Where to watch Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Trivia & production notes

• Billy Wilder originally wanted to adapt Evelyn Waugh's 1948 novel The Loved One about a young poet working at a Hollywood pet mortuary, but could not obtain the rights.
• To avoid Paramount Pictures' scrutiny and the Hays Code censors, Wilder submitted the script a few pages at a time and misled executives into thinking he was adapting a nonexistent story called A Can of Beans.
• Wilder began filming in early May 1949 with only the first third of the script written and was unsure how the film would end.
• Mae West rejected the role of Norma Desmond outright, offended at being asked to play a Hollywood has-been since she continued to portray herself as a sex symbol in her later years.
• Gloria Swanson initially balked at doing a screen test, reminding the filmmakers she had made 20 films for Paramount, but George Cukor convinced her by saying it was the role she would be remembered for.
• Montgomery Clift withdrew from the lead role just before filming began, claiming the part of a young man involved with an older woman was too similar to his unconvincing performance in The Heiress.
• William Holden was paid $39,000 for the role of Joe Gillis, significantly less than the $5,000 per week Clift had been offered.
• Cecil B. DeMille, who was instrumental in making Gloria Swanson a star, plays himself in the film, calling Norma Desmond "young fella," a nickname he had used for Swanson.
• Silent film contemporaries Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H. B. Warner portray themselves as Norma Desmond's bridge-playing friends, dubbed "the waxworks" by Joe Gillis.
• The character of Norma Desmond draws from the reclusive lives and struggles of several former silent-film stars, with critic Dave Kehr identifying silent actress Norma Talmadge as the likely unacknowledged source.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Sunset Boulevard (film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.