Trivia for
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
William Haines, along with fellow silent screen veterans Buster Keaton and Anna Q. Nilsson, was approached to play one of Gloria Swanson's bridge partners. Swanson herself reportedly asked him to do it. Haines declined and fellow screen veteran H.B. Warner took the part.
Eugene Walter was a prolific Hollywood screenwriter of the 1920s and 1930s. 6350 Franklin Avenue was the address of the Alto Nido Apartments, where Walter lived, sometimes worked, and, ultimately died in 1941. As "Sunset Boulevard" opens, William Holden's character Joe Gillis describes himself as a Hollywood screenwriter "living in an apartment house above Frankin Avenue". As the camera cranes up into the apartment, we can see it's the Alto Nido.
The first name of the Joe Gillis character was Dan in an early draft of the screenplay.
The role of Norma Desmond was initially offered to Mae West (who rejected the part), Mary Pickford (who demanded too much project control), and Pola Negri (who, like Mae West, turned it down) before being accepted by Gloria Swanson.
Montgomery Clift, signed to play the part of Joe Gillis, broke his contract just two weeks prior to the start of shooting. Billy Wilder quickly offered the role to Fred MacMurray; he said "no."
The "Desmond mansion" had been built by a William Jenkins in 1924 at a cost of $250,000. Its second owner was Jean Paul Getty, who purchased it for his second wife. Mrs. Getty divorced her millionaire husband and received custody of the house; it was she who rented it to Paramount for the filming.
Originally opened and closed the story at the Los Angeles County Morgue. In a scene described by director Billy Wilder as one of the best he'd ever shot, the body of Joe Gillis is rolled into the Morgue to join three dozen other corpses, some of whom - in voice-over - tell Gillis how they died. Eventually Gillis tells his story, which takes us to a flashback of his affair with Norma Desmond. The movie was previewed with this opening, in Illinois and Long Island. Because both audiences inappropriately found the morgue scene hilarious, the film's release was delayed six months so that a new beginning could be shot in which police find Gillis' corpse floating in Norma's pool while Gillis' voice narrates the events leading to his death. Distortion caused by water meant that this scene had to be filmed via a mirror placed on the bottom of the pool.
The photos of the young Norma Desmond that decorate the house are all genuine publicity photos from Gloria Swanson's heyday.
The writers feared that Hollywood would react unfavorably to such a damning portrait of the film industry, and so the film was code named `A Can of Beans' while in production.
Despite the fact that Erich von Stroheim plays a butler/chauffeur, he could not drive in real life. During the scenes in which he drove, the car was towed by another car. In the scene in which he drives Norma Desmond to Paramount Pictures, he crashed into the famous Paramount gate.
The movie that Joe and Norma watch in the private screening room is Queen Kelly (1929). Filmed in 1928, the movie had not yet been released. It was directed by Erich von Stroheim, who plays the butler.
The script planned by Joe and Betty (the story of a couple, which is never together because of jobs with incompatible working time) exists: it was written by Billy Wilder and Max Kolpé for Blaue vom Himmel, Das (1932).
Cameo: [Cecil B. DeMille] at the studio during Norma's visit.
Cameo: [Hedda Hopper] at the top of the stairwell as Norma descends toward the cameras.
Cameo: [H.B. Warner] in the card game scene.
The movie that Cecil B. DeMille is shooting (in this movie and in real life) was Samson and Delilah (1949), being made at the same time as this film. As a final dig at Hollywood, the tragic ending music (by Franz Waxman) as Norma vanishes into the lens of a camera, segues into a full-blown orchestra version of the Paramount News Shorts' theme.
Cameo: [Buster Keaton] in the card game scene
Cameo: [Anna Q. Nilsson] in the card game scene
Cecil B. DeMille had a pet name for Gloria Swanson - "Young Fella" - because he said she was braver than any man. He calls her this when he greets her (as Norma Desmond) at the door of the soundstage.
The last major Hollywood feature to be filmed on a nitrate negative.
The name Norma Desmond was most likely chosen from a combination of silent-film star Norma Talmadge and director William Desmond Taylor.
The "fee" for renting the Getty mansion was for Paramount to build the swimming pool, which features so memorably
Erich von Stroheim dismissed his participation in this film, referring to it as "that butler role."
Set non-holiday all time house record of $166,000 at Radio City Music Hall when it opened.
In a break from Billy Wilder's usual practice, this project began without a finished script. At one point, production was shut down so the script could be finished.
In 1989, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selected this film as one of twenty-five landmark films of all time.
In 1998, the American Film Institute selected this as the 12th greatest film of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.
In Cecil B. DeMille's introduction shot, his on-set cry of "Wilcoxon!" refers to long-time friend, actor, and associate producer Henry Wilcoxon.
The original nitrate negatives for the film have long disappeared. The only extant film elements were 35mm interpositives struck in 1952, which had undergone a great deal of decay. This interpositive was scanned at 2,000 lines of resolution and electronically restored for the 2002 DVD reissue. The restoration was performed at Lowry Digital by Barry Allen and Steve Elkin.
The directions made by the Paramount guard for Norma and Joe to go meet Cecil B. DeMille on "Stage 18" is accurate: this stage, one of the largest on the Paramount lot, was known for years as "The DeMille Stage", and now is called "The Star Trek Stage", as all the "Trek" movies and large elements of the TV shows have shot there.
It was George Cukor who suggested Gloria Swanson for the role of Norma Desmond. Wilder had worked on a script for a Swanson picture years earlier called Music in the Air (1934) and had forgotten about it.
The antique car used as Norma Desmond's limousine is an Isotta-Fraschini, and once belonged to 1920s socialite Peggy Hopkins Joyce. It was a gift from her lover, automobile magnate Walter Chrysler.
Mae West rejected the role of Norma Desmond because she felt she was too young to play a silent film star. Mary Pickford rejected it because she was afraid it would destroy her wholesome image.
Montgomery Clift quit the production because he was, like the character of Joe, having an affair with a much older woman, and was afraid of unflattering comparisons.
William Haines, along with fellow silent screen veterans Buster Keaton and Anna Q. Nilsson, was approached to play one of Gloria Swanson's bridge partners. Swanson herself reportedly asked him to do it. Haines declined and fellow screen veteran H.B. Warner took the part.
Eugene Walter was a prolific Hollywood screenwriter of the 1920's and 1930's. 6350 Franklin Avenue was the address of the Alto Nido Apartments, where Walter lived, sometimes worked, and, ultimately died in 1941. As "Sunset Boulevard" opens, William Holden's character Joe Gillis describes himself as a Hollywood screenwriter "living in an apartment house above Frankin Avenue". As the camera cranes up into the apartment, we can see it's the Alto Nido.
Weirdo, but I guess that means she did a good job acting, although I did not feel any sympathy for her situation which I guess was the goal for the filmmakers. 
