Sunset Boulevard (Special Collector's Edition)

Media:	DVD
Directed by:	Billy Wilder
Starring:	William Holden, Gloria Swanson
Release date:	01 March, 2004
List price:	~~$14.99~~
Our price:	$11.80 that is 21% off!

Sunset Boulevard (Special Collector's Edition)

Average rating: Stars

Excelent!!! Absolutely brilliant!

This is an incredible classic that must be seen by everyone who really appreciates the taste of of the golden era of Cinema.
I really didn't expected much of it, but as a result, it turn out to be one of my favorite movies!!!

I must remember you that this movie was selected by the American Film Institute as the NÂº 12 of the 100 best of all time.

Great performances and witty dialogs!
A MUST SEEN CLASSIC

Sunset Boulevard (Special Collector's Edition) - William Holden, Gloria Swanson

It's Just So Good!

Dead on portrayal of Hollywood with magnificent performances, direction, screenwriting and cinematography! Not all classics are deserving of the kudoes, but there's not a minute in this one that misses the mark.

Whether you're in it for the camp factor or the beauty of the filmmaking, this one belongs in your collection!

William Holden, Gloria Swanson - Sunset Boulevard (Special Collector's Edition)

"Hollywood Gothic"

Re-watching this 1950 classic recently, the phrase "Hollywood Gothic" popped into mind. It was one of those phrases that seemed so apt at the time, that I had to wonder if I hadn't read it somewhere else before. You know, sometimes you come up with a phrase so good, you figure it can't be original. Anyway, whether it's my own phrase or an unconscious steal, I was thinking of a transplanted kind of "Southern Gothic" feel. Locale a little creepy, peopled by characters way beyond merely eccentric.

If "Hollywood Gothic" is a legitimate sub-genre, it would have at least one other classic among its ranks, namely, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?--but SUNSET BOULEVARD was the original, and the best. When it comes to portraying batty older actresses, Gloria Swanson is without peer--or peeress. She conveys a level of insanity and depravity that Bette and Joan together only begin to suggest.

Despite its setting in America's Dream Factory, this Billy Wilder classic has an oddly European feel to it. Maybe it's Erich von Stroheim's presence as the ever-lurking butler Max. Or maybe it's Wilder's own German expat sensibility. Or maybe it's the film's worldweary thematic focus on the ravages of time. Indeed this 1950 film's implicit nostalgia for the Hollywood of the 20s and 30s seems especially ironic--one could say "doubly nostalgic" and therefore "doubly ironic"--some fifty-five years on. What would a Norma Desmond have to say about today's effects-ridden flicks? Did they get "small" or "bigger" in loud and virtually unrecognizable way?

Or would Cecil B. DeMille be right at home in the current climate? He (and presumably Norma too) were purveyors of spectacle after all. It's just that in today's spectacles, the entity "ready" for its close-up is more likely to be a starship, a "perfect storm" or an explosion and conflagration than a beautiful actress.