“Sunset Boulevard” – This picture is BIG, especially in 4K!
- Bill Kelley III
- Aug 15
- 8 min read
Updated: Aug 16
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
Gloria Swanson plays the aging silent screen legend Norma Desmond, who comes to life during a private screening of her silent film “Queen Kelly.” William Holden plays Joe Gillis, a down-and-out screenwriter, whom Desmond hires to work on the script for her comeback. The two dance during a New Year’s Eve party.
(Click an image to scroll the larger versions)
“SUNSET BOULEVARD: 75th ANNIVERSARY EDITION”
4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray; 1950; Not Rated; Digital copy only available via Fandango Home (4K)
Best extra: Ed Sikov’s commentary
THE LAST restoration of Billy Wilder’s film noir classic “Sunset Boulevard,” which earned 11 Oscar nominations and won three, was nearly 15 years ago for the studio’s 100th Anniversary.
VIDEO
At the time, Paramount used the best surviving elements (the original 35mm camera negative was lost). After a worldwide search, a duplicate second-generation negative was found and scanned in 4K. As a reference for its contrast and brightness levels, an original 35mm print from the Library of Congress was used. But for its 75th Anniversary, Paramount wanted to consider another restoration. “It still looked beautiful,” Charlotte Barker, Director of Film Preservation and Restoration at Paramount Pictures, said during a recent episode of the “Perf Damage” podcast, in which she and her husband, Adam, discuss saving old films.
During Barker’s introduction to the 75th Anniversary screening of “Sunset” at an Italian Film Festival, she said, “What looked flawless on Blu-ray might now show its limitations on 4K/HDR displays.” So, her team of restoration experts asked, “What can we do now that we couldn’t do then without losing what’s already great?”
(1) “Sunset Boulevard” premiered in New York on August 10, 1950. (2-4) At daybreak, Los Angeles Police rush to a large mansion on Sunset Blvd. in Beverly Hills, where a man’s body floats face down in the pool.
The new 4K Ultra HD video was sourced from the same RAW 4K master, but this time with the expansive HDR toning, which provided a deeper black level and more consistent contrast levels in highlights, mid-tones, and shadows. The natural film grain is more pronounced and defined through the higher video bitrate.
The on-screen clarity varies from excellent 4K resolution, to lesser during the many composite fades and brief usage of third-generation elements used to fill the gaps of damaged frames and scenes.
Wilder and cinematographer John Seitz gave “Sunset” its classic film noir style. For some shots, Seitz sprinkled dust in front of the lens to suggest a musty atmosphere, and associate art director John Meehan devised the way to shoot the famous floating corpse scene. Wilder wanted the moviegoers to see the body from a fish’s perspective. So, they placed a mirror at the bottom and filmed the body’s reflection from the edge of the pool.
(1) Flashback six months earlier, and screenwriter Joe Gillis works on a movie script. (2&3) Two repo men serve him with a court order to relinquish his car or pay $290 in back payments. (4&5) Desperate for money, Joe meets with Paramount studio producer Sheldrake (Fred Clark) to peddle a baseball picture he’s already written. Studio reader Betty Schaefer (Nancy Olson) pulls the script, which she deems formulaic. (6-8) Joe drives along Sunset Blvd., and has a tire blowout. His car limps into a long driveway of a rundown 1920s mansion. He hides the car in a large multi-door garage, which houses a 1929 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 8A.
AUDIO
Their biggest challenge was the original Mono soundtrack, which suffered from a high noise floor (an annoying hum), in which the earlier restoration filtered out the high and low frequencies. This made the track an easier listen, but softened key performances, especially Gloria Swanson’s character as Norma Desmond.
This time, Barker and her team decided to stick with the high noise floor, but would use Peter Jackson’s Park Road AI audio technology that he unveiled for The Beatles “Get Back” documentary. The software can digitally separate dialogue, music, and effects, giving technicians the ability to isolate the hum and remove it, without affecting the dialogue.
The orchestrated score from composer Franz Waxman (“A Place in the Sun,” “Rebecca”) is one of his very best, positioned front and center – especially with the new Mono restoration. It was Waxman’s 8th Oscar nomination and his first golden statue.
(1&2) Butler Max von Mayerling (Erich von Stroheim) orders Joe to clean his shoes and to go upstairs to consult with the “Madame.” (3-5) Joe quickly realizes he’s mistaken for a mortician, who was to deliver a baby coffin for her dead pet chimpanzee. And he says, “Wait a minute. Haven’t I seen you before? I know that face...You’re Norma Desmond.”
STORY
THIS is the tale of Joe Gillis (William Holden), a struggling screenwriter who is found face down in a swimming pool with police and photographers surrounding his body in the opening scene.
One of the documentaries pinpoints how Wilder pulled off this haunting image. The story then moves to six months earlier, where we find Gillis on the run from the repo man. A flat tire lands him in the driveway of a huge, rundown gothic mansion, the strange world of an aging silent film queen, Norma Desmond, who soon won’t allow the young writer to escape her grasp. Swanson’s performance has to be one of the best roles ever filmed for the silver screen. Who can forget her first exchange with Joe?
“You used to be big,” he says.
“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small,” she snaps back.
The supporting cast is superb, including Erich von Stroheim as Desmond’s butler, nominated for Best Supporting Actor, who had previously directed Swanson in the silent film “Queen Kelly” (1929). Wilder uses a clip from the film during a showing at Desmond’s mansion. Cameo appearances include producer/director Cecil B. DeMille, silent superstars Buster Keaton and Anna Q. Nilsson, and Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.
(1&2) Norma hires Joe to edit her lengthy screenplay of Salomé of the Bible, for $500 per week, and puts him up in a room over her garage. (3) Joe watches the butler place the coffin of the chimpanzee into the ground. (4) Dozens of photographs of a younger Norma adorn the mansion.
EXTRAS
All of the bonus features are ported onto the enclosed Blu-ray, a clone of the 2012 edition. First, the excellent Ed Sikov commentary – Author of “On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder” – who provides an inside scoop about a different opening sequence that was soundly rejected during a test screening. It was set in the Los Angeles County morgue, with Joe wearing an ID tag on his toe. When the room full of corpses start talking to each other, the audience starts laughing. Wilder left the theater. “It was one of the black moments of my life,” he told Sikov.
The collection includes 13 featurettes:
“Sunset Boulevard: The Beginning” (23 mins., 2008)
“A Look Back” (25 mins, 2002)
“The Noir Side of Sunset Boulevard” (14 mins., 2008)
“Sunset Boulevard: Becomes a Classic” (14 mins., 2008)
“Two Sides of Ms. Swanson” (10 mins., 2008)
“Stories of Sunset Boulevard” (11 mins., 2008)
“Mad about the Boy: A Portrait of William Holden” (11 mins., 2008)
“Recording Sunset Boulevard” (6 mins., 2008)
“The City of Sunset Boulevard” (5 mins., 2008)
“Franz Waxman and the Music” (14 mins., 2002)
“Behind the Gates: The Lot” (5 mins, 2008)
“Paramount in the ‘50s” (9 mins., 2000)
“Edith Head: The Paramount Years” (14 mins., 2002)
Dozens of interviews are included, from ex-LAPD detective/author Joseph Wambaugh, actress Stefanie Powers, co-star Nancy Olson, Paramount Pictures producer A.C. Lyles, film historians, and critics. You’ll discover that Wilder first considered Greta Garbo, then Mae West, and Mary Pickford to play Norma Desmond.
(1&2) Norma plays cards with some of her old Hollywood friends, including the great Buster Keaton. (3) Max drives Norma and Joe to a men’s shop to update his wardrobe. (4&5) Joe soon discovers he’s the only person attending Norma’s New Year’s Eve party. He escapes and attends a party at the home of Artie Green (Jack Webb), an assistant director in town. Artie happens to be engaged with Betty Schaefer. (6) Betty is excited about one of Joe’s scripts, and they act out a love scene. (7) Joe returns to the mansion and finds that Norma tried to commit suicide.
When Wilder first arrived in L.A. in 1934, Sunset Boulevard was just a two-lane country road, but its name stuck with him, and he jotted down an idea about a faded film star who believes she’s back in the movies after newsreel cameras photograph her arrest for murder.
Former Life Magazine reporter, D. M. Marshman, a card playing friend of Wilder, suggested the murder be the silent star’s young lover. Marshman became a co-writer of the script with Wilder and collaborator Charles Brackett. Director George Cukor (“The Philadelphia Story,” “My Fair Lady”) recommended 52-year-old Swanson, a silent superstar, who at the time was hosting a radio talk show in New York. Swanson accepted the role for a mere $50,000, which Wilder called, “One of the great bargains in film history.”
Originally, Montgomery Clift (“A Place in the Sun”) was to play the young screenwriter, but backed out three weeks before the cameras started rolling. Next, Gene Kelly (“Singin’ in the Rain”), but couldn’t exit his MGM contract, and Fred MacMurray (“Double Indemnity”) wasn’t interested.
They finally settled with 31-year-old William Holden, who would also star in Wilder’s “Stalag 17” and “Sabrina.”
“Sunset” set non-holiday records at NYC Radio City Music Hall during its theatrical run. MGM studio tycoon Louis B. Mayer was so upset with Wilder’s insider Hollywood story, he scolded the filmmaker, “You have disgraced the industry that made and fed you…You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood.”
Recently, CBS Sunday Morning provided an outstanding episode on the 75th Anniversary of the Wilder masterpiece, in which University of Texas, Austin, film professor Noah Isenberg said, “You can just luxuriate in a movie like 'Sunset.’ It’s just like a warm bath.”
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup…You see, this is my life. It always will be. There’s nothing else. Just us and the cameras and those wonderful people out there in the dark.” – Norma Desmond
— Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer
(1&2) Norma meets with producer/director Cecil B. DeMille on the Paramount lot. (3&4) Norma calls Betty Schaefer, telling her that Joe lives at her house. Joe and Betty have been working together on a screenplay into the wee hours. Joe tells Betty, “I’ve got a good deal here. A long-term contract with no options. I like that way. Maybe it’s not very admirable. Well, you and Artie can be admirable.” (5-7) Norma goes into a rage, and Joe ends up in the pool, as the police and press wait for Norma Desmond to make her big exit.
SPECS:
66 GB disc
True 4K mastering
Video bitrate average: in the mid 50 Megabits per second range, varying from the high 20 Mbps to the low 70 Mbps.
4-perf 35mm second-generation negative, 1.37:1 aspect ratio
HDR10 maximum light level: 1000 nit
Max frame average light level: 129 nit
Academy Awards: 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and won three Oscars: Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Music Score.
No. 16 American Film Institute’s 100 Years…100 Greatest Movies – 10th Anniversary Edition
No. 17 Slant Magazine’s Top 100 film noir classics
Musical stage adaptation from Andrew Lloyd Webber opened in London in 1993 with Patti LuPone and Kevin Anderson