Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-01-17 (Friday)

Arthur Lipscomb wrote:

On 1/18/2025 9:42 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
 

Sunset Boulevard (TCM) 1950 movie directed by Billy
Wilder and starring William Holden as a down on his luck
Hollywood screenwriter who while trying to evade having
his car repossessed finds himself hiding out at
the estate of a very rich former silent film star
(Gloria Swanson).  The aging star has delusions of
current fame and manipulates Holden into
moving in with her to rewrite a screenplay she wrote.
Holden
desperately needs the money and tolerates her nonsense.
The movie follows the two as they have their ups and
downs, with very minor ups,
and a huge down for both of them.  I never saw this
movie before now.
It was pretty good.  I did notice Holden's character in
this movie was
very similar to his character in "The Bridge on the
River Kwai."  And while I only saw it once, and don't
remember it all that well, wasn't
Holden playing the same character in Stalag 17 too?  I'm
not sure if he just plays himself in all his movies or
he was directed to act that way.

 
Sefton in Stalag 17 (1953, also directed by Wilder) gets
scenes in which he is in charge, so that's different than
the other two movies, but yes, I'll agree that Holden had
a type.
 
What amused me about Swanson is that in real life, she
was well aware that her time in Hollywood had come and
was long gone, which is why she lived in New York and was
performing in the occassional stage play. She shared no
delusions with Norma Desmond.

 
Interesting.  I looked her up during the movie and saw her
character perhaps mirrored the actress a bit.

I remember when she was a guest star on several episodes
of The Beverly Hillbillies, playing herself.

The Clampetts were big fans of "Glory" Swanson's silent
films (which were still being shown back in BugTussle),
but they wondered why she wasn't making new ones.

So Jed and the crew made a new silent film with her which
premiered back in BugTussle's movie theater along with
Miss Swanson attending and being adored by her fans.

Typical silly Beverly Hillbillies stuff, but fun.

 
 
I forgot to mention I also watched the new episodes of Law
and Order and
Law and Order: SVU.  They were both OK.  Although I would
think it would be a *lot* harder than that to put an FBI
agent on trial in state court
for conduct done during an active terrorist operation.
But that's just me.

Nyssa, who hasn't seen the episodes since they were first
run, but remembers the gist of the plot