Some Like It Wilder Read online

  Wilder and Brackett press-ganged D. M. Marshman Jr. into joining their team, since they had much admired his insightful movie reviews for Life magazine. The trio began work on the scenario on August 9, 1948. “We closed the doors and asked ourselves, ‘What kind of story shall we do?’ ” Brackett remembered. It was Marshman who suggested “a relationship between a silent-day queen and a young man. She is living in the past, refusing to believe her days as a star are gone, and is sealed up in one of those rundown, immense mansions on Sunset Boulevard, amid a clutter of mementoes,” like a gondola-shaped bed.4 “We saw the young man as a screenwriter,” Brackett continued. “He’s a nice guy, maybe from the Middle West, a man who can’t make the grade in Hollywood.” They did not see the older woman as a horror; “she was someone who had been given the brush by thirty million fans.”5 This last sentence would find its way into the screenplay almost verbatim.

  Then the writing team got stuck; they were unable to figure out what would happen next. Wilder, from the beginning of his screenwriting career in Hollywood, had kept a notebook in which he scribbled clever ideas for use in screenplays. When he consulted his notebook, he found this fragment: “Silent picture star commits murder. When they arrest her, she sees the newsreel cameras and thinks she is back in the movies.”6 Wilder remarked to his partners, “Suppose the old dame shoots the boy.”7 That suggestion put them back on track.

  They decided to call the aging movie queen Norma Desmond. Her first name was a reference to Mabel Normand, the silent film comedienne. Her surname referred to William Desmond Taylor, a director of silent films who was murdered on the night of February 2, 1922. Taylor had had love affairs with several actresses, among them Normand, who was implicated in Taylor’s unsolved murder. The scandal ended her career.8 So Norma Desmond’s name was tinged with tragedy.

  Joe Gillis, the aspiring screenwriter who gets involved with Norma, resembled Wilder himself at the beginning of his career in Hollywood, when he was a struggling scriptwriter. Concerning his affinities with Joe, Wilder explained, “Any writer draws on things he has seen and lived through. . . . I submitted God knows how many scripts and synopses and was turned down,” just like Joe Gillis.9 Wilder opted to have the male lead narrate Sunset Boulevard, as he had done with Double Indemnity. In the present instance, Joe Gillis would narrate the film from beyond the grave, making Sunset Boulevard one of the rare Hollywood films narrated by a dead person. “I have always been a great man for narration,” said Wilder, “and not because it is a lazy man’s crutch.” Narration allows for economical storytelling because “it saves you a lot of exposition,” he continued. “You can say in two lines something that would take twenty minutes to dramatize, to show, and to photograph.”10

  On December 21, 1948, Wilder and Brackett submitted to the studio a sixty-one-page preliminary draft of the screenplay. They attached a cautionary note: “Due to the peculiar nature of the project, we ask all our coworkers to regard it as top secret.” To disguise the true nature of the film’s plot, Wilder and Brackett employed the spurious working title “A Can of Beans.”11 They feared that, if word got out that they were planning a movie about Hollywood, members of the film colony would assume that it was to be a film à clef— that is, a sardonic tale presenting unflattering portraits of individuals whom Wilder and Brackett had known and worked with.

  Paramount tendered a vote of confidence to Wilder and Brackett by green-lighting the project on the basis of their preliminary draft. On March 21, 1949, they turned in a script of 126 pages, the standard length for a feature picture. Wilder, Brackett, and Marshman continued revising the script throughout production. Sometimes they found it difficult to stay one jump ahead of the shooting schedule. Consequently, they would dole out pages of the screenplay to the cast and crew for a scene only a day or two before it was to be shot. The revisions were mostly the work of Brackett and Wilder, with occasional assists from Marshman, according to Wilder.

  Wilder sent the screenplay to Joseph Breen on April 11, 1949, a mere week before production was scheduled to start. Wilder indicated that the script at that point did not contain the final sequence. “We’re still working on it,” Wilder explained. “We haven’t quite decided how the picture ends.”12 Wilder had some trepidation about Breen’s evaluation. After all, as James Agee notes, “A sexual affair between a rich woman of fifty and a kept man half her age is not exactly a usual version of boy meets girl.”13

  Wilder did not receive a detailed response from Breen until May 24, 1949. Breen replied that, because the script lacked the last sequence, he could not render a final verdict on the acceptability of the entire story. He did complain, however, about the sexual relationship of Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond: “There is no indication of a voice for morality, by which the sex affair would be condemned, nor do there appear to be compensating moral values for the sin.”14

  George Cukor, Wilder’s friend and colleague, explained, “According to the provisions of the code at that time, the main character could not have an extramarital affair without suffering some kind of dreadful punishment, like breaking a leg or falling down a well.” Consequently, Cukor concluded, Breen warned Wilder in his letter about Sunset Boulevard that, in the ending that Wilder contrived for the film, some clear-cut punishment must be meted out to Norma as the main character for her moral transgression.15 Even though the film’s ending was not finalized, Wilder and Brackett were planning a tragic conclusion for the picture, one that should satisfy Breen.

  As the characters took shape in the screenplay, Wilder and Brackett naturally began to discuss who should be cast in the picture. Wilder wanted an old-time star to play Norma Desmond. “God forgive me, I wanted Mae West,” Wilder confessed.16 When Wilder interviewed her, it was apparent that West, who was nearing sixty, thought that she was as sexy as she had ever been. She was insulted when Wilder asked her to play a has-been, even though she had not made a picture since 1943—The Heat’s On, a tasteless musical that had flopped. West would not consider playing an older woman who is eventually dumped by her younger lover. On the contrary, West assured Wilder, she would have seen to it that Joe was too exhausted from their sexual bouts in her boudoir to get out of bed!17

  Next on the list as a candidate to play Norma was Mary Pickford, known as America’s Sweetheart in her heyday in silent pictures. Pickford demanded, for openers, that the part of Norma Desmond be built up; it must be abundantly clear that Pickford was the star of the picture. Scott Eyman notes, “Wilder could foresee that Pickford, who was now a movie executive, desired more control over the picture than he was prepared to grant her.”18

  Finally, Wilder sounded out Cukor, who had been directing pictures for nearly two decades. Cukor suggested Gloria Swanson, who had been one of the brightest stars of the silent period. Indeed, at the height of her career, Cukor pointed out, “She was carried in a sedan chair from her dressing room to the set.”19 But her career had faltered after the coming of sound. By the time Wilder cowrote Music in the Air, a stale musical, for her in 1934, her Hollywood career was for all practical purposes defunct. Wilder remembered, when he was considering her for Sunset Boulevard, that Swanson was thought to be “sort of an old bag from silent picture times.”20 She was only fifty-two.

  Cukor assured Wilder that Swanson could play a movie goddess hoping for a comeback convincingly, since at that point she was a Hollywood has-been.21 But Swanson had not withdrawn into seclusion. By the time Wilder wanted her for his movie, she had moved to New York and become the host of a local TV talk show. Brackett, in his function as producer, officially phoned Swanson in New York and told her that Billy Wilder was much interested in her playing the lead in his next film. When he added that the studio wanted her to do a screen test, Swanson was indignant. “I made two dozen pictures for Paramount,” she replied; they might well serve as her “screen test.” After all, her successful silent pictures had helped to build Paramount. “Without me, there would be no Paramount Pictures,” she told him—a line Norma Desmond
would repeat in the film. She concluded acrimoniously, “You want a screen test . . . to see if I am still alive?”22 Brackett tactfully responded that she should think of the test as a mere formality. Swanson accepted Brackett’s invitation to come out to Hollywood and discuss the project.

  Another actor on Wilder’s wish list for Sunset Boulevard was Erich von Stroheim. After the war Stroheim had moved back to France, where he continued to be considered one of the all-time great directors, a titan of the silent era. Wilder contacted Stroheim at his home outside Paris and told him he wanted him to play Max von Mayerling in Sunset Boulevard. Like Stroheim, Max had been a director of silent films; in fact, Max directed Norma Desmond in a silent picture, just as Stroheim directed Gloria Swanson in one. But, like Stroheim’s, Max’s directorial career did not survive the coming of sound. Max has wound up as Norma’s dignified butler and last admirer.

  At first, Stroheim wanted no part of the role. Max von Mayerling was no Field Marshal Rommel but a Hollywood has-been, a character similar enough to Stroheim himself to be disturbing. Stroheim reflected ruefully that, if he took the part, he would be returning to Hollywood to appear in a movie that was exploiting his own downfall as a film director. Moreover, he was offended by the mention of his return to Hollywood in the gossip column of “that old bitch” Louella Parsons, who said that he was a relic of Hollywood’s past.23

  What’s more, Stroheim learned, Cecil B. De Mille was very likely going to do a cameo in the picture, playing himself. The idea of appearing in a movie with De Mille was galling to Stroheim. As Arthur Lennig, author of the definitive biography of Stroheim, writes, “Here was De Mille, a lesser talent, still making films, still a success, still a foremost director; and here was Stroheim playing a butler.” Withal, Stroheim accepted the role because, as usual, he was short on funds, since he always lived beyond his means. But ever after, Stroheim referred to the role of Max von Mayerling as “that goddamned butler.”24 John Seitz, the director of photography on the film, attested to the fact that Stroheim thought the role of Max demeaning to him. “He would walk around the set muttering, ‘Why are they doing this to me?’ ”25

  Montgomery Clift was set to play Joe Gillis, Norma’s young lover. Clift’s first movie was Fred Zinnemann’s The Search (1948), in which he played an American GI in war-ravaged Berlin. Wilder learned that Zinnemann had nothing but praise for Clift and engaged him. But two weeks before Wilder began shooting Sunset Boulevard, Clift’s agent phoned him to say that Clift had bailed out. Clift’s alleged motive was that he did not believe that he could be convincing making love to a woman twice his age. “Bullshit!” Wilder hollered at the agent. If he were a serious actor, he could be convincing “making love to ANY woman!!”26

  Brackett knew the facts behind Clift’s reneging on his commitment to play Joe Gillis, and he set Wilder straight. Clift had been carrying on an affair with Libby Holman, a faded star of the New York stage in the Roaring Twenties, since 1942. Brackett, who had known Holman since his days at the New Yorker in the 1920s, was aware that she was fifteen years older than Clift. In 1932 Holman had been accused of shooting her wealthy young husband Zachary Reynolds, although his death was eventually declared a suicide. Holman, who was by now a hopeless alcoholic, had convinced herself that the plot of Sunset Boulevard, which Clift had relayed to her, was a thinly disguised version of her relationship with Reynolds. She threatened to kill herself if Clift made Sunset Boulevard. So Wilder gave up on Clift.27

  Wilder combed the list of Paramount contract players and settled on William Holden, who had given a solid performance as a prizefighter in Golden Boy (1939) but since then had been more or less wasted as a second lead in some frivolous comedies. Holden was afraid he simply was not talented enough to play a serious role like Joe Gillis. But Wilder brushed aside his misgivings: “That’s easy. You know Bill Holden? Then you know Joe Gillis.” Wilder was aware that Holden’s career had begun to slide. Furthermore, he was becoming a problem drinker and was getting a little frayed around the edges.28 Holden himself had agreed that the story of Joe Gillis was his story. Joe is supported by an aging actress, he pointed out, and he had himself once been “a whore” like Joe. “When I was a young actor starting out in Hollywood, I used to service actresses who were older than me,” he confessed.29

  Holden desperately wanted to give his career a boost, and Wilder convinced him that this was the part that would do it for him. Holden finally agreed to play Joe a scant three days before shooting began.30 As things turned out, Holden was better in the part than Clift would have been. Holden retained a vestige of the features of the all-American boy that he had been when he made Golden Boy. So in Sunset Boulevard he was the all-American boy being corrupted—a subtle dimension to the part that Clift could not have matched.

  If Cukor had to encourage Swanson to play Norma, Swanson, in turn, had to coax Cecil B. De Mille to take a cameo role in the film. Swanson had heard by the grapevine that De Mille had agreed to do a scene but was having difficulty learning his lines, “and he was very nervous about appearing in front of the camera.” Swanson accordingly sent him a telegram, declaring, “Mr. De Mille, if you’re just yourself, you’ll be wonderful.”31 Swanson signed the telegram “Young Fellow,” which was De Mille’s pet name for her. Swanson had become a major star in the films she had made for De Mille between 1919 and 1921, including The Affairs of Anatol (1921), a saucy comedy about the battle of the sexes, in which she costarred with Wallace Reid. The nickname was a reference to the spirit and energy she brought to the parts she played. When he saw how Swanson had signed the telegram, “he lit up.”32 De Mille would call Norma “young fellow” in the film.

  De Mille drove a hard bargain with Wilder for appearing in Sunset Boulevard. He got ten thousand dollars for one day’s work, a sequence in which Norma visits De Mille on the set of Samson and Delilah. Then Wilder asked him to come back and do one more close-up. “It was shot outside the soundstage, where he says goodbye to Norma. He came back”—and he got the studio to buy him a new limousine as compensation for the extra work.33 “We used his sets when Norma visits him,” which were still standing, Wilder remembered.34

  In the screenplay Wilder and Brackett mention that Norma has Max screen “one of Norma’s old silent pictures” for Joe.35 Wilder wanted to use a clip from one of Swanson’s silents in this scene but was at a loss as to which of her pictures to choose. Stroheim suggested that Wilder take an excerpt from his Queen Kelly, an unfinished silent movie from 1928. Wilder told me, “It was an interesting tie-in, that the clip of Gloria Swanson as a younger film star was actually from the one picture in which she was directed by Stroheim, who was playing Norma’s former director in Sunset Boulevard. This added a more genuine flavor to the film.” Queen Kelly was produced by Gloria Swanson and financed by Joseph Kennedy (father of John F. Kennedy), a Boston financier who was also Swanson’s lover. Swanson played Patricia Kelly, a young girl whose affair with a handsome prince ends abruptly when he is forced to marry the neurotic queen who rules the land. “Stroheim was painstaking and slow during filming because of his relentless perfectionism,” Swanson said. They had numerous clashes on the set. After one shouting match with Stroheim, who simply would not be hurried, she stalked off the set. She phoned Kennedy and stated flatly, “Our director is a madman!” Kennedy soon called Stroheim. He said that it was time to shut down the picture because it was clear that talking pictures were here to stay; there was little hope of releasing a silent film successfully.36 In Sunset Boulevard, it is while looking at a close-up of herself in this silent film that Norma utters the celebrated remark, “No dialogue—we didn’t need dialogue. We had faces then.”

  Swanson, as producer of the picture, gave Wilder permission to use an excerpt from Queen Kelly in Sunset Boulevard. “Of course I didn’t mind,” she writes in her autobiography. She and Stroheim “had long since reconciled our differences over Queen Kelly.”37 When I asked Wilder why he substituted his own intertitle for the one in the scene he was u
sing from Queen Kelly, he replied, “I couldn’t use the intertitle from Queen Kelly because Queen Kelly was a movie starring Gloria Swanson, while the clip being projected in Sunset Boulevard was supposedly from a film starring Norma Desmond.”

  While location scouting around Hollywood, Wilder found the house that would serve as Norma Desmond’s mansion at 3810 Wilshire Boulevard, although the address is given as 10086 Sunset Boulevard in the film. The real house “was owned by billionaire John Paul Getty,” Seitz remembered. Paramount rented it for the duration of the shoot.38 Getty had given the house to his ex-wife as part of their divorce settlement, but she did not reside there. The baroque edifice was built in 1924 to resemble a French-Italian Renaissance castle. The swimming pool was added to the grounds for the film, and the former Mrs. Getty kept it as partial payment for the use of the house when shooting was completed.

  Joe characterizes Norma’s “mausoleum” in his voice-over narration of the film as “the kind of place that crazy movie people built in the crazy ’20s.” Wilder had Joe describe the old mansion this way: “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, with her rotting wedding dress and her torn veil, taking it out on the world because she had been given the go-by.”