I came across Sunset Blvd while perusing Billy Wilder’s directorial credits. He’d come up in conversation a while back, and although I could place Some Like It Hot as one of his films, I was drawing a blank otherwise, and so concluded he was a director of comedy. In truth, he also directed such iconic films as The Seven Year Itch, the classic film noir Double Indemnity, as well as the romantic comedy Sabrina. And of course Sunset Blvd.

My initial thoughts when I put this title down on my list were, and I’m paraphrasing: Oh, this is the film that’s narrated by the dead guy and it takes place in LA. And while this turns out to be fact, it is either a credit to the cultural impact of this film on the fabric of society or a sad comment on the lack of familiarity with great cinema, even among people who go out of their way to watch older movies. I wish I had seen this movie earlier. In fact, I wish I had seen this movie so often that the snappy, sarcastic dialogue ran over me like second nature.

It is possible to describe Sunset Blvd as a film noir, but I think that would be something a disservice, because it truly is a much richer film when considered outside the realm of this genre. It is starkly black and white; the main character, Joe Gillis, speaks in that world-weary cadence of men living the hard scrabble lives on the street (and if you’ve read any Raymond Chandler, you can recognize it immediately, and it’s interesting to note that Chandler helped write the screenplay for Double Indemnity); and the film does move around the whims of a beautiful, delusional woman. But it can also be read as a journey of self-discovery. Our protagonist, hack screenwriter Joe Gillis, freely admits that he once had celluloid dreams, but now he was just pounding out words in order to make money, but his scripts aren’t selling. When he runs into Norma Desmond, he’s broke and desperate, and sees an opportunity to make some easy cash, but she sees an opportunity, too. And when he tells her her script is good because it was written from the heart, the words come back to haunt him, when young, optimistic, would-be screenwriter Betty Schaefer says that about a single scene from one of his by-the-numbers scripts, which she wants him to help her expand.

Between them, the two contrasting women bring this man back towards humanity. Norma, forgotten by the world, and yet still fighting, still vitally alive, awakens in him a protective instinct, while Betty begins by renewing his interest in his craft and awakens his heart. From the decreasing sharpness of his speech to the increasing unselfishness of his actions, he’s a reformed man. But the storm, which has been threatening since Joe stepped onto the driveway of Norma’s rundown dream palace on Sunset Blvd, with a few false starts in between, finally erupts when the women find out about each other.

And the movie is also a critique of the Hollywood dream. You see all these struggling young people, throwing themselves on the rocks in the slim chance that they might succeed. You see Betty, whose family gave their lives to the film industry, and then spent all their savings to have their daughter’s nose straightened so that she might be a star, only to be told then that even now that she was lovely, she couldn’t act well enough. You see Norma Desmond, who had been a great star twenty years earlier in silent film, trying to recapture what she’d lost, and all her money, her new young man, her friends, these things are meaningless, worthless to her, compared with the adoration of millions. It’s a land of illusion, fueled by deceit and an eye towards getting the greatest return for the smallest outlay. (But, perhaps, some things never change.)

The cast is pitch perfect. William Holden is more than believable as a broken, self-loathing man returned to hope. Nancy Olsen’s Betty is earnest, determined, and sweet. Erich von Strohiem’s Max is threatening to outsiders and tender towards his mistress, and not a little bit creepy in his anticipation of her needs. But the movie belongs to Gloria Swanson. As the fading movie star, she is by turns aloof, arrogant, charming, silly, devastatingly beautiful, and disarmingly vulnerable. It was a beautiful performance in a wonderful, yet frightening, movie. And now I just want to go see it again!