It was a great big white elephant of a place. The kind crazy movie people built in the crazy 20’s. A neglected house gets an unhappy look. This one had it in spades. It was like that old woman in “Great Expectations”. That Miss Havisham in her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil, taking it out on the world, because she’d been given the go-by.
Joe Gillis, Sunset Blvd.
FIRST TIME VIEWERS: BETHANY, CHERYL, JOE, JUSTIN
Special guest Justin Quizon, co-host of Nothing New and Go, Go, Godzilla, hopped in our custom built Isotta-Fraschini to join us for a trip along Sunset Blvd., the 1950 film that provided silent-film star Gloria Swanson with her most remembered and meta role as faded silent film star Norma Desmond. Also featuring William Holden as screenwriter Joe Gillis, the down-on-his-luck young man who stumbles into Norma’s dream of a return to stardom, this self-referential Hollywood fable continues to influence pop culture more than 70 years after its release.
Is Norma Desmond’s middle-aged melodrama relatable? Have the pictures really gotten small? If your band is hired to play a private New Year’s Eve party, how long are you obligated to perform? What color is appropriate for a monkey’s coffin lining? Which is worse, being a newspaper reporter in Ohio or being a faded movie star’s boy toy in Hollywood? Just how did they get so many famous people to play themselves in this unusual story of the dark realities of stardom? There are no locks on the doors, so let yourself in and join us as we have Max start up the projector while we get ready for our close-up look at this legendary Billy Wilder film.
Be sure to follow Justin Quizon on Instagram and Twitter! Also, check out his amazing Kickstarter project, Lumpia!
Click here to listen to Episode 29: Sunset Blvd.
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