Noir Nook: Ten Things You May Not Know About Sunset Blvd

Ten Things You May Not Know About Sunset Blvd

There are numerous noirs that I could among my favorites,
and countless features from the era that I watch over and over again. Sunset
Blvd. (1950) fits both of these descriptors. As one of the film’s reviewers
raved, it’s “undoubtedly the best Hollywood story ever filmed.” For my money,
it’s practically perfect in every way – stellar casting, perfect direction, and
sharp, smart writing brimming with unforgettable and endlessly quotable lines.

Helmed by Billy Wilder (who co-wrote the screenplay with
Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman, Jr.), Sunset Blvd. tells the story
of Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), an eccentric former silent screen star who
lives in a world of her own, and Joe Gillis (William Holden), a struggling
screenwriter who finds himself inextricably ensconced in Norma’s orbit. Joining
these two to form a creepy quartet are Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim),
Norma’s butler, right-hand man, and first husband, and Betty Schaefer (Nancy
Olson), a sweet, young aspiring writer who gets more than she bargains for when
she falls for Joe.

This month’s Noir Nook shines the spotlight on Sunset Blvd. classic by serving up 10 things you may not have known about this unforgettable film.

…..

1) In early versions of the screenplay, the William Holden character was named Dan, then Dick (later changed to Joe); the producer played by Fred Clark was named Kaufman (later Sheldrake); Gillis’s car was a 1941 Buick convertible, instead of the 1946 Plymouth that Holden drove in the film; and Norma Desmond’s sought-after car was originally a Rolls Royce and then a Hispano -Suiza, before finally landing on the Isotta-Fraschini used in the movie. (By the way, Norma Desmond shared that she paid $28,000 for the car in 1932, which would equal approximately $649,250 in 2025 dollars.) Also, in the original script, Gloria was writing her memoirs when she encountered Joe Gillis; in the final version, this was changed to the screenplay for Salome.

2) Originally, the story for Sunset Blvd. started with the body of Joe Gillis being transported to the city morgue. Once there, Joe and his fellow morgue-mates begin to talk about how they came to their respective ends. When the film – with this opening – was screened in Evanston, Illinois, and Poughkeepsie and Great Neck, New York, the preview audiences laughed at the morgue scene. “I walked out of the preview,” director Billy Wilder recalled years later, “Very depressed.” The scene was scrapped.

3) The revised – and final – opening scene shows Joe lying face down in a swimming pool, dead, with the audience looking up at Joe’s body from below. To set up this show, the film’s art director, John Meehan, placed an 8×6-foot dance rehearsal mirror at the bottom of a portable process tank, and sank the tank to the bottom of the pool. Cinematographer John Seitz set up the camera at poolside, pointed it downward toward the mirror, and filmed Holden’s reflection. (The water temperature, incidentally, had to be kept at around 40 degrees to avoid the build-up of natural gases that would impact the light transmission.)

4) The exteriors for the film were shot at the William O. Jenkins house at the corner of Wilshire and Irving Boulevards in Los Angeles. Jenkins, who was said to have been the richest man in Mexico, built the house in the early 1920s, but he only lived in it for about a year. It sat vacant for a decade before it was sold to millionaire J. Paul Getty. In the early 1950s, Getty initiated plans to develop the property and, despite community opposition and a lawsuit to preserve the mansion, Getty had the structure torn down in 1957. (A few years before its demolition, the house was used for filming in the 1955 James Dean feature, Rebel Without a Cause.)

5) Gloria Swanson stood just four feet, 11 inches – although she claimed to be five foot one.

6) Throughout the film, Max never calls Norma Desmond by name, always referring to her as “Madame” – until the last scene, when he asks her, “Are you ready, Norma?”

7) In one scene, we see Joe and Norma watching one of her old movies; the clip shown in the film is from an actual movie – Queen Kelly – that starred Swanson and was directed by Erich von Stroheim. With less than half of the film completed, von Stroheim was fired from the film for going over budget and it was never released in the United States.

8) When Nancy Olson was cast as Betty Schaeffer, she was only 21 years old and had never even heard of Gloria Swanson. “I had to ask my mother who she was!” she said in a recent interview.

9) At the time that Sunset Blvd. was filmed, Hollywood had two top gossip columnists: Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons. Hopper played a small part in the picture. According to one story, Parsons was asked to appear in the film as well, but she turned down the invitation when she found out that Hopper had been signed first. Another story states that Parsons was never offered a part, and that Hopper was selected because she’d had a previous career as an actress. In addition, another gossip columnist of the day, Sidney Skolsky, was filmed in a scene set in Schwab’s Drugstore, but his performance ended up on the proverbial cutting room floor. Wilder later claimed that Skolsky panned the film because “I cut him out.”

10) The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, but only won three – for best art direction, best original story and best screenplay, and best scoring of a dramatic or comedy picture. As for the other categories, Swanson lost the Best Actress Oscar to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday, William Holden lost Best Actor to Jose Ferrer in Cyrano de Bergerac, Nancy Olson lost Best Supporting Actress to Josephine Hull in Harvey, and von Stroheim lost Best Supporting Actor to George Sanders in All About Eve. Also, in the category of Best Film, Sunset lost to All About Eve.

And that’s it! I hope this list contained at least a few tidbits that you didn’t already know. Stay tuned for future Noir Nooks for trivia on your favorite noirs!

…

– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub

You can read all of Karen’s Noir Nook articles here.

Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages.
If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here: