Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder's Masterful Hollywood Tale Makes Its 4K Debut (4K/Blu-ray)

The Film:

There have been many films made about Hollywood over the years, but few have had the staying power of Billy Wilder's sensational 1950 masterpiece "Sunset Boulevard," a strange, engrossing film noir that explores stardom and the struggle to stay relevant in a shifting cinematic landscape. The film is often touted not just as one of the best tales of the industry, but is also often cited as one of the best films ever made in general, and that's on top of the incredible 11 Oscar nominations it received way back then.

To celebrate this classic's remarkable 75th anniversary this year, Paramount is giving the film a marvelous 4K upgrade and loading it with over two and a half hours of special features, making it the perfect time to go back and revisit Wilder's incredible masterpiece to see why it has continued to dazzle audiences for so many decades after its original release.

The film begins by showing us the body of Joe Gillis (William Holden) floating face-down in a swimming pool as he begins to tell us of the events that led up to his death. Six months earlier, Joe, a struggling screenwriter, is having trouble selling a story to Paramount, where script reader Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson) has heavily criticized his latest idea. This struggle has brought about money problems as well, causing him to be late on car payments, which in turn has caused him to be pursued by two men looking to repossess it.

While trying to get away from them, he blows a tire and pulls into the garage of a seemingly-abandoned mansion. However, it turns out to be inhabited by an old silent film star named Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) and her butler Max (Erich von Stroheim). Upon learning that Joe is a screenwriter, she asks him to take on the job of doctoring a script she has written, one that she hopes to have directed by the great Cecil B. DeMille and be her great come-back role. Joe finds the script terrible, but agrees to do it out of desperation for a job. He soon moves into her mansion and discovers that she seems unable to accept that she is not the big name she once was, and also that she is quite infatuated with him, a turn that becomes complicated when he starts secretly seeing Betty regularly for a project the two are developing.

75 years later, "Sunset Boulevard" remains a captivating tale of faded stardom and the unwillingness to admit that one's time has passed, incorporating not only the desperate fight for relevancy, but also a romantic entanglement that becomes as awkward as the situation was initially. Norma Desmond not only wants to get back into the industry, one that has long-since moved on to talking pictures, but falls in love with the person she believes is her best means of doing so, a feeling that is clearly not reciprocated by struggling writer Joe Gillis, who only took the job because he didn't have much choice.

The situation basically becomes one tense bubble, where we wait to see how long the charade can go on before Norma finally figures out that her fame has simply faded away and is not coming back. We learn early on that her butler Max has secretly been writing her fan mail for quite some time, which only feeds into her delusion, one that only becomes worse when she starts receiving calls from Paramount, calls that she believes are in regards to her script, but in fact are about wanting to rent her old-fashioned car for a film. As if the situation wasn't delicate enough, Joe begins a secret working relationship with ambitious script reader Betty, a relationship that threatens to turn into something much more, despite the fact that she's set to marry one of Joe's friends.

It's the kind of fascinating, enthralling set-up that could come crashing down at any moment, bursting the bubble, and unleashing all of Norma's insecurities about her fame and feelings about Joe at once. Perhaps just as impressive as that spellbinding set-up is the fact that we already know how it ends, and yet viewers are still pulled in from the start, staying with it every step of the way until we reach that inevitable conclusion.

With this gripping premise, which also acts as a somewhat blunt examination of Hollywood in general, it's hardly a surprise that audiences have kept coming back to it over and over again over the course of 75 years. Nor is it a surprise that it earned a boatload of Oscar nominations upon its initial release, including Best Picture, Director, and nods for its entire main ensemble (William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, and Nancy Olson), winning three for the aforementioned brilliant Story & Screenplay, incredible Art Direction, and Franz Waxman's excellent Score.

"Sunset Boulevard" is a tale that remains just as relevant today as it was back in 1950, with new technologies continuing to change the cinematic landscape, and stars rising & falling all the time. Norma's fame may have faded, but this is the kind of story that never will, not only because it's a great tale that's remarkably well-told and a prime example of its genre, but because as long as the industry is around, it will always remain relevant, which just goes to show why it was and will always be considered a masterpiece.

Video/Audio:

This edition of "Sunset Boulevard" comes with the film on both 4K (2160p, UHD) and Blu-ray (1080p, HD) in 1.37:1 transfers of outstanding quality. The upgrade in both formats is simply stunning, presenting a beautifully sharp & clear picture throughout the entire 110-minute duration. Likewise, the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio tracks are marvelous, giving you all of the dialogue and Franz Waxman's Oscar-winning score in excellent quality. Overall, Paramount has done a phenomenal job in both areas for the film's 4K debut.

Special Features:

Commentary by Ed Sikov - Author of "On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and times of Billy Wilder"

Sunset Boulevard: The Beginning (23 Minutes)

Sunset Boulevard: A Look Back (26 Minutes)

The Noir Side of Sunset Boulevard (14 Minutes)

Sunset Boulevard Becomes a Classic (14 Minutes)

Two Sides of Ms. Swanson (11 Minutes)

Stores of Sunset Boulevard (11 Minutes)

Mad About the Boy: A Portrait of William Holden (11 Minutes)

Recording Sunset Boulevard (6 Minutes)

The City of Sunset Boulevard (6 Minutes)

Franz Waxman and the Music of Sunset Boulevard (14 Minutes)

Morgue Prologue Script Pages

Deleted Scene - The Paramount Don't Want Me Blues (1 Minute)

Hollywood Location Map

Behind the Gates: The Lot (5 Minutes)

Edith Head: The Paramount Years (14 Minutes)

Paramount in the '50s (10 Minutes)

This new 4K/Blu-ray edition of the film comes with a multitude of extras that includes an informative commentary as well as tons of featurettes that focus on areas such as how the film came about, its legacy, the stars, the studio, and much more. Paramount has definitely gone above and beyond to give fans plenty of great material to delve into.

Conclusion:

Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" remains a stunning masterpiece that continues to captivate audiences with its gripping Hollywood tale of faded fame and the struggle to stay relevant in an ever-shifting cinematic landscape. It's the kind of story that remains extremely relevant itself 75 years later, and will always be so as long as there's an industry in which technology continues to cause waves and stars rise & fall, ultimately marking it as one of the very best of its genre and one that most definitely belongs in the personal collection of any cinema fan.

Score: 5/5

Now available on 4K/Blu-ray.

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