GLORIA SWANSON RADIO LP SUNSET BOULEVARD WILLIAM HOLDEN

Gloria Swanson won her third Academy Award Nomination for Best Actress, in this semi autobiographical story by legendary director Billy Wilder, playing a Silent Screen Movie Star who unrealistically dreams of a "return" to the Silver Screen.  The film ends with the one of the most famous finales in all of Hollywood history, her mad descent down the spectacular staircase, believing she is playing Salome. Billy Wilder's film noir classic Sunset Boulevard is a scathing portrait of Hollywood and how it discards people when it is decided that they are no longer needed. The casting of the film is truly inspired. It was almost as if the parts were written for them. Gloria Swanson was indeed a faded silent film star, who had all but disappeared from film. William Holden, while not a down-and-out screenwriter as depicted in the film, was a once promising young actor whose career was stagnating. Erich von Stroheim was in fact one of Hollywood's great directors in the silent era. Put this in the "art imitates life category": an excerpt from Queen Kelly, von Stroheim's ill-fated 1928 silent film starring Gloria Swanson appears in one scene. The cast also includes filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille as himself (who was Swanson's first major director to make a string of successful films with during the silent era) as well as several stars from the silent film era, such as Buster Keaton an dothers playing themselves, as well as Hedda Hopper, whop plays herself reporting on the tragedy occuring in this Sunset Boulevard mansion.  From it's bold beginning to its classic ending, SUNSET BOULEVARD is a well-crafted masterpiece. One will be hard pressed to find a dramatic misstep in this film. The structure is classic and the execution is flawless.  It is truly one of the greatest films ever made.