Sunset Boulevard DVD

 Hidden Treasures
I was very happy with the comentaries extras on the flim. This section pointed out not only the historics of the movie but casting and the status quo of the period. Thanks......Carlos
Submitted by rgvmedic (Hidalgo, Texas USA) 
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 evergreen
this is evergreen, a true classic, an amazing and honest look at hollywood life, so entertaining, i just couldn't take away my eyes from the screen till it was over. i love it. everyway you look at this movie is perfect from the score to the location. i think it's a shame they brought the original house down, it'd sure could have been another relic to see when in hollywood!!!! 10 stars
Submitted by zl177 (BAGNOLO IN PIANO,RE,ITALY) 
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 A unique classic
This is an excellent DVD with supurb picture quality and good sound reproduction. The part of Norma Desmond could have been written for Gloria Swanson and she gives a truly remarkable performance. The extras on this DVD are very interesting and complement what is an essential item for any serious collector of films from the golden age of Hollywood. There is even mention of the music which, in my view, is one of the best ever written by Franz Waxman.
Submitted by a reviewer (London) 
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 Wilder's Masterpiece.
After the Academy Award-winning "The Lost Weekend", released in 1945, Billy Wilder and his collaborator Charles Brackett held such exalted positions at Paramount that they were able to begin production on a film without giving the studio a copy of the script. All that Paramount executives knew about the project was the working title, "A Can of Beans", and the terrific-sounding plots Wilder spun at the story conferences. Little did the studio honchos know that Wilder's stories had absolutely nothing to do with the movie he was actually shooting. Wilder went to such lengths to protect his privacy; he locked the script up every night before leaving the studio. The characters in "Sunset Blvd." are the faded, psychotic silent movie-queen, Norma Desmond, played viciously without regard for sympathy by Gloria Swanson, and the younger writer Joe Gillis (William Holden) whom she traps. Both are washouts, she a morbific and ageing movie idol, now forgotten and completely passé, and he a self-admitted failure who cannot write a worthwhile script. He makes one fruitless attempt to sell a bad script before succumbing to the humiliation of being her kept man, and later makes one last stab at writing a story, with a young studio reader, a hopeful girl (Nancy Olson), but that too, is doomed. The film is a great story of Hollywood rooted in the locations and people of the industry. Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning script makes reference to real studios, places and stars. We see Cecil B. DeMille working on the set of his film "Samson and Delilah". Norma's ghost-like bridge guests (silent stars Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and H.B. Warner), are classified by Joe as "the waxworks". In the role of Max von Mayerling, Norma's butler-chauffeur and former director-husband, Wilder cast Eric von Stroheim. Like Max, von Stroheim was once a major film director, whose career also ended with the silents. In the film we see clips from Gloria Swanson's "Queen Kelly" (1928) which the star also produced and von Stroheim directed. In the film, Wilder finds striking ways to make the verbal and visual high points coincide. When Norma and Joe screen some of her silent classics (actually a clip from "Queen Kelly"), she rises, announces the sureness of her return to the spotlight and is caught by the projector beam as she turns imperiously to Joe. In another example, Joe's brief narration of how he ended up dead in Norma's pool is highlighted with the famous shot looking up at him from the bottom of the pool. We hear his explanation while we see him floating face down, the reporters lined around the edge, their flashbulbs popping. "Sunset Blvd." was a world-wide success, with critics far removed from Hollywood seeing an exact self-portrait, and those closer to home applauding a story on Hollywood's workday fringe. It brought the American 'film noir' to its peak. Also in 1950, John Huston cut up a poor anti-hero in "The Asphalt Jungle"; Elia Kazan examined a raw-nerved underworld in "Panic in the Streets"; Joseph Losey probed the prejudice against poor Mexican-Americans in "The Lawless" and Jules Dassin, exiled in London as one of the 'Unfriendly Ten', sketched the pestilence behind professional sport in "Night and the City". [filmfactsman]
Submitted by filmfactsman (Beverly Hills, CA, USA)
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 Great movie...better musical
I watched this movie the day before I was to go see the Musical, and I thought it was an excellent movie!! Definitely a must see for musical/broadway lovers.
Submitted by gabbymeggie (Sacramento, CA)
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