Sunset Boulevard: The Price of Fame

                Sunset Boulevard is a contagious tale about a chance encounter between an aging silent film star and a struggling screenwriter in 1950s Hollywood. The film is memorable to me because of the role of Norma Desmond played by Gloria Swanson. Norma absolutely owned every scene that she was in. Her extravagance is obviously noted when she is first introduced in the film. As Joe Gillis, the screenwriter, pulls into the driveway of her mansion with a flat tire, he is rushed inside and upstairs by the butler to Norma Desmond waiting for the undertaker to bring a coffin for her recently deceased monkey. Joe recognized her as an old silent film actress and mentioned that she used to be big. She responded with, “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” From this point on it’s obvious that Norma Desmond has a huge ego that needs to be constantly fed.

Joe agrees to help her with the script that she wrote for her return to the pictures because he really needed the money. He received the flat tire running away from collectors who were trying to repossess his car. As he tried to fix the terrible script, Norma made it difficult by constantly watching over his shoulder. She would even intervene if he tried to throw a scene out. Meanwhile, Joe was literally forced to move into the mansion while he worked on her script. This is just another example of Norma getting whatever she wants. Soon, Joe became her plaything, which happened “conveniently” after the death of her pet. She took him out to buy all new suits and even gave him a gold plated cigarette case on New Year’s Eve.

Norma longed for her “return” and sent her newly revised script off to Cecil DeMille, a legendary director with whom she has worked with in the past. DeMille, of course, had no intention of making this film that would be as extravagant as Norma herself. The mansion did receive phone calls from Paramount though, but they only wanted to speak to Norma to rent her timeless car for a film. Norma never came to the phone though, because the caller wasn’t DeMille. She was too good for an assistant to call her.

Things started spiraling when Norma realized that Joe had been sneaking out at night. He had been working on a script with a young girl named Betty Schaefer, and the two began to fall in love. Norma’s melodramatic nature ensured that there were no limits to what she would do to get Joe to stay with her. After already once attempting “suicide”, she threatens Joe with it again. He responds with, “Oh, wake up, Norma, you’d be killing yourself to an empty house. The audience left twenty years ago.” After stating that he’d be leaving, Norma follows him outside and shoots him dead when he won’t stop. Norma gives the chilling line, “The stars are ageless, aren’t they?” In the end, she did get the cameras to roll for her again, as Paramount recorded her gracefully walking down her stairs.

It’s easy to just point out Norma’s crazy antics, but the movie was making a larger point with them. Sunset Boulevard exposes the cutthroat world of film making in Hollywood. It’s particularly harsh on women. When they are young and beautiful, they have all of the fame in the world, but fame doesn’t last forever. Further helping to prove the point, Gloria Swanson, who played the role of Norma, was a former silent film star herself. She, like Norma, was trying to make her comeback by playing a former silent film actress trying to make her comeback.