SUNSET BOULEVARD REMAKE

[T0m M]

You could remake Sunset Boulevard as Tin Pan Alley, spinning the story and changing the industry from film to music, and how to-day's singers are chosen based on primarily visual appeal, with mediocre voices being heavily processed. Then the aging diva could be a 1950's chanteuse like Doris Day and the immortal line would become, "We had voices!"

Personally, I like to envision Sunset Boulevard as an MGM release with Norma Shearer playing the Desmond character. The butler would be the recently deposed Louis B. Mayer and the old time, but still active, director would be King Vidor. The only flaw is that Shearer was more famous for her talkie career than her silent career, so it wouldn't have the same impact, though I think Shearer could still pull it off.

[Penfold]

You could re-envisage it, set now, but featuring a reclusive 60's record producer and a wannabe young girl singer; but that could be a tad too close to Phil Spector for comfort....

[dr.giraud]

Two other silent actresses come to mind who might have given Swanson a run for her money as Norma: Dorothy Mackaill and Betty Compson.

Mackaill made her last film in 1937 but returned in 1953 for a TV appearance. Compson retired from films in 1948.

While neither was the level of star as Pickford, Gish, Negri, Bow, West, Crawford, Davis, Dietrich, Garbo they both had the acting chops, especially Compson.

That said, I still think Swanson was absolutely perfect.

Mackaill is supposed to have done a cameo on HAWAII FIVE-0 but I've never seen it.

This topic has come up before. In my alternate universe SUNSET BLVD, it's Pola Negri as Norma and Chaplin as the director-turned-butler. The best parts of Negri's mostly unbelievable autobiography are about Chaplin.

[Jim Roots]

I like the suggestion of Brando. Gives him a chance to do the whole Kurtz thing all over again.

"We had faces then ... and then we discovered ... the black heart of the jungle ... within us ... " (throws William Holden's cut-off head in the pool).


Jim

[Harlett O'Dowd]

I really think the silent film angle has to stay and the story just doesn't work unless it's set around 1950.

Agreed. Part of the tragedy of Norma is that she *is* in the prime of her life and, as a 45-50 year old woman, she's quite attractive. If she wanted to work in talkies, or TV, she could have - in an age-appropriate role.

And she's still young enough that the whole cougar thing with Holden is believably creepy without being camp.

Perhaps the best twist of the piece is that Holden (and the audience) is lulled into a false sense of security thinking he has the upper hand in the relationship - and that's not quite the case. (this, apart from the music, is the biggest failing of the stage musical. They've yet to cast a Holden-esque Joe.)

Had Norma been well into her 60s, the whole thing would have been camp farce rather than Hollywood Gothic melodrama.

FWIW, I think it's one of the most perfect films ever. I wouldn't change a frame.

[salus]

While many people would proably say the life of Mary Miles Minter most epitomized the character of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, i dont believe that to be the case. Who do you think of all the silent film actresses most mirrored Norma Desmond? Myself i would list the cloistered life of Mary Philibin after her career ended, but im sure their were a few Norma Desmond types (maybe not as extreme) living off the money they made years back in the mansion they built during their heyday. I even read that a star of the late 1940s , early 1950s Rosemary Clooney had a mansion she bought during her heyday but when she passed her family sold it and they were shocked how much it was falling apart while Rosie lived out her life. She in later years wouldnt have been able to afford the huge repair costs in maintaining that mansion even though she remained active. I wonder how many of the old stars still lived in the places they bought in the teens and twenties when Hollywood was in its infancy and 60 , 70 years later there places were in bad shape cause they couldnt afford the upkeep. They would be the Norma Desmond types i speak of , who could have sold their estates and moved into a comfortable condiminium.

[salus]

..................maybe Nazimova and if not for being taken care of by Charles"Buddy" Rogers who doesnt believe Mary Pickford with her alcoholic problems wouldnt have become a Norma Desmond. Rogers was very good to her.

[Sisterluke]

..................maybe Nazimova and if not for being taken care of by Charles"Buddy" Rogers who doesnt believe Mary Pickford with her alcoholic problems wouldnt have become a Norma Desmond. Rogers was very good to her.

Mary Pickford would have been great as Norma Desmond, and here is why I think that way

1.) Billy Wilder's first choice for the role in the first place

2.) She was alcoholic recluse in real life

3.)It's true she looked too cute for the role but I think that's what would have made the movie extra creepy, especially if she went ala "Baby Jane" and started doing some of her old little girl routines at age 60.

4.) Pair her up with Monty Clift which was I believe were the first choices, both method performers. I think she would have hated Bill Holden. JMO


For the record, I'm perfectly fine with Gloria Swanson, just my fantasy to also imagine another person in the role as well.

[Bob Birchard]

My only quibble is that SB was made too soon--if it was filmed around 1965 or 1970 it would've really been a more evocative distance from the silent era. Swanson was barely 50 years old in the movie (and it was no different than if a 2010 setting was harking back to circa 1990. Hardly a glaring jump into the past). However, in a 1965 version we wouldn't have had DeMille, Stroheim and a host of others.

I can see a modern remake though with Doris Day, recalling the heyday of the 1950s!

You miss the whole point. At 50 Swanson was relatively young, and therefore her character was capable of thinking that she might make a comeback, and also have a sense that she could seduce a man of of 30--even though it might require dangling the promise of wealth to this failed screenwriter. In addition, Swanson, DeMille and Stroheim were the real deal--even if two of them were playing fictional roles. It leant an air of realism to an otherwise melodramatic story. It is why the stage musical, no matter how successful it was, could never have the impact of the original film and can only work for its camp value. Glenn Close made up to be ancient with dark circles under her eyes only played to the blase cliches made by latter-day nostalgia freaks about the role of Norma Desmond, not to the underlying human tragedy of self delusion. Norma Desmond isn't some crazy old dame--she's a middle aged woman wanting and needing love. She probably only half-heartedly believes that her script could ever amount to anything--but it does provide an opportunity (or excuse) to bring Bill Holden into her life. If she can no longer lure him with her physical charms, she can at least hold him with the prospect of a major screenplay credit--afterall, she CAN set up a meeting with DeMille. The beauty of the story is that the characters are at once self-deluded, but also fully aware of the games they are playing.
If SB had been remade in the 1970s, it would have had to have been updated to be anything more than an ill-advised exercise in nostalgia. Lizabeth Scott, say, in the lead role--Robert Redford as Joe Gillis. Orson Welles in the Stroheim role and Billy Wilder himself in the DeMille role. The waxworks? Lawrence Tierney, Ann Savage, Milton Berle, and Ginny Sims. For the Nancy Olson role I'd have picked Diane Baker--and for the Jack Webb role somebody like Skip Young.

[Frederica]

..................maybe Nazimova and if not for being taken care of by Charles"Buddy" Rogers who doesnt believe Mary Pickford with her alcoholic problems wouldnt have become a Norma Desmond. Rogers was very good to her.

Nazimova died in 1945. Casting her as Norma Desmond would have created a whole zombie subtext, which would have been interesting but was probably not Wilder's intent.

[FrankFay]

On a related thought, casting Norma Desmond as a Vampire could be interesting

[drednm]

At age 50, Swanson was totally believable as a silent star but also as an actress who could have made a comeback since she probably could have passed for 40 despite the 1950 ugly fashions and hair do. Life imitates art here.

Pickford in 1950 was far too matronly to have pulled off Norma. Mae West far far too bizarre. I have no real idea what Pola Negri looked like in 1950. She probably still looked good.

[Einar the Lonely]

..................maybe Nazimova and if not for being taken care of by Charles"Buddy" Rogers who doesnt believe Mary Pickford with her alcoholic problems wouldnt have become a Norma Desmond. Rogers was very good to her.

Nazimova died in 1945. Casting her as Norma Desmond would have created a whole zombie subtext, which would have been interesting but was probably not Wilder's intent.

Besides, she was VAL LEWTON's aunt!

[westegg]

My only quibble is that SB was made too soon--if it was filmed around 1965 or 1970 it would've really been a more evocative distance from the silent era. Swanson was barely 50 years old in the movie (and it was no different than if a 2010 setting was harking back to circa 1990. Hardly a glaring jump into the past). However, in a 1965 version we wouldn't have had DeMille, Stroheim and a host of others.

I can see a modern remake though with Doris Day, recalling the heyday of the 1950s!

You miss the whole point. At 50 Swanson was relatively young, and therefore her character was capable of thinking that she might make a comeback, and also have a sense that she could seduce a man of of 30--even though it might require dangling the promise of wealth to this failed screenwriter. In addition, Swanson, DeMille and Stroheim were the real deal--even if two of them were playing fictional roles. It leant an air of realism to an otherwise melodramatic story. It is why the stage musical, no matter how successful it was, could never have the impact of the original film and can only work for its camp value. Glenn Close made up to be ancient with dark circles under her eyes only played to the blase cliches made by latter-day nostalgia freaks about the role of Norma Desmond, not to the underlying human tragedy of self delusion. Norma Desmond isn't some crazy old dame--she's a middle aged woman wanting and needing love. She probably only half-heartedly believes that her script could ever amount to anything--but it does provide an opportunity (or excuse) to bring Bill Holden into her life. If she can no longer lure him with her physical charms, she can at least hold him with the prospect of a major screenplay credit--afterall, she CAN set up a meeting with DeMille. The beauty of the story is that the characters are at once self-deluded, but also fully aware of the games they are playing.
If SB had been remade in the 1970s, it would have had to have been updated to be anything more than an ill-advised exercise in nostalgia. Lizabeth Scott, say, in the lead role--Robert Redford as Joe Gillis. Orson Welles in the Stroheim role and Billy Wilder himself in the DeMille role. The waxworks? Lawrence Tierney, Ann Savage, Milton Berle, and Ginny Sims. For the Nancy Olson role I'd have picked Diane Baker--and for the Jack Webb role somebody like Skip Young.

Good stuff, Bob--as to the hypothetical remake, I especially like your inclusion of Ginny Sims!

[JFK]

Lux Video Theatre: Season 5, Episode 20
Sunset Boulevard (6 Jan. 1955)
Directed by Buzz Kulik
Writing Credits
Charles Brackett ... (film story/previous screenplay)
D.M. Marshman Jr. ... (film story/previous screenplay)
Billy Wilder ... (film story/previous screenplay)
Richard P. McDonagh ... (adaptation)
Cast
Miriam Hopkins ... Norma Desmond
James Daly ... Joe Gillis
Nancy Gates ... Betty Schaefer
John Wengraf ... Max von Mayerling
Ken Carpenter ... Himself - Announcer
Bing Crosby ... Lux Video Theatre Guest
Margaret Lindsay ... Lux Video Theatre Guest
Lee Millar ... Artie Green

Robert Montgomery Presents: Season 8, Episode 13
Sunset Boulevard (3 Dec. 1956)
Directed by Tad Danielewski
Writing Credits
Charles Brackett ... (film story/previous screenplay)
Doria Folliott ... (adaptation)
D.M. Marshman Jr. ... (film story/previous screenplay)
Billy Wilder ... (film story/previous screenplay)
Robert Montgomery ... Himself - Host
Mary Astor ... Norma Desmond
Darren McGavin ... Joe Gillis
Gloria DeHaven ... Betty Schaefer
Walter Kohler ... Max von Mayerling
John Griggs
Carl Low

[Donald Binks]

Even though i loved Gloria Swanson in the movie Sunset Blvd, i would like to ask which silent film actress would you have liked to see play that role if they made a second one say in the late 1970s when they were old and would be really convincing. My choices would be Pola Negri and Mary Miles Minter. Pola seemed like a diva to the end and after the lost of her career i would have liked to see Minter play a role like that.

I was thinking if the picture had been made in this day and age, could we have had Madonna in the leading role, with Al Pachino as the leading man and Sylvester Stallone as Max the butler?

Thank God the picture was made in 1950 and had the cast it did - it was perfection personified.

In 1950, the silent era would have still been a twinkle in a lot of the audience's eye and so the subject matter would not have been irrelevant as it would perhaps to a 1970's audience. Besides which too many of the silent stars were already dead or in God's waiting room.

[Dee Deforest]

Wow great stuff! In my opinion it's the perfect movie..I wouldn't change a thing.
Dee

[westegg]

Since this thread has made a comeback all its own, my only added thought since earlier postings has to do with Betty Compson. I've since seen her in several movies, and she would've been a force to reckon with as Norma. However, I can't fault Swanson whatsoever.

[Changsham]

i hope they don't remake it. No silent star icons left and I am suspicious it could be a vehicle for the next Baz Lurhmann spectacular.

[FrankFay]

It could possibly be updated a bit, turn it into a somewhat more generic Old Hollywood vs New Hollywood - put Norah Desmond into a crumbling estate hemmed in by McMansions. It could even be decent- though nowhere near as good as the original, and might stumble into Baby Jane territory

[westegg]

I could see Shirley MacLaine giving it a shot in a non-musical remake. She could create a large than life hangover from an earlier film era. Burt Reynolds as Max?

[entredeuxguerres]

I could see Shirley MacLaine giving it a shot in a non-musical remake.

But then the card game would have to be changed to a séance.

Comparison of all these proposed, hypothetical, "Normas" to the genuine article, La Swanson, confirms just how utterly inimitable she truly was.

[Bob Birchard]

Lizabeth Scott as Norma, Michael Mann as Max, Ellen De Generes as Josephine Gillis, and Tim Burton in the Cecil B. DeMille role, with actor Randalll Malone playing Betty Schaefer, and Mark Harmon in the Jack Webb roll. Now that's something I'd pluck down $24.95 to see in 3-D ;-}

[Frederica]

Lizabeth Scott as Norma, Michael Mann as Max, Ellen De Generes as Josephine Gillis, and Tim Burton in the Cecil B. DeMille role, with actor Randalll Malone playing Betty Schaefer, and Mark Harmon in the Jack Webb roll. Now that's something I'd pluck down $24.95 to see in 3-D ;-}

I see what you did there.

[Christopher Jacobs]

Lizabeth Scott as Norma, Michael Mann as Max, Ellen De Generes as Josephine Gillis, and Tim Burton in the Cecil B. DeMille role, with actor Randalll Malone playing Betty Schaefer, and Mark Harmon in the Jack Webb roll. Now that's something I'd pluck down $24.95 to see in 3-D ;-}

But would it be directed by John Waters or David Lynch? Or Kenneth Anger? Or... Martin Scorsese?

[pathe16mm]

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane seems to only get mentioned as camp. Does anyone else find it to be horribly tragic?

And why does Norma Desmond have to be only in her early 50s and still beautiful for SB to work as some have pointed out? Beautiful or not, Joe doesn't care one whit about Norma and is just using her to stay in Hollywood. People can be deluded enough to think they're still youthful and attractive in the conventional sense. My 90 year old grandmother got leeched on for several years by a guy in his late 40, who helped her run through almost all of her savings. The family tried to intervene, but she stopped talking to everyone -- and wasn't considered senile enough to have declared incompetent. If this were made into a movie, I would hate to think it would merely be thought of as camp.

As far as Baby Jane, (spoilers) you have vain, beautiful, successful Blanche who tries to kill sister Jane because she's sick of her alcoholic antics -- and she made fun of her at a party and people laughed at her. The plan backfires and Blanche only cripples herself. Being vain, and now bitter, she decides to let the sister she tried to kill take the blame, and be saddled with not only taking care of her, but the guilt of an act she didn't commit. Flashforward 30 years, Jane has continued to spiral downward into alcoholism and mental illness, and has begun to take out her anger on her sister in cruel and macabre ways. Deluded, she thinks she can revive her childhood vaudeville act and perhaps take it to Vegas. She finds a man (just like in Sunset Boulevard) who is looking to make a buck and plays along. Blanche tries to have Jane committed to an asylum, chaos ensues, Jane murders the maid, and in her last breaths Blanche admits her deception and that she destroyed both their lives.

Sounds like a tragedy to me, melodramatic perhaps, and the leads are old and not made up or photographed in a flattering way, but still tragedy. Adding to this is the implication that Jane was actually a fine actress, as her imitations of Blanche at the party seemed to go over very well, and she is able to again later imitate Blanche when talking to the doctor. Bette Davis' makeup might seem unbelievably grotesque, but Madge Bellamy in her later years wore a wig of blonde curls and her lips in a tight cupids bow. It isn't flattering, but it's how she made herself up in the morning, so she must have thought she looked good. Admittedly, she was in her 80s not her 60s, but still...

And while we're speaking of remakes, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane would make a great opera with Jane as a coloratura, Blanche as a lyric soprano, Elvira as a contralto, and Edwin as a baritone. Utilize 3 sets for 3 acts: act one Blanche's bedroom, act two the foyer and staircase, act three the beach.

Back to Sunset Boulevard, if it were remade today in the same context, I'd vote for Gillian Anderson as Norma. She was great as Miss Havisham in the 2011 BBC Great Expectations. If only they had cast an actor as Pip instead of a model it would have been wonderful.

[entredeuxguerres]

... If only they had cast an actor as Pip instead of a model it would have been wonderful.

A wooden model.

[Bob Birchard]

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane seems to only get mentioned as camp. Does anyone else find it to be horribly tragic?.

SB is a tragedy--but not because Joe Gillis is using Norma to stay in Hollywood. Norma is using Joe to get back in the door (and yeah, she fancies herself still attractive to the audience of young men she once had). Betty Schaefer uses Joe (or tries to) to get a leg up, and is willing to dump BF Jack Webb for Joe to help get her where she wants to go. Max would be living in some two bit hotel like the Mark Twain, unable to get work except as a sometime bit player. Staying with Norma gies him a place to flop and provides the illusion that he's still important. Joe's agent is all for Joe when the writer is making him some money, but not interested when Joe needs help to keep his wheels.
But, the tragedy is compounded because these characters are also self-aware of their motives, and also because beyond their venal motives they care about the others. Joe doesn't leave just to be mean, or so he can hang out with a younger babe, he leaves in hope that Norma will be her age and find happiness as she is. That is the intrigue of SB--the fact that human emotions and motivations are complex, not easily pigeon-holed, and somewhat fluid. It is these aspects that make the story still work even in the musical--which loses all of the documentary quality of the original--because underneath it all the story is about people and not really about Hollywood (except as a setting).

[pathe16mm]

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane seems to only get mentioned as camp. Does anyone else find it to be horribly tragic?.

SB is a tragedy--but not because Joe Gillis is using Norma to stay in Hollywood. Norma is using Joe to get back in the door (and yeah, she fancies herself still attractive to the audience of young men she once had). Betty Schaefer uses Joe (or tries to) to get a leg up, and is willing to dump BF Jack Webb for Joe to help get her where she wants to go. Max would be living in some two bit hotel like the Mark Twain, unable to get work except as a sometime bit player. Staying with Norma gies him a place to flop and provides the illusion that he's still important. Joe's agent is all for Joe when the writer is making himn some money, but not interested when Joe needs help to keep his wheels.
But, the tragedy is compounded because these characters are also self-aware of their motives, and also because beyond their venal motives thay also care about the others. Joe doesn't leave just to be mean, he leaves and so he can hang out with a younger babe, he leaves in hope that Norma will be her age and find hapopiness as she is. That is the intrigue of SB--the fact that human emotions and motivations are complex, not easily pigeon-holed, and somewhat fluid. It is these aspects that make the story still work even in the musical--which loses all of the documentary quality of the original--because underneath it all the story is about people and not really about Hollywood (except as a setting).

I never meant to imply that Sunset Boulevard was not a tragedy, I was questioning why some proposed that Norma's age was a factor in whether it was tragedy or camp, and why Baby Jane is merely camp.

[entredeuxguerres]

...he leaves...in hope that Norma will be her age and find hapopiness as she is.

Maybe that's what he tells himself to justify his caddish behavior, but I can't buy it as having any bearing on his true motivation. A hack screen-writer with nothing to say is presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity to gather first-hand, true-life, information about Hollywood's Golden Age, and all he can think about is his not-so-hot girlfriend; he deserved that slug.