. Together they created a film both allusive and literate, with Hollywood's worst excesses and neuroses laid out for all to see. After viewing Sunset Boulevard Louis B. Mayer exclaimed: "We should throw this Wilder out of town!" The New York Times, however, gave the movie a rave review, praising "that rare blend of pungent writing, expert acting, masterly direction, and unobtrusively artistic photography." The film was nominated for Best Picture, and Wilder won an Academy Award for Best Story and Best Screenplay.

    This facsimile edition of Sunset Boulevard makes it possible to get as much pleasure from reading the highly intelligent screenplay as from seeing the film. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction provides an intriguing array of background details about Wilder, the film's casting and production, and the lives of those connected to what has become a classic.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of California Press
    Release dateJun 24, 1999
    ISBN9780520922839
    Sunset Boulevard
    Author

    Billy Wilder

    Billy Wilder was born in 1906 near Cracow in Polish Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His first career was journalism, but he soon moved into the German film industry as a scriptwriter. When Hitler came to power, Wilder fled to Paris and came to Hollywood in 1934. His fifty-year career there—as both director and cowriter—was one of astonishing versatility and genius, encompassing films about war, murder, alcoholism, Hollywood, sensational journalism, prison camps, criminal trials, love stories, and romance as comedy. Billy Wilder has been nominated for twenty-one Academy Awards and has won six Oscars. He lives in Los Angeles. Jeffrey Meyers, a renowned biographer, has written many books and articles on modern American, English, and European literature. He lives in Berkeley.

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    • 3/5
      An aged star of silent films moves a younger man into her isolated mansion.I expected a lot more, given its reputation. Everything's good, but Stroheim's character is the only aspect that really lives up to the movie's legendary status.Concept: CStory: BCharacters: ADialog: APacing: BCinematography: ASpecial effects/design: BActing: BMusic: BEnjoyment: BGPA: 3.2/4

    Book preview

    Sunset Boulevard - Billy Wilder

    I

    BILLY WILDER WAS born in 1906 in Sucha (thirty miles south of Kraków) in Polish Galicia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The son of a hotelier and small-time businessman, he grew up in a decadent, corrupt society torn by class conflicts and unstable institutions. As a child he witnessed the collapse of the empire after World War I and acquired a sardonic view of the frailty of personal relations. He briefly studied law at the University of Vienna, then became a newspaper reporter, first in Vienna and later in Berlin, where he supplemented his income by working as a dance partner and gigolo. With Robert Siodmak and Fred Zinnemann he made the documentary People on Sunday (1929) in Germany. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Wilder fled to Paris. There he directed his first feature film, Mauvaise Graine (Bad Seed), with Danielle Darrieux. He reached Hollywood in 1934, and roomed with a fellow exile, Peter Lorre.

    Wilder arrived in America with no knowledge of English apart from some obscenities and snatches of popular songs. He learned the new language in the same practical way as the Austrian-born director Fritz Lang. I read a lot of newspapers, Lang recalled, and I read comic strips—from which I learned a lot. I said to myself, if an audience—year in, year out—reads so many comic strips, there must be something interesting in them. And I found them very interesting. I got…an insight into the American character, into American humour; and I learned slang. I drove around in the country and tried to speak with everybody. I spoke with every cab driver, every gas station attendant—and I looked at films.¹ Like Vladimir Nabokov, another brilliant exile and outsider, the cosmopolitan and urbane Wilder had a highly idiosyncratic view of the radically

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