Well, it's almost Thanksgiving, Paul Gobble Gobble. Indeed, I know I'm
a very passive Thanksgiving participant in my family, so I don't really do that
much, but I know that you are very non passive. Yeah, I'm
an active I'm an active Thanksgiving participant. Yeah, make like two pies per
person. Wait? Have I told you about the pies last year? No?
Tell me? Wait? Okay, so I've already made the apple pie
and frozen because so so last year, we had a guest at the table
that was I'm just gonna say he was high. I met him a couple
of times. He's always been perfectly lovely, but I don't know if he
had some social anxiety or something. He was on drugs last year and it
wasn't. So I make like, you know, appetizers entres. They make
like pounds and pounds of food for everyone, and we get through the entire
meal and I put out all the desserts and I have the apple pie and
I'm like, oh, would you like some apple pie? He's like sure,
that kind of a piece, and I give it to him and then
I'm like going around, sorry, and I sit down next to him and
he looks at me, and he kind of like points the apple pie a
couple of times and says, could have used a few more minutes in the
oven. A scandal. My jaw is drops. I the library is open.
Holy shit. It's funny because like three other people heard of it.
I am self confident enough in the kitchen that that does not bother me,
But like three other people at the table were like, this is the greatest
apple pie we've ever had. How dare you look? I didn't even I
wasn't there. I didn't even try the pie. I just know you.
Like, ay, that's rude in anyone's kitchen. Yeah, b like you
work your your ass off. You prepped for fucking things giving like six weeks
in advance. This is true. This is true. Yeah shocking. Yeah,
could have used a few minutes the oven. I didn't know we were
serving under cooked apple pie at you Thanksgiving. Maybe I won't come forget about
a soggy bottom. It's a raw bottom. Normally I like it raw bottoms,
but not this time in America. And this is that aged well yesterday's
pop culture today classic movie November. I love this month, me too.
I little glimpse behind the scenes when November was coming. I was like,
we shouldn't do classics again, we should mix it up. And Erica was
like, no, I put my foot down, you stupid whore. You're
doing classics. There's so many Shut up, you fucking philistine. Shut up
and watch an old black and white movie. Please. And you know what,
she was right by the way, little another peak behind the curtain.
I've been trying to get him to watch the film we're going to discuss this
week for years. Years. I was like, trust me, you're going
to love this movie, Paul. Do you love this movie? Of course?
I yeah, because you're not an idiot. Yeah, thank you,
because this movie is fucking amazing. But before we talk about the movie,
Erica, we have to talk about our five star Apple podcast review excellent.
Do you want to read sure thing? Today's review comes from b Bourgeois ninety
one love it, No notes on that name, fantastic perfect. The review
is titled are you not entertained? Yes, we totes are, and she
wrote tots ay they This fabulous person wrote totes is like toe bag fabulous.
Love it Paul and Erica, We salute you. I cannot tell you how
fun this podcast is. I was first lured here by the sweet, dulcet
tones of Paul's voice when he appeared on Movies That Made Us gay. Ah,
and now I have a new obsession. The number of times I have
laughed out loud on public transportation while listening to this podcast should be praise enough.
But no, Paul wants his five stars, sure do, and by
gum, both Paul and Erica have earned them. That's right. If you
find it in your hearts to review my favorite movie, Miss Congeniality, we
do need more Sandy Bullock. We do need shocking lack of Sandy Bullock on
this podcast. And can I tell you something shocking. I've never seen Miss
Congeniality, really never seen it. Maybe we need to do like two thousand
to like the year two thousand, all a month of all movies from the
year two thousand, right outside of the normal comfort zone. All right,
Yeah, so if I would, if we would review Miss Congeniality, I
would be eternally grateful. I hope that many more of the movies I've grown
up with we'll also make it to air, and I'll keep coming back until
they do. Well. If you want to have more to say about that
be Burge one ninety one. Year you can do you can join our Patreon
that's right, Yeah, because we pull what movie we're gonna do the last
The last movie every month is chosen by the Patreon listeners, not by us,
not us mere mortals, not not us fools, you gods and the
in the firmament, in the Patreon firmament, B Burge one ninety one,
thank you so much. I just would like, what which of my movies
that made us gay? Appearances were my sweet tones the most alsome? You
have three appearances? Well, one was with me so clearly, not that
one. Not that she did not cheer there or did not mention me,
Because because I think of Louise Bourgeois. That's why I keep thinking this is
this is secretly Louise Bourgeois, the long dead photographer. I love that you
have Louise Bourgeois so at the forefront of your brain that you keep equating this
person with her with yeah, with again, long dead photographer, Louise Bourgeois.
Fantastic. So, Louise, if you would like at that age weel
tote bag, please shoot us an email. I will happily send it off
for you. Erica, What is the movie that you want to smack me
in the face for having waited so long to talk to you about? First
of all, anyone listening, I cannot recommend this film enough. Go watch
this film. Today's film is the nineteen fifty Perfection film noir Sunset Boulevard.
This was requested by Luis by Morgan and by Melissa. It was written by
Charles Brackett, D. M. Marshman Junior, and Billy Wilder. It
was directed by Wilder and stars Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Eric von Stroheim,
and Nancy Olsen. Sunset Boulevard was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning
three, and it really should have won four. It won Best Screenplay,
Best Art, Direction, and Best Score. I mean maybe even Best Picture.
This would have been All About Evire. I'm torn because I also really
love All About Eve, and All About Eve is very funny. I think
this is a better movie. I have not seen All About even a while.
Compared to my memory, I prefer this movie. But I do think
I should watch All About Eve again in rapid succession with this to like,
Oh, that's a great double feature. Really try to feel which one calls
to my soul. W Yes, that's a fantastic double feature. The one
that this movie I'm Stunned did not win and should have won is Best Actress
for Glorious Wanson. I think I said this during Psycho like that he gave
a performance of a generation. Again, I'm gonna say again, she gives
the performance of a fucking generation excellent. She's so good. Judy Holiday famously
won that year. It was a stacked year. That's of course we had
Betty Davis for All About Eve as well, and like who probably would have
won it if Anne Baxter hadn't swooped in there and like Siphon, some boats
off. The funny thing is Anne Baxter is terrible and all about it.
I don't think you think a parly good app I don't think she's very good.
I think she's very fun to watch because she's she does a lot,
she does so much. But anyway, that's beside the point. Fucking Glorious
wants and check your purse. You've been rob check your coffin. Check your
coffin. Did she You should be buried with like a like a oscar clutch
her don't cold dead hands. There were attempts to make Sunset Art into a
musical by both Stevensonheim and the team of Candor and Ebb, but Andrew Lloyd
Webber finally succeeded in nineteen ninety four. Unfortunately, in bringing it to Broadway
from London, he crossed Patty Lapone, who successfully sued him for replacing her
with Glenn Close, and used the settlement to install what she has named the
Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial Pool at her home in Connecticut. The production went on
to run for two years, but became one of the biggest financial failures in
Broadway history. Amazing, amazing. I love this story so much. Every
time it kind of resurfaces in the pop culture, it's another delight. Well
because also now that you know the plot of the film, huh a pool,
uh huh makes it extra special, extra special. The fact that she
used the money to build a pool and called it the Andreloid Webber Memorial Pool.
I think she has a fake body floating in it at all times.
Amazing. Can I tell you I saw this with Glenn Close. I did
not see the original run in the nineties. I saw the They redid it,
they revived it on Broadway like ten years years ago or something. I
saw that production of it, and she was so good. Yeah, like
she can't sing, well, that's terrible. She can sing, but she's
not like Broadway singing, so she's not as good as obviously Patti LuPone would
have been. But she does really fucking nail the part. And also by
the time I saw Glad close to it, she must have been like seventy,
which is way too old to play Norma Desmond, and I didn't care.
From what I hear too, her voice had really gotten thinner over the
years, so like I apparently in next to ninety four she was singing it
more strongly than she was. Yeah, a lot of BELTI songs in this
music will do. Do you know who's doing it currently? On the West
End? They've just revived to Oh it's on the west End? Is on
the west End? Do you think it'll come to Broadway? It might?
Guess the star is west End? Gosh, I don't know any British Oh
is it Emil Destontan? Nope, very clever. I wanted to be a
mal A stunted so badly. It is in fact, Nicole Shirt, singer
from the pussycat dolls. Loosen my buttons, Baby, I'm gonna throw up.
Wait, what how is it not a Melda's stunted because it's the Cole
shirt singer for the Look before. Oh Jesus Christy. That woman can sing.
She is a Lady Gaga pop star where she can sing the role.
That is not an issue that I can. I promise you. I have
no idea what her acting abilities are. And I mean, honestly, she
probably is about the right age. She's in her forties. I don't know
she's gonna be able to act it. No, I mean she's great when
she's I mean, she's a great singer. It's right in her name.
She's a shirt singer, so she can ever heard her song about shirts.
Stop trying to make shirt singer happen, Paul, It's not gonna happen.
But I did just see a picture of the boughs and I'm I do kind
of want to see it because I'm like this, there's camp happening here because
in the bows, you know, the end of the movie. Yeah,
to my understanding, the end of the of the of the show is essentially
the same when Nicole Schertzinger takes her bows. She's in like a black slip
dress and she is covered in blood, as is the guy playing Jack Gillis.
He's like a stud of a man and a pair of black box of
braes covered in blood. And I'm like, what, what? What?
What happened in this version? What are we doing that she shot him and
then rubbed herself on his body before tossing him in the pool? Did we
go nice spoiler for the movie. Yeah, yeah, what's going on here?
Maybe she gets shot by the cops. Maybe in that version, but
that's dumb. You need the final You need that final moment. It's so
iconic. Maybe she gets shot by cecil By to Miller, I want to
be shot with the camera, not shot with a gun. Maybe she gets
shot I had a hopper. We don't know. Sunset Boulevard has a ninety
eight percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a ninety five percent audience score too
low. I would say, let me let me interrupt you for right now.
Everyone, Erica is very angry and she's gonna say some harsh things.
I want you to note she doesn't mean it. She still loves you.
Erica. Go ahead, What the fuck is wrong with people? Are we
so dead inside that we can't recognize genius when we see it? I actually
agree with you. This deserves one hundred. This this deserves three hundred.
Yeah. Yeah, everyone is great. The whole thing is perfect. There's
not a I did the recap for this episode because hey, I already knew
the movie well and loved it, and so it was gonna be easier for
me. But also, let me tell you, there's no fucking fat to
trim. Wait. I was looking for things to cut so that this our
podcast episode would not be eight hundred hours long, right, and there's nothing
to cut. Yeah. I basically had to cut out like little things that
were incredible. Yeah, but like I was like, ah, I'm gonna
miss talking about that. And it's an hour and forty five minutes. It's
not a crazy long movie. No, it's fantastic. Yeah, Okay,
here the audience score here's what Here is what I'll say, And again,
ninety five is very high. So it may be to a modern audience member
is a little slow, stupid audience member. It's a stupid audience member,
just someone who doesn't give a shit about life or art or love or beauty
or whatever, anything like that or anything like that, or women or Hollywood
or movies, yeah, or comedy or art. Yeah. No, so
astrology, those people exist, I'm sure. Yeah, Monkeys, sinister German
butlers. Yeah, Yeah, I guess. I guess there's some people out
there who don't care about that. Yeah. I don't know. I want
to. I don't associate with them, but I'm sure they exist. Yeah,
And I'm sure they're beautiful soul somewhere whatever. Sure the critical score genuinely.
Who who the fuck are those two percent? Yeah? Who? I
want names? I don't want names. I'm gonna go it's on their grades.
Erica, When did you first see Sunset Boulevard? Oh? I saw
it in high school. I rented it. Here's my journey with some at
Boulevard. I love Billy Wilder. Love Billy Wilder's films. The first one
I ever saw was The Apartment, and I went on a little bit of
a tear, being like, who is this person who made this movie?
And then I watched them like It Hot obviously and this one, and like
all the big Billy Wilder movies and Sabrina and all of those, and then
at some point in the early two thousands they were doing like it was either
a Billy Wilder retrospective or a film Noir retrospective at the Film Forum downtown.
And so I got to see this on the big screen, and holy shit.
Yeah, when you see on the big screen, it's really something.
Also, like the difference between watching it by yourself and watching it with a
theater full of people who get it and are like laughing and like like really
enjoying it a lot with you. Yeah, like here real theater full of
queers, my people and like old people like exactly my people. And yeah,
ever since then, I've just been like I went from really liking the
movie yeah, to being like, oh, I get it. This movie
is genius. Yeah. Yeah, And I've seen it a few times since
probably so I've probably seen it a total of five times. Gotcha, how
about you? When did you first see this film? And we already know
the answer, but I'm gonna make I'm gonna make him say it anyway,
because I spent fucking years to get to this point and I'm gonna revel in
it. You're a wallow, Get a wallow? Yeah, when did you
first see this? This masterpiece? I saw it this week the first time,
because I frankly who I blame in my elder gays. When I was
in my twenties, I should have been sat down and forced to watch it,
and I wasn't. No, I'd never seen this. I had seen
large swaths of it before obviously, oh for sure, like through osmosis,
And it was one of those things where and I was wrong when I thought
this, But I was like, I bait, Like, am I gonna
sit down and watch this movie? I know what happens in this movie.
I know everything, Like I've seen all the iconic shots, Like how much
more could it have to offer? It's also parodied so often you feel like
you've you've seen it exactly so, and I'm here to tell you you haven't
seen all of it. It does have surprises. There is one shocking moment
in the film that shocking. I'm sure we're talking about the same one.
Yeah. Every time every time it comes up, I'm like, I can't
believe it's in here. I can't believe they got away with this. Yes
that my jaw dropped at that moment, and I loved it. I loved
it. I actually the next time we're showing the film forum, we have
to go together, because even just that last moment, I would pay twenty
five dollars for a ticket just to see the final thirty seconds of this movie
on the big screen in the crowded theater. Yeah, because when she spikes
the camera. Yeah, it's so terrifying. Yeah, yeah, Erica.
The tagline for Sunset Boulevard was a Hollywood story. Actually, I kind of
like that. That's awesome. That's perfect, and it's kind of good.
That's good. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah, all right,
shall I read you the iTunes synopsis? Sure thing? Okay. Glorious Swanson
as Norma Desmond, an aging silent film queen, and William Holden as the
struggling young screenwriter who is held in thrall by her madness created two of the
screen's most memorable characters in Sunset Boulevard, winner of three Academy Awards, director
Billy Wilder's powerful orchestration of the bizarre tale is a true cinematic classic. From
the unforgettable opening sequence a body found floating in a decayed mansion swimming pool,
through the inevitable unfolding of tragic destiny, Sunset Boulevard is the definitive statement on
the dark and desperate side of Hollywood. I mean, whoever wrote this,
this is one of the best iTunes synopsis, and this is someone who like
fulfilled the assignment. Then some like love the movie and is like, I'm
gonna use the voice of the film. I'm going to pretend that I'm Billy
Wilder and write a synopsis for my own movie. Now I do have a
confession, Erica, this is actually not the false synopsis on iTunes because there
is one more sentence to the synopsis, and in it they ruin the twists
that we are referring to. So I have, for the first time in
the years we have been doing this, I have not written down the full
synopsis. Oh and I have left it off because I'm like, on the
chance that there's someone listening who has not heard Sunset Boulevard, it was not
seen Sunset Bulevard, which I actually think there there are going to be people,
Yeah, yeah, if they're not going to watch it for they listen,
I want that twist. I want that twist to cause them to break
in their car and go to fall off the treadmill gym and be like,
I'm sorry, did they say what I think they just said, I'm sorry,
just take out there. Does that Sunset bule Ofvard? Ha ha,
Paul. Do you have an actual synopsis for Sunset Boulevard. Yeah, actual
synopsis for Sunset Bulevard is very short and sweet. It goes like this fifty
Funny thing is we were talking about the double feature of it all, and
I have recently seen all about Eve like in the last month, and then
also some Sunset Boulevard, and both movies are about suits. We're terrified of
being old, and one is forty and the other one is fit. Stick
around. We're gonna come right back, and we are going to We're going
to slowly and gradually like molasses, let Sunset Boulevard wash all over all of
us. That got gross, and we're back. We open very dramatically with
a tracking shot of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles at five am. We see
several police cars zooming down the streets, sirens blaring, and we hear our
narrator Joe gillis played by the luxurious William Holden. Luxurious Hell William Holden.
The costumes in this film are doing William Holden no favor, except for the
TuS and tails the tux and tails is fine. Even that's fine because he's
not a tux and tails guy. That's the thing. He's like. He's
like a rough in top mechanic. Yes, he should be a hot makey.
He actually does sort of play like a like a dirty mechanic type in
Picnic. Oh did you ever see Picnic? I haven't seen it. No,
Oh it's good, like you get William Holden in that film. We're
off topic, shocking. Joe explains the scene that we're witnessing in voiceover.
Right, this is the homicide division, although he says it homo side,
which sounds like a slur. It's my first note. The homicide cars like
the excuse me what, I'm sorry? Uh what I'm taking off my area
on the fight Bill Holden, get the vasiline. Oh no, no,
okay, it's just an old timey. It's just the way he pronounced Okay,
we're good, We're good. Yeah, he didn't say fag. Yeah.
The homo side Division. We're gonna have to talk later about what a
homo side division would be. A homo side division is. It's it's an
NFL division where it's just the gays all play football. It's a homo side
division. It's it's a dick Wolf show about a bunch of gay cops,
murders, homocide, life on the street, homo side downtown. Christopher Maloney
can still be in it. He's allowed absolutely, as can she of course,
of course, I mean, but like, yeah, homicide is excellent,
all right. Anyway, this is the murder cops. I'm just gonna
say, murder cops. And they're rushing to the scene of a crime in
one of those grand old mansions of yesteryear. It's in fact his murder,
Joe's murder. The man whose voice were hearing. Joe was found dead with
three bullet wounds in the swimming pool of this very famous old timey celebrities home
this morning. The camera cuts to inside the pool and we see Joe's body
floating at the top of the pool, and sardonically he says that poor dope
always wanted a swimming pool. Joe then takes us back six months to the
date this particular story started. You know, it's interesting he very much dissas
asociates from the corpse in the pool and the voiceover, which is it's just
interesting because then it goes back six months, and he goes to I as
opposed to that poor fucker. Yeah, that poor guy, that poor dude.
I think a couple of things are happening here. There's a chance that
some audience members might not connect the voiceover or the narrator to the guy in
the pool, so that there's like a twist. Yeah. But also I
think Joe is, on top of everything else, a storyteller. So even
when he is in his voiceover just giving us an explanation of his own life,
it's always in this like supercharged language, this hard bodied you know,
I write film noirs language. All of my notes, by the way,
later for random observations, are my favorite lines in this movie. I will
not be brief. Okay, get ready, get ready, You're just gonna
want to buy a script, And like, look at every other line that's
my is written. It's a poetic purple prose almost, and it really it
really works given the the miliu that we are in. I also love this
score. So this is another bubble butt of a score, and he says
top bubble butt score, just like in Psycho. It's by Franz Waxman.
Incidentally, Yeah, all right, so we dissolved into a more middle class
street in La and we zoom in on Joe's humble apartment building. He tells
us he's been out of work for six months and it's quickly running out of
money and options. He tells he's writing stories all the time. I would
like to say, William Holden, he cannot type, but he does make
it look like he is actually typing. He's hunting and pecking for real.
Two REPO men barge into his apartment and tell him they're there to repossess his
car. He coolly tells him he loaned it to a friend for a few
days and the car is in Palm Springs, and the men warn him that
the car better be there the next day by noon or there will be fireworks.
And Joe says, well, don't you say the cutest things? And
I was like, is Joe is Joe homo side? Is there a side
of Homo? Is he a the homicide squadh? Yeah? I don't think
they were trying to code him at all, but like that one line for
a good portion of the movie, maybe be like genuinely Joe's like like default
is flirt, That's just he knows he's charming. He's gonna try to charm
you. Joe gillis bisexual king, Yes, like Scarecrow from last week.
I love the line there will be fireworks because I'm like, are they going
to beat him up? Like? Is that the implications situation? Men do
that? I think it's just more you're gonna get sued by the government situation.
I don't know what kind of repomen you've been dealing with, but mine
are very fist forward. I mean, I borrow all my money from the
mafia, so they're very kind to me. It's way better than working with
And also you trade for sexual favors, that's so much safer. That's actually
like like a bonus. Oh no again, let me go put on my
next Jay. Let's let's play hide Salab. So as soon as the repoman
leave, Joe actually takes his car, which he had stashed away behind this
like shoeshine store on his street. And there's a great line here that I
love. He goes Rudy the shoeshine man. Never act about your finances.
You just look at your heel and know the score. That's what we're that's
the movie we're in. Yep, Rudy is also black representation. He does
not speak, but you do get to see him for a solid two seconds.
He's and he's named name. He's a character. He's someone who hides
Bill's car or Bill, I keep calling him Bill, who hides Joe's car
for him when when the repo men are coming around. I don't know what
more people want. Give this movie an NAACP award today, all right?
So he takes his car. He drives over to Paramount to see mister Sheldrake,
an executive who's always liked him. He plans to pitch him a story
and a hail Mary attempt to make the two hundred and ninety dollars he needs
to recoup his car. Did you do the math? I didn't. Two
hundred and ninety and today's money is about thirty five hundred dollars. Okay,
this it's not a small amount of money. Joe pitches a story about a
baseball player mixed up with the mob, and he says he's already submitted a
forty page treatment to the studio. Shel Drake calls in Betty Schaeffer played by
Nancy Olsen. She's what from now we would call the development department. In
the movie, she's from the reader's department. I'm like the boy they really
beefed up that title between nineteen fifty and like when I almost went into development,
I would have been great. Yeah. So she's from the development department
and he's shell Drake's like, hey, did you read this treatment from this
guy named Joe Gillis? And she walks into the office without seeing Joe behind
her, and she tells shel Drake that the script sucks. It's just a
rehash of old ideas. I wouldn't even bother to read it. And shell
Drake's like, oh, by the way, while you're here, miss Scheffer,
I'd like to introduce you to the writer, Joe Gillis. And so
she turns around. She's really embarrassed, but she doesn't apologize for her tough
assessment. She says, I know you, I know what you've written in
the past, and this is not your best work. Yeah, exactly.
So Joe, of course doesn't take it kindly fair. He's like, he's
like, okay, great, well why don't you go why don't you tell
me my mom died? Next? Like what else do you have for me?
And Betty like just apologizes again for her tough assessment and then leaves,
and Joe just begs Sheldrake for a job. He's like, I'll take any
job you have, I don't care what it is, and Sheldrake tells him,
look, there's just nothing available right now. So when Nancy Olsen walked
in as Betty Schaefer, I was immediately like, oh, I like her.
But then I couldn't figure out why I loved her so instantly. And
then I looked her up and I realized that she is the love interest in
The Abbsent Minded Professor, which is a movie I watched about I don't know
ten to twenty times with my sister when I was young, and I was
like, oh my god, I think I'm predisposed to love this woman because
she was I think her name is Betty Carlyle in that movie something Carlyle.
I can't remember the first name. Yeah, and I loved that movie.
I have not seen it since I was probably eight years old. We should
do it sometime, all right, So Joe heads over to quote unquote Headquarters
also known as Schwab's Drugstore, which is a Hollywood hangout for writers and actors.
He calls a bunch of people asking for jobs. He says, I
talked to a couple of yes minute metro to me. They said no.
That such a good line. He locates his agent playing golf at a bel
Air country club Erica. If we have an agent on screen and they're not
playing golf, would the world end? It is such movie language for it
is an agent. Yeah, he does nothing. They play golf. Joe
asks his agent for the three hundred dollars loan, and the agent tells him
to lean into being poor. This could finally make him a great writer.
What a dick, What a day? I love, But it's so Hollywood.
It's so like, hey, now you're really hungry. This is gonna
make you. This is gonna make you great. Yeah, come on,
kid, you gotta suffer, Oh Jesus. And Joe's like, I write
movies about baseball players. Yeah, like I don't need to suffer. Hey,
Joe's fine being middle Like he's not trying to be the next Proost.
He's not trying to be a great writer. He just wants to write like
popcorn movies that people will watch and immediately forget about. And that is his
entire ambition and he's cool with it. So defeated, Joe drives down Sunset
on his way home, he starts to seriously consider moving back to Dayton,
Ohio, where he came from. There's a very funny moment here where in
its voiceover, and he's like imagining the men like making fun of him when
he goes back to Ohio, and he's like, why don't you try making
it in Hollywood if you're such a big And then he interrupts himself and he
goes, oh oh, And it's because his pity party is interrupted by the
two REPO men across the street, so he sees them in real time and
he's like, ohh. And then the camera zooms forward and we see the
REPO men across the street and they see Joe, and then a chase he
tries to outrun them. Basically, he speeds down Sunset, hoping to get
away, but he blows one of his tires out and then makes a split
second decision to pull into a driveway in one of the old Rundown mansions on
Sunset Boulevard. The REPO men don't see him turn, and they speed right
past him on the property of the house he's on he sees a four car
garage, so he hides his car in it, and the only other car
in the garage is an old fashioned nineteen twenty nine. I had to look
it up or I'd never heard of this car before they mentioned the name in
the movie. It's an Isada fred SKINI. It's an Italian car. They
only made like four hundred of these. Ah, it is an ultimate collector's
item car. I can't even begin to think what it was worth in nineteen
fifty. Yeah, when like this film was made, all right. He
starts to approach this mansion. He's talking about it in voiceover again, very
purple prose. He talks about it being like miss Havisham wants beautiful but well
pasted its prime. He's about to leave when here's a woman's voice call out
from the balcony. You there, You keep me waiting. She's mistaken him
for someone Else's annoyed that it took him so long to get to get there.
She's obscured behind a screen. He can't get a clear look at her,
but just then a butler emerges from the house, dressed in full butler
regalia. Never has a butler buttled so hard I mean English movie times ten.
Yeah, yeah, and they introduced himself. His name is Max.
He's played by Eric von Stroheim, famous film director. Yeah, not an
actor. How good is he in this movie? Great? Got an oscar?
Nod. It's like if like Steven Spielberg made a movie today and cast
George Lucas to play a button and then George Lucas was good, and George
Lucas was fucking amazing. He has a slight German accent. I think that's
not slight. Nothing I like more than a sinister German butler perfect. So
Max impatiently tells Joe that he's not properly dressed for the occasion. What occasion?
What is going on? I cannot believe that. At no point in
this movie did Joe think, Man, do I have a great idea for
a screenplayer? You're right, Joe sucks. Go back to d Hi,
Joe in my in my head. The aftermath of this movie is Betty Schaeffer
winning an Oscar for the screenplay of Sunset. So he doesn't know what else
to do. Joe just kind of goes with the flow, right, He
walks right in. He tries to explain who he is to Max, but
the woman upstairs keeps calling for him, and Max insists that Joe must not
keep her way to any longer. Amused, Joe's like, fine, find
whatever, what else am I doing today? He starts to go up the
stairs and the smile on his face is wiped clean erica. When Max says,
if you need help, physic coffin that called me? I'm sorry what
coffin? Oh shit? This got real? Yeah? Yeah, do we
need to call the homo side squad? Joe's curiosity gets the better of him.
Though curiosity killed the cat and it's gonna kill Joe Gillis too. Yeah,
he keeps heading towards the woman who's calling for him. The woman is
the once great and now totally fucking insane Norma Desmond played by Glorious Wantson played
by Academy Award winner In My Brain Glorious Wanson, Now, I have a
question for you. Do you think that this is a serious question? I
know sometimes I say that and I can ridiculous. Only with you, do
I have to be like, no, it's for real. Though this is
a serious question. I do not need a fart joke. Yeah. Yeah,
Do you think that she becomes more mad in the course of the movie,
or does she just does she having episodes or she pops in and out,
because I felt like in the movie there are times she's obviously seventy five
percent of the way there, no matter what. Yeah, but like it
does feel like there are ebbs and flows, and there are times in the
movie where it really does almost feel like you can see like the real person
for a moment, like an actual genuine like I think she genuinely likes Joe,
oh for sure, And like, I don't know, what do you
think I think she's crazy? Do you just think she's she's already crazy?
Yeah, The difference is she doesn't she has control. She loses control throughout
the film, but like for now, she has control, and she's she's
functional. But no, no, no, this you're talking about someone who
has and I'm not exaggerating. If you watch the movie, over a hundred
pictures of herself in her own house. So wait, is that weird?
I've been meaning to talk to you about this room, about the shrine.
Yeah, so look, I get I get the face shots. It's the
it's the ab shots. It's the close ups of all your of your abs,
in this room because I don't know how to tell you this this those
are not photography worthy as this line, the shrine is writing a check that
your abs are not cashing. Perhaps thighs. I would go with another body
part if we're gonna do this. Yeah, I do have a nice set
of pins. But yeah no, Like, if you like, all the
clues are there because it's the movie, will pass it off. Is like
my not mild but like eccentricity for a while. But if this is not
eccentricity, if you really think about it, you talk about a woman who
never leaves the house. His only friend is her butler, who spends her
days writing like returns to fan letters and like is obsessed with herself in a
truly crazy way. What a queen? What a queen? So Norma shows
Joe and incredibly ornate Gothic style bedroom. That bed, which is a boat,
will make me laugh every time I watch this movie. I don't even
know what kind of boat that is. It looks like a Viking pilot.
It's like a miniatureized like worship. Yes, it's insane. So she shows
Joe into her like bedroom, her weird gothic bedroom, and she she orders
a satin lined coffin. You see a body lying like a corpse, lying
like on she put I put him on the massage table next to the fire
that he loves so much, used to love poking at the flames. And
at first you think, oh, this is a child, like oh no,
no, like this is terrible. There's a dead child in this room.
And then she lifts the blanket covering the corpse. And this is a
jump scare, I think, because the first time I saw the movie,
I jumped. A chimpanzee's arm falls out like a big, hairy chimpanzee arm,
and Joe physically recoils. He's like, what the fuck am I looking
at? Yeah, So it turns out she thinks he is the undertaker for
her chimpanzee friend who has recently died, and she orders a very special coffin
for him. I wanted to be lined with satin in a festive color,
pink or blue or maybe red, bright, flaming red. Let's make it
gay. Let's make it gay. Joe finally like snaps out of it.
He clears up the confusion. He tells Norma he is not the animal undertaker.
He's just some guy who pulled into her driveway because it's he blew out
a tire on the road. Norma like is like, oh, then leave.
She tells him to leave immediately, but then he on his way out
recognizes her. He's like, wait a minute, I know who you are.
Your Norma doesmond you used to be big and Norma the first truly great
normal line in the movie. She turns to him and she goes, I
am big. It's the pictures that got small. She's not wrong. Holy
shit, this this is the moment you have to fall in love with this
movie and this performance. Because the first time you see the movie, did
you have a moment where you're like, Okay, this performance is not working.
Because that's that was my reaction the first time I saw it, where
I was like, like, the first five minutes, my brain couldn't click
into what she was doing. Uh huh, And I was like, Okay,
this is terrible. I think huh. And then once my brain clicks
in and I think, it's this line that did it for me. Yeah,
because I think that's when you realize she's not just like eccentric and rich,
she's crazy. Yeah that I was like, oh, actually I'm wrong.
And this is one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. It's so
strong and bold that it genuinely teeters on the edge of being too much.
It blows the up everyone else off the screen. You don't remember anybody else.
I did not have that moment, I think partially because I just simply
had seen so many clips of the movie that I knew what to expect,
and I knew what was coming, even though I hadn't seen the entire arc
of the film. But I but you're right, it is. It is
a balancing act because it could got It could have gone mommy, dearist in
a second. Yes, it is just the side of mommy. That's a
great way to put it. Yeah. So then she starts to rant to
Joe about the death of art in Hollywood and how they, you know,
quote unquote, they ruined the pictures with their inane words. Words words.
We didn't need words back when I, when I was a performer, we
had faces. She gets especially irate when Joe tells her he's a writer.
Joe, what are you doing? Come on, man, come on,
man, use your head. You tell her you're a fucking cinematographer. Love
that and She's like, get out of here, get out of my house,
and so he's like, gladly, enjoy your life, lady. Yeah.
He's about to make his hasty exit when Norma stops him and says,
wait a minute, join me in the living room. I want to show
you. Joe looks all around this enormous room. It's decorated as though it's
an eighteen Erica writes here, it's decorated as though in eighteenth century Pope lives
there. Correct ah, And then he mutters intimate. He's also creeped out
by the pipe organ that plays music all on its own, because the wind
comes in from the yard and makes the whole thing wheeze out these discordant mones.
Is that not the most interesting florish you've ever seen in a movie?
I was like, who thought of that? Yeah, we can make this
organ just make sounds, so the whole thing becomes more haunted and bizarre.
It's truly Phantom of the Opera in here. Yeah, Norma shows Joe hurt.
We're gonna call it a script. It's more of a tomb. It's
just a page deal. In pages and pages of this of the movie she
has written called Salome, or we would say Salame the way people pronounce things.
I'm like, I mean, she's probably more right than we are.
Really into hard o's and second syllables. It's Salome committed a homo side.
She of course will star in it, and she will deign to let cecil
b demil direct. Joe is doing everything he can just not to laugh at
her face. Yeah, like, you're gonna star as Salame who was famously
sixteen? Who else when? Yeah? Like, who else is gonna play
her? Obviously it's gonna be me, Norma. She's a few pages of
Joe, she demands it. He reads them and offers him a drink.
He decides to stay more just to get the drink. Yeah, He's like,
ooh a drink, Yeah, yes, please. So he reads her
terrible script. In his voiceover, he comments about her childish handwriting. While
he's doing this, By the way, Max is there, and he like
closes the curtains and brings a lamp over and puts it right next to Joe
so you can read better. So Max is always around, Yeah, constantly
making things better for Norma. Whatever Normal wants, Max is facilitating, uh
huh. Yeah, So Joe hatches a plan. He tells her her script
is very good, but it could be truly great with some trimming and reorganizing.
And she says, I won't have it butchered, ha ha ha.
But she takes the bait. She offers him the job on the spot to
be the script doctor. Essentially, he warns you he's expensive five hundred dollars
a week. She says, oh, don't worry about money. She also
insists that he's stay overnight in the apartment above the girg a of the garage.
You were gonna say, like her, above the garage the garage,
so he can get started first thing in the morning. Joe is like,
great, absolutely, I'll stay, but he does put a little act like
oh no, no, no, oh no, no, normous, like
I won't hear of it. You'll stay here, Yes, this is the
most important thing in your life right now. So Max shows Joe to his
room and tells him he made it up for Joe this afternoon, almost like
he knew he'd be staying. Joe starts to ask how the hell Max knew
he was gonna stay, But he decides the better of it. He's like,
okay, you know what I'm just gonna let this ride. I'm not
gonna look a gift tour in the mouth. Ha ha. Max then tells
Joe how Madame was the greatest star of them all. In her heyday,
Norma received seventeen thousand fan letters a week, and a maharaja from India flew
all the way to California just to beg for one of her silk stockings.
In the end, he strangled himself with it. Holy shit. So,
after Max leaves, Joe looks out of the window at the crumbling estate and
wonders how many famous faces of yesterdayear had played tennis on the now defunct court
or swam in the now empty pool. He sees Max and Norma. She
is now dressed in all black like with like a long black veil, and
she's holding a large candelabray more gothic. And she sees them exiting the house
and bury the chickeney yard. She just say, when she thinks he's the
animal handler, is it legal to bury him in the yard? I don't
care. I don't care. So she is at least somewhat aware that maybe
there might be zoning regulations. So the two of them bury it with great
dignity. The next morning, Joe awakens to find someone has gaunt his apartment,
brought all of his things and laid them neatly out in the room that
he was sleeping in without waking him up. Creepy, creepy. There are
shades of misery in the setup. Are this movie like walks of misery?
Could run? He runs into the house. He confronts Max about breaking into
his apartment. Max is very busy, like playing the playing the organ in
the living room. Norma interrupts his yelling and makes it clear that Joe needs
to stay at her house if he wants to keep this job. She also
casually tells him that she paid the three months rent that he owed on his
apartment and that brings job short, right, He goes, wait a minute,
you paid the rent, so I'm he's out of debt. Now what
sells the car? But like, okay, wait, that's weird. In
the end, he agrees to stay for a week or two until the job
is done. Okay, I do have one question about the movie that I
can't quite parse. Yeah, does she have money or not? Oh?
Yeah, okay, so why is the house so run down? It's because
she never leaves the house. Yeah, I think so, because Max is
just one man, and so he can maintain like the bedroom, the living
room. Why don't they have a gardener and a pool person and blah blah
blah. I don't know. Frankly, there's no real explanation for that except
that they're both they're both crazy. Yes, slight spoiler, Max is also
crazy. Yeah, they're in their fantasy world. They're not paying attention to
anything else. Okay, because I was, I wasn't sure. I thought
at first that she was just stringing him like or that she genuinely thought she
had money, but she didn't. I realized she strinks him a long later
to keep him there, so she doesn't actually give him a lot of money
because she doesn't want him to leave. But like I was a little confused
to what the state was meant to be her. Yeah, no, she
I think she's as rich as she claims to be because she talks about owning
oil fields. Oh that's right, Shit has oil rigs in Baker's field or
whatever. And I'm like, oh, so she's because it would make some
sense if this is all still movie money. She's hanging on too, I'm
like, this had to have run out thirty like it's been thirty years since
she made a movie. But no, she also owns oil and three blocks
downtown that she lets rent on. So no, no, she is genuinely
like loaded loaded. Okay, so we watched the weeks pass by. Joe
finds he's unable to complete the script. It's so terrible that he cannot adequately
fix it, particularly because Norma is always looking over his shoulder and refusing to
cut scenes. No, that's very important. You can't take that out.
That's insane. We need that they want to see me, they want to
see my face, that people miss me. Right. At one point in
the scene, she like he looks over at her and she's just signing like
autographs and signing like headshots for different people who sent her letters. So she's
still getting letters every week. So the movie kind of doesn't really get into
the timeline very much. We know this all unfolds over the course of six
months, but I think at this point we're now at least a month or
two in. So we flash forward to a month or two in and Joe
is starting to get real like cabin fever. So he and Norma like never
leave the house. And for entertainment, they have quote unquote movie nights in
her private screening room, which I guess in nineteen fifty would have been the
absolute biggest flex you could have. So they shows the two of them sitting
down. She's in her fineness, she dresses in like a ball gown to
watch a fucking movie. And then the movie turns on and we see that
it's one of hers. Yeah, she's completely enraptured by her own image Norma.
Not I'm sure. I'm sure Wanson was very normal. Yeah, she
just stares at herself and like she can't stop looking at herself. And Joe's
watching her watch herself, and he's like mildly horrified by by what he's seeing.
And at one point she gets so worked up that she stands up as
she declares that I will be back on the screen again where I belong,
And Joe's like, can we watch literally anything else the Wizard of Oz?
Have you seen snow White? Can we try watching snow White? Any literally
anything but another one of your fucking movies. Her other form of entertainment is
having her old friends over for a bridge game. And this is my favorite
scene in the movie, I think, and we have HB. Warner,
Anna Nilsen, and the Great Buster Keaton all playing themselves. Joe calls them
all the waxworks, and this is where we find out that Joe has yet
to be paid by Norma for all of his work on the script. He's
staying there for free, and obviously she's like feeding him and giving him whatever
he wants, but he's not getting any money from her. And the only
money he has gotten so far is half of her jackpot winnings from one of
these bridge games, and the total was seventy cents. Not a wind fall.
Not a windfall, not the three hundred and ninety he needs just to
get his car back. The REPO men show up. They've tracked him down
and they are gonna tow his car away. So Joe runs up to Norma.
She's in the middle of the bridge game. He's like, I have
to speak with you right away. She dismisses him. She says, you
making me lose track of the cards. Go away, go away, go
away. Look at I get that he's in a crisis, but it is
rude to interrupt someone who's trying to keep track of the card game, I
will say that. So Joe rushes out to the balcony and he watches as
his car gets towed. I love that, Like he's basically in full view
of the REPO man, who I guess don't really care about him. They
have the car now, so they're over it. Norma comes out and he's
like, well, I lost my car because you wouldn't pay me the money
that you owe me, basically, and she goes, already you talking about
we don't need two cars, we have the other one. You're fine,
you can use my car. I have a theory, it's not verified in
the movie. I think she tracked down the repomen. She knows full well
how important this is, and she's just playing the flighty fool here. She's
still super in control and she's like, don't bother me, I'm playing my
game. Yeah. And again, I don't know why Joe doesn't just like
pick her up and shake her and be like pay me what you owe me
now, or I'll murder Buster Keaton. But no, not you, Buster,
take Anna Nielsen. No one remembers her. I think it's it's something
he is self loathing, Like we haven't talked about this like he is depressed.
He is depressed, and he like you talked about him, not like
he's not trying to write a you know, the next Great American film or
anything like that. But I think I think there is something in the character
that maybe he does want to but he never actually tries. Yeah, Like
like like, okay, Joe, you have friends that you could sleep from
their couch or down your luck, maybe go pick up a shift at the
local diner, like get a job, make some money, and get away
from this this herodin that you that you're just staying with because it's easy,
because you're too afraid to like go do the hard thing. Yeah, And
there's something about that in the character, which I think is very well performed
because it's subtextual agreed, agreed, the because the voiceover dialogue is so funny,
you could miss the like he hates himself. Yeah. So the last
line of that last scene was Norma's like, don't worry, we can use
my car. She's now she's not saying you, She's saying wee. She's
weeing them both wee wee wee. We're a couple. Yeah, we're one
item. So cut straight to Joe and Norma being chauffed around Mulholland by Max
in her antique car. The car is open, right, It's like it's
like a model Tea or whatever. I don't even I mean it isn't it's
a fancier than that, but that's the like if you want any image,
Yeah, it's like a model t it's open and like the chauffeur is its
own separate compartment. So it's meant for like a very wealthy like aristocrat to
be chaffed around in this car in the f twenties. The interior is lined
in leopard prints like that clearly was done specifically just for Norma. And I'm
like, it's a Joe. Someone like Joe who's very like meat and potatoes
and like has a lot of pride, must be like fucking mortified to be
seen in this car. So Norma decides she wants to dress Joe up to
match her grandeur. And he's like, nope, I don't need clothes,
leave me alone, Norma, And she's like, no, nonsense, you
need new shirts. And I'm so tired of seeing you in the same jacket
all the time. So she orders Max to take them to the best men's
clothing shop in town, and despite Joe's protestations, Norma buys him a whole
new wardrobe, including a tuxedo in tails. And he's like, tails,
no one has worn tails in a decade. What are you doing And she's
like, nonsense, you need it for the New Year's Eve party. So
he's starting to obviously feel really uneasy about this whole thing he has somehow gotten
himself into. Yeah, of course, right in his moment of like highest
self loathing, some perfectly cast you mean John Waters proto Oh my god,
it's John Waters, Like this unbelievably perfectly cast man playing this greasy salesman approaches
Joe with a couple of options for overcoats and he's like, well, you
could take the camel hair, which is very nice, but I've also got
this vicuna as well, and he's like it's much softer than than the camel
hair, and Joe's like, camel hair is fine, and he leans into
him and then like you see a glint from his gold tooth as he's saying
this, and he's like, well, as long as the lady is paying
for it, salacious wink, why not take the vacuna? Yeah, take
the vacuna and Joe, I mean Joe's credit, he doesn't throw him out
the window. What do you think taking the vacuna means, Ah, that's
a code for something, that's code. Yeah, well he's it's like buying.
Why would you buy the milk and you can get the cow for free?
Like it's the opposite of that. He's like, the vicuna comes with
perse. Take the va the vicuna. She'll be happier if you take the
vacuna. Yeah, you could take the camel, but the camel really doesn't
do very much for you. Take the vacuna. Yeah, listen to the
homo side and take the vacuna. We cut to the last week in December.
La is experiencing torrential rain. Joe is forced to move into the main
house because the roof and his garage caves in and into normous. Oh my
god, husband sweet, I wrote it that way. That's not what they
call it in the movie, but that's what it is. But that's what
it is. You're not wrong. That is accurate. That is the husband's
sweet where all of her ex husbands have slept in the past, all three
of them. Yep, and now Joe and now Joe. He notices that
there are any locks or even doorknobs at any of the doors, and Max
sombrely explains that Madam has episodes of melancholy and has attempted suicide in the past.
Her doctor suggested they remove all locks, hide all sharp objects, and
have the guest turned off in Norma's room. What what this is a haunted
house? This is literally a haunted Joe asks if the depression stems for her
career being over, and posits that the fan letters she receives every week ought
to cheer her up, and Max tells Joe and his German accent that perhaps
he should look at the postmark on those letters, and we realize that Max
is writing dozens of letters a week to Norma. How many different handwritings do
is Max capable of or is Norma too far gone to even notice? They're
all in Max's I think he knows three and he does like one for a
teenage girl, one for a love sick twenty year old man, and one
for like an old housewife. Like those are the three people who write,
quote unquote write to Norma every week. We jumped to one week later,
we see Joe walking down the stairs in his tuxedo that Norma bought him for
the New Year's Eve party that she's throwing right In voiceover, he warns us
that this is the he finally understood Norma's feelings toward him, and he's now
actually kind of embarrassed that it took him this long to figure her out.
Good he should be. This is not a subtle woman. He gets downstairs
to the ballroom, he finds it ornately decorated with flowers, a sum shoous
banquet. I don't know if you notice. There's like a cake that's there
that can feed one hundred people. On this table. There's also this four
piece orchestra. They're already there set up. They're playing the tango. Norma
dances over to him and she says, you look divine and he's like thanks,
cool, cool, cool cool, And they start to tangle. She's
like, would you like to dance to dance? I have this floor specially
made for Valentino to dance on. I have a theory that Rudolph Valentino is
not dead. He is hiding from Norma. She started to build things for
Valentino and he's like, h uh uh huh, Nope, I know where
this is headed. I'm not dying in a swimming pool. I'm not dummy.
Ha VALENTI. You know he's in the witness protection program. She is
looking way too closely at my cod piece. I am out of here.
He did not take the vacuna. He did not. Yeah, or he's
buried in the yardwhere or she he's underneath that chimp. He didn't die from
some mysterious illness. He fucking she would. She murdered him. He died
from from chimp pops. So he's she's like, dance with me, and
he's like not on the same floor as Valentino, and she's like shut up
and dance very cute. Like Joe is still being friendly to Norma. I
think I get the impression that he kind of likes her, Like we've glossed
her over a couple of moments, but there are moments where like it seems
like they genuinely like each other, like like she's a kooky old lady.
And if you don't see the darkness behind it, yeah, and you're someone
who loves movies and you're like, oh I do kind of like this person
was a was my Forebear. Yeah right, So like I get this like
very genuine affection for her he has and and I think a genuine affection that
she has for him. Yeah, that there is a reality to this relationship,
even amidst all of this gothic horror, like the fact that she comes
downstairs and she's dancing alone on the dance floor, which is like Salame,
right, Salame dances and dances the Seven Veils and gets to like demand the
head of John the Baptist on a plate. Yeah right, Like that's kind
of the imagery that we're condraing. She has lots of like floating shawls on
her or whatever, those things, Like, yeah, I feel like that's
intentional. I was trying to think of like because okay, it's nineteen fifty.
She was famous in the twenties. That's only thirty years past, So
like what who would be like an equivalent to a Norma Desmond to us,
like someone who was very famous in the eighties, right, and then kind
of disappeared. And then for some reason my brain went to like Steve Gutenberg.
He didn't disappear. He's still around, but like he's not as famous
as he was in the nineteen eighties, and I was like, what if
you, like, like, what if it was someone as charming as Steve
Guttenberg, you would probably go in pretty deep before you realize, oh no,
I'm in trouble. Yeah, has not lost a step in his charisma?
Yes, you put all points on charisma, and he is. He's
rolling natural twenty is. Imagine if Steve Gutenberg was like, come live with
me and hang out with me and let me write the script, you would
jump at the opportunity. I'd be like, I'm living. Like what if
this was Deborah Winger? You'd be like, yes, Deborah Winger, I
will live in your house and hang out with you, and like yeah,
and then like your you're four months in? Yes, yes, you're four
months in. And then Deborah Winger is like staring at you on your sleep
like like oh no, no, Steve. Steve Gutenberg is having like a
bust of you made out of Margarine and you're like why why? So they
start to tango and then like he's he's kind of like pulling back from her,
and she's like what's wrong with you? And he's like, your veil
is tickling my face. It's very cute, right, and she rips it
off her head the veil and throws to the ground, and we get a
close up of this thing, and you see that what she has ripped off
her head and tossed without a second thought is a diamond clasp that is probably
worth a super yacht. Yeah, like literal like hundreds of thousands of dollars
in diamonds. She doesn't even think about it, she just tosses it away.
Yeah, And he kind of looks at it. He looks at her,
and he's like okay. Then they keep dancing and she starts to get
very very close to him. She's like nuzzling up to his chest. Yeah,
and he's he's into it for a minute, and then he's kind of
just getting uncomfortable with it because she's getting a little too close. And he
goes, hey, one of the other guests arriving. It's after ten o'clock
already, and she goes there are no other guests. Tonight is just for
the two of us, and he's like, oh, sorry, what uh
oh excuse me, Steve Gutenberg. Yeah, I want to read you my
note from this scene. Because this entire scene, Max is like behind the
bar with all the food, like serving food, and I just wrote what
exactly is Max's deal? This is what I was like, Okay, I
could kind of Okay, she has a butler, right like the beginning,
she has a butler whatever she was famous. She has a butler, he
says, a butler. She has a butler, She has a but What
the fuck is going on with the fucking butler? Okay, just FYI just
put in that, Yes, we are going to discuss the butler. There
will be an answer to that question. After an hour or two of just
the two of them. Joe's discomfort has n't wanting to crawl out of his
skin. Norma is expounding upon her plans for the future after they do this
film, They're gonna make another film, and you're gonna buy him a boat.
Blah blah blah blah. I'll let him live in her house in Malibu.
Yes, Joe can't take it any longer. He blows up at Norma.
He says, you can't take me for granted, and she's like,
what the fuck are you talking about? Obviously I could take you for granted.
You're a whore. We're deeply in love, Joe, can't you tell?
He tries to tell her he's all wrong for her. He should be
with someone his own age, and norma that gets her dander right. Oh,
fuck me, there's the wrong thing to say, because who who are
you in love with? Probably some car hop or dress extra. I love
that line so much, She says it with so much menace. Yeah,
some carup or dress extra, some low class peasant woman. Ha ha.
She slaps Joe and she heads upstairs to her room, and Joe grabs his
fancy new ve Acuna coat and walks out into the rainy night, looking for
carefree people his own age. Yes, this is the moment. He's like
literally out in the rain and he's like, what am I doing? He's
hitchhiking. Yeah, He's like, I gotta get the fuck out of here.
I gotta be with people my own age. It's New Year's Eve.
Yeah, Like Joe is thirty, rights, he's young ish. It's forty
five. I know, poor William Holden. The funny thing is is like
Gloria Swanson is like, is a really young looking fifty. She does not
look fifty at all, And he's a pretty old looking thirty. He literally
is thirty when he made this movie, or twenty nine even I don't even
think he was thirty. But they look the same age in a lot of
the scenes. Yeah, the whole like you're too old for me. I'm
like, like, that's not the problem. Yeah, which difference is not
the problem. Definitely, you don't look twenty years apart in age at all.
So he hitchhikes to his friend Artie Green's apartment. He's mentioned Arty a
few times throughout the film as this friend of his who's always good for like,
you know, lending him a hand and helping him out right, good
guy. Artie is played by Jack Webb. He has very two, very
short scenes in the movie. He's great, he really probables. So Artie's
throwing this loud, crowded, incredibly fun New Year's Eve parties. He is
reminded you of the party of Breakast the Tiffany. Yes, yeah, I
was immediately. This is one of those parties I think about when I think
about, like, what fictional movie party would I want to go to?
This is one of them. Like people around a piano, singing buttons and
both yes, please, everyone's dancing. There's like shoulder to shoulder. It's
so crowded, it's like it's a fucking COVID nightmare, but I don't care.
So everyone's also dressed normally for nineteen fifty. No one's dressed up even
like it's all kind of casual. They none of them have taken the vakuna.
This is the cool kids. These are the hipsters, right. So
Joe sticks out like a sore thumb because he's wearing the the cuna coat and
like, like literally, at one point, Alreadie touches it. He's like,
is this mink? What are you wearing? And he's wearing his full
like tuxedo and tails from like the nineteen twenties underneath it. Right, So
Artie is introducing him around, and this is the line already goes everybody,
everybody, This is Joe gillis, well known Hollywood screenwriter, Uranium Smuggler and
Black Dahlia suspect. And it's very cute, and I'm like, Okay,
I know exactly who Artie is and I fucking love him. Yeah, So
Altie asks, where have you been the last few months you've disappeared? Are
you a spy? Now? He genuinely because it makes sense. Joe shows
up looking like James Bond and He's like, don't tell us you're working for
the government. Joe skillfully avoids talking about norma. He's like, I've been
working, don't worry about it. He asks Arti if he can crash on
his couch for the next couple of weeks. I need a place to stay.
Start trying to get out, and Artie's like, is the government coming
going to come after us? Artie, of course, is like, absolutely,
no problem. He's like, let me run it by my girlfriend first.
So he introduces Joe to his girlfriend. She turns around. It's Betty
Schaeffer, the development executive of all the gin joints in all the world.
Betty pulls Joe aside. She tells him she's been reading his older work.
She says, I felt bad about like cutting you off the knees. I
didn't mean to like, So I just went back some of your older stuff
and I found something I really liked. And he's like, oh, you
like that story. She's like, I like six pages of it. That's
such a good I like Betty so much. I love Betty and I love
this performance. I think she's so plucky, which I hope that doesn't sound
condescending about a female character, but like it's so like lowest Lane energy.
Yeah, well I think that's intentional. Right. Yeah, she's young,
and she's ambitious and hungry, and she's got wide eyes about Hollywood. Still,
she is the opposite of Norman Testament. She's also the opposite of Joe.
Joe is over it and cynical and angry and like she's who he was
years ago. Yeah. So she says she likes the six pages in this
short story. It's about a school teacher, and she's like, look,
why don't the two of us work together. We can flesh it out,
we can make it a script. They start to like jokingly flirt. Now
I want to explain to you what my thought process was in this scene.
Okay, because this is such a stupid choice. You are now flirting with
the girlfriend of your best friend who just told you you could sleep on his
couch. But he's not really like, it's not flirting flirting. They're having
fun. Well exactly, Erica, it's not flirting flirting, And I'm like,
is he gay? Like that? That's what it read like to me.
It read like to me, and you doing some stupid bit together.
Yeah, Because I was like why Because they start to basically do like a
melodramatic like almost like a gone with the Wind esque kind of scene together,
and they're coming up with these lines off their head and it's very charming.
They're good writing partners, and they hear each other, and like he starts
to lean in and almost like sniff her neck and their lips touching him,
Like, what are you doing? This only makes sense if you are literally
no threat to Arty and already on some level knows that, and like this
is just you making a friend, And like, for about twenty minutes in
the movie, I'm like, maybe maybe this is one of those situations where
like he's like under the cover's gig. The movie will completely blow that up
later, but like, for this time, that's me like watching the movie
being like, you're an idiot. Maybe back then, too, it's a
little more allowable. Maybe people didn't read so much into things they both knew
they were joking. Yeah, it's not like that serious. If my husband
walked in on me doing that with another man, there would be blood on
the floor. I don't know, but I think I think I would get
right away that this was all jokey jokies also, but it's not that it
isn't isn't it isn't it is also it was William Holden, right, I'd
be like no, So Joe, he now has a place to stay.
He rushes out into the party. He calls Max. There's an moment earlier
where these two girls are on the phone. This is a movie that is
chockhood of excellent performances, and these two extras, who I'm sure are lovely,
were lovely, lovely people. They are going for it. Yeah,
they are playing for the cheap seats on the left or on the foot.
It is. It sticks out like a sore thumb of like whose daughters were
you? So he gets to the phone. He calls Max and tells Max
to pack up his things. I'm sorry, does Max work for you?
Excuse me? Max lets him know that he can't do it right now,
Norma took Joe's razor and she cut her wrists. The doctor's there with her
now, and Joe immediately leaves the party and rushes back to Norma's side.
Right, So, like there's an immediate like we were talking about, like
there's a genuine affection. It doesn't want to hurt Norma. He doesn't want
bad things for Norma, but like he's starting to get the impression that this
is maybe a weird situation and he wants to get out of it. Unfortunately,
like like every woman in an SVU episode, he doesn't follow his own
instance. He goes into her bed. She has like the bandes on her
wrists, she's covering her face. Oh my god, I can't see me
like this. He chastises her for doing something so drastic over and nobody like
him, and she just weeps and says she'll do it again as soon as
she gets the chance. Oh girl, oh girl, your manipulations are out
front. Yeah, downstairs the band, which is still playing. At one
point, Joe comes in and Max is like, don't run up the stairs.
The band can't know what happened, So what does this band think is
going on? The band has just been told to play, and they will
play until they're told to stop. They showed up. A woman danced by
herself for thirty minutes. A man showed up. A much younger man showed
up. The two of them danced uncomfortably. She started talking and talking and
talking. He finally blew up at her left the house. She went upstairs
now he's back. They've been playing the entire time after their their blow up.
Yeah, and now they're playing odd Lang Syne because it's been playing I'm
like, holy, they've just been playing What's New Pussycat over and over again.
They're doing the John Lady like I would. I would love to have
a chat with the fellows in that band to be like, has she booked
you before? What else have you seen in this? Did you know what
you were getting into when you said yes to this? Max? At least
give you a five minute break and some cake? Did she threaten you with
homo side? Ha ha ha? So he sits down and he looks at
his hands, and then he stands up and he walks over to Norma and
he very gently removes her hands from her face. She's kind of covering her
face with her hands, and he looks at her and he says, Happy
New Year, Norma, and she says, happy New Year, Darling,
and she reaches up and she grabs his lapels and she pulls him down and
they kiss, and he takes the vacuna. So now he's in. Yeah,
it's the path of least resistance and he does not want this lady's death
on his hands. Yep. So he's like, you know what, fine,
Fine, there are worse lives. You're right, he does care for
her, Yes, that's that happy New Year is so sweet, even at
the very end, and we'll get to it. He's not angry at her,
he's just done. And also I think on some level he knows he's
hurting her by lying, by like continuing to like let her live in this
delusion. Although he is not the biggest sinner on not oh no, no,
no, not even not by a mile, but like, but like
that's part of it. He's like, what am I doing? I'm like
feeding into her delusion that we're happily in love and I've never been in it.
So we cut to a few weeks later, after New Year's, after
the kiss, and after Joe and Norma have become lovers, like officially have
become lovers. Betty has tracked Joe down at Norma's and she has been calling
incessantly to get in touch with him, because she really thinks she's got something
on her hands here with the script. Max has been screening her calls,
and he's not giving the messages to Joe. He's basically like, mister Gillis
is not available, he is dead. Stop calling him, and you're like,
oh my god. Meanwhile, Joe is like decided, you know what,
fuck it, I'm leaning into being a kept man. The amount of
movies we have covered with this plot with male jigglows that we're just gonna talk
around being maleos where their whole self worth is just like completely nullified because they
have they have sunk so low, so deep into the depths of self hatred
and loathing that they have started sleeping with a glamorous older woman who helps to
pay for their lifestyle. Again, we're talking Paul Varjack from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Yep, we're talking Johnny Castle from Dirty Dance. Yes, yeah,
this fucking plot doesn't go away. No, we haven't even done American jigglow,
but at least an American jiggle. He's he's he's doing it, at
least with Joe from from Midnight Cowboy. He's like, I love having sex
voter late and I'm very good at it and I'm great at it, and
I need the money. So this is this is this is a win win
win. Everyone has a talent. I love Joe's perspective on this, like
that Joe, not this Joe. This show is so like he thought he
couldn't hate himself anymore, but now taking money from this older lady has made
him hate himself so much more. And I'm like, okay, this is
all very unhealthy. So this is my favorite, my second favorite scene in
the film, because we get shirtless wet William Holden holy shit. So he's
leaning into the kept Man saying he's starting a romantic relationship with Norma. He's
in the swimming pool. She's watching him swim in her swimming pool, and
lash as she's she keeps talking about Demil and how she's so excited to show
Demil her script and like Venus is in retrograde or whatever. Yeah, she's
into astrology too, because of course she is. Of course she is.
She's like, this is the perfect week. She gives him the job originally
because it's Sagittarius and they're trustworthy. That's right. I forgot about that.
She would hate you. No one likes no one likes Geminis. But literally
she's like, she's like, you know, DeMille's a Leo and I'm a
Virgo and this is the week that we would make a deal, and Joe's
like swimming in the pool and he's like, okay. Cool. A few
nights later, they're on their way to a dinner party and Norma realizes she's
out of cigarettes. So they're running. They're driving past Schwabs that was like
the old headquarters where he was calling at the very beginning of the movie,
calling his agent and everything. So he's like, all right, pull over,
I'll run in there and I'll buy you some cigarettes. So he runs
into Schwabs. He runs into Artie and Betty, and Betty is immediately like,
where have you been keeping yourself? And he says, I haven't been
keeping myself at all. Best line in the movie, right, yeah,
that's the best lining. I haven't been keeping myself at all. Oh my
god, And that flies right over his friend's heads. They're like, what
what You just don't think Jiggielow, you just don't think of Betty's like,
okay, yeah, whatever, listen. I pitched that story that you wrote
about the school teacher to shell Drake. He loves it. He wants a
treatment for it right away. The two of us should work on it,
Like, let's do this Joe's like, no, I'm not writing anymore.
Thanks. Betty is like, what are you talking about? Like, help
me write it? Like, help my career do me a solid here,
and Joe says he's not interested. Max, while he's talking, starts to
lurk in the doorway, and Joe immediately sees him and just leaves right away.
Yeah, he doesn't want to explain who the fuck Max is. Yeah,
he's also still wearing like a fucking tuxedo. Yeah, Like it's Betty
and are You're like, I didn't write it inbout arty. He's like,
what are you wearing? How fast would you jump to the idea that I
had become a kept boy if I started showing her random places wearing a tuxedo?
I feel like that would be first thought for you, you know,
only because these movies have trained me that that's the first time. But genuinely
they're not wrong to be like you're so you're a spy now, right,
Like you're an international man of mystery. That's what's happening. Yeah. So
Betty and already stare after Joe as he rushes back to the car, and
Norma's like, where are my cigarettes? And He's like, you smoke too
much, Norma, and he gives her backer money. Aha. In voiceover,
Joe tells us that Norma would put on little shows for him when she
could sense he was quote unquote bored. But what we when she thinks he
is boredom we immediately know is self loathing and full depression. He will sit
on the couch for hours and stare at nothing, and he's thinking about Betty,
and he's thinking about writing, and he's thinking about his lost career.
And Norma's like, you're bored, let me do something for you. She
does a Folly's number, a whole movie of Norman Desmond doing the Norman Desmond
follies. I would watch the whole thing. She's doing like an Esther Williams
dance number, but on a coffee table, not in a pool, like
jumps onto him from the like she she's diving into the pool. It's so
cute, so cute. And then she does she puts on the Charlie Chaplin's
tramp outfit and does a very like reasonable impression impersonation of Charlie Chaplin, like
she's not bad at all, and like she she like does little mustache and
everything, and it's super cute, right, you would want a whole movie
of this. Oh. Absolutely. It's also very funny that that that she's
willing to do that, that she's willing to put on the Charlie Chaplin costume
and like try to entertain him. I'm not saying it's healthy. I just
say like it doesn't. It almost doesn't track entirely with her character until you
think about the fact that it's not. She needs applause, Yeah, she
needs attention. She needs attention, and he's staring into nothingness. Yeah,
and so she's like literally like it's escalating what she's doing. She literally just
hurled her body on top of him and didn't do it. So now she's
like in drag doing a Charlie Chaplin routine, doing like I need your attention
on me twenty four hours a day. Yeah. Holy I don't know how
Joe is held out this long for really, like would I would have lost
my mind like way before this. Yeah, So none of this is actually
cheering Joe up. He still looks like he's like wants to like flee.
Yeah, he says he misses the days before Hollywood made him jaded and cynical.
He's starting to think about Betty, not in terms of like a romantic
interest, but he's like, I used to be like that, Like I
used to be hungry, and I used to want things that I used to
to look for good ideas and want to work on them. And I don't
have that, Like it's gone and I miss it, you know totally.
I really feel for Joe man. That is a struggle, like especially for
writers, because you have to start from zero when you're writing, Like that
is a fucking struggle. And like if you could tell this movie was made
by writers. Norma gets a call from Paramount Only Erica, it's not de
Mill, it's someone called Gordon Cole. She is not interested in this game
playing. She tells Max to give Jordan the brush off. She furiously exclaims
that she will deign to return to de Mill's call when she's good and ready.
Smash cut to Joe's voiceover three days later. She was ready, HAA,
just to make it clear, so I don't know if I did earlier.
She sent the script by this point to Demil and is now just waiting
for him to call and be like, You're brilliant, You're wonderful. You
look like Linda Evangelista. Let's make this movie together. Yep. Gordon Cale
has been calling every day and Norma can't take the suspense any longer. She
has dragooned Max and driving her and Joe to the Paramount lot. Can I
tell you when I went to Los Angeles, huh for the first time.
I went to do the tour at Paramount Pictures because of this film. Oh,
because I saw this moment and like later, when they drive onto the
lot and they show the lot, I was like, I need to see
that, and I specifically went to stage eighteen. I wanted to see the
stage where this part took place. That's wonderful. I'm not even sure they
actually filmed it at eighteen. It's just the one they name in the movie.
Yeah. Yeah. And then the other stage I saw was twenty five
where they made Frasier and Frankly, my life is fullfilled. I'm done.
I'm done now. So they get to the Paramount gate and there's a young
guard and he doesn't recognize Norma and he tells Max he can't let them on
the lot without an appointment, and Norma kind of hears this going on.
She looks up and she's an older guard and she's like Jonesy. And the
older guard turns around and he not only remembers Norma, but he adores her.
It's like miss Desmond. Yeah. He tells his fellow guard that Norma
Desmond does not need an appointment to enter the lot. He ushers her right
through. Norma and Jonesy agree that without Norma Desmond the wouldn't even be a
Paramount. Yeah, right, so this was she was a big star.
Yeah, she built this studio. It's like, we have no concept of
that anymore because it's all so like diffuse. But like there were three studios,
uh huh, and like seven stars and seven stars and one star could
make enough money off their pictures to fund an entire fucking studio. And that's
what she did for Paramount basically. Yeah. It's also interesting that that the
guard knows her and loves her. They make a point in the movie of
being like she was lovely once. Yeah, like she was a lovely person
and she she has since soured. We cut to a bustling film set and
we hear Cecil B. Demill's voice directing his actors over a microphone while he's
setting up a shot and the film, funnily enough, is Samson and Delilah,
which was Cecil B. Demill's film that he was making at the time
that they were shooting Sunset. Really, I don't know if this is his
actual film or if they just recreated it as like the end joke, but
he in nineteen forty nine he released Samson and Delia. By the way,
it is actually the real Cecil B. De Mill playing himself. He's not
bad, not bad at all. So cecilby de Mill is like working in
the film set is crowded. There's hundreds of people on this sound stage working,
you know, around the clock to make this happen. An assistant comes
over to Demil and tells him that Norma Desmond is on her way to see
him. And then the assistant, who's a total shitthead. Again great performance,
because I got shithead immediately as soon as this guy started talking. He's
like that old broad Norma Desmond's come here to see you. She must be
about a million years old, like like trying to like be chummy with Demil,
and de Mill looks at him and goes, well, I hate to
think about how old that would make me, because I'm old enough to be
her father. And that shuts the other guy up right away. He shuts
a stupid fucking trap. Here's what I love about this, Like the movie
in nineteen fifty does not have have to acknowledge the misogyny, Yeah, like
aging in Hollywood and how it's vastly different for men and women, but it
does. It actually engages with it. And because it's not just that Norma's
like crazy, it's that she's been driven crazy because she's been made completely irrelevant
because she aged out. Yeah, and that's so unfair because she had the
nerve to get older. Yeah. And also she if she aged out twenty
years ago, that means she aged out at thirty. At thirty, yeah,
that's so unfair that the age Joe is now and he frankly he is
also aging out, but yeah, in a different way. And so like
it's just so cruel. It's just so so cruel, and Demil is the
only person who really acknowledges it. It's funny you're expecting him to not because
of anything I know about Ces will be the mil but like the movie sets
you up for a huge rejection, Yeah, for him to be an asshole
or even not even asshole, but even just dismissive or like, you know,
Norma is sorry, we had some good times, but I'm not doing
this and he's not. He's like incredibly kind the time, and it's a
very interesting choice. It just makes it more tragic, I think. Yeah.
So Demil knows that she's there to talk about her terrible salary script.
He's like, oh no, this is probably about the script she sent me.
He's nervous about what to say to her. It's terrible. He obviously
is not gonna make it. Oh my god, how do I how do
I even tell her this? Like I don't want to disappoint her. The
assistant offers to give her the brush off, and Demil says, thirty million
fans have already given her the brush off. Isn't that enough? So Demil
comes outside. He greets Norma warmly. He admits to reading her script,
and he actually looks like he's about to say something, but she isn't paying
attention. She's so enamored of being on set again. She's like, look
at all the lights and the people. And he's like, well, I've
read your script and she's like, well, I know you had your assistant
Gordon Cole called me over ten times instead of picking up the phone yourself,
and that was a real dirty trick you played on me, Cecil. But
I'll forgive you because I know we're gonna make an amazing picture together. I
forgive you sec just this once. And he starts to look confused and he's
like, oh, okay, so someone called you from Paramount. He's like,
how about you sit in my chair, Norma and watch as I rehearse
this scene and like kind of get a feel for how films are made nowadays.
There is in a fantastic moment here where Norma is sitting in the director's
chair and a microphone is coming down like a line towards the set and it
hits her hat as she looks at it with scorn, like you you ruined
everything. As she smacks it away, demill like deposits her there and then
goes to an assistant and says, find out who Gordon Cole is and get
him on the phone right away. Yeah, it's as if we never said
goodbye. The scene is completely lifted for that Muta for the music. Even
Jonesy is the name of the guard in the music. All Yeah, one
of the older electricians on the set recognizes Norma and says, hello, hey,
miss Desmond, Miss Desmond, and she looks a him and she recognizes
him. So the electrician shines a spotlight on Norma so get a good look
at her face. And Norma like the spotlight. It's like it's giving her
life. It's like it's like a it's like a person with seasonal effective disorder
under a sun lamp. That's perfect. Yeah. Everyone over forty on the
set notices like the spotlight and sees her and recognizes her and is excited to
see her. They rush towards her. Oh my god, that's Norman Steve
Gutenberg. Yeah, Oh my gosh, I love Steve Gutenberg. Oh my
god, that's Tony Kittain. This is the peak for Norma, right,
this will be the high point of the film for Norma Desmond, her moment
of happiness. It's like we saw Jonathan Taylor Thomas on the street. Yes,
They're like, it's you, you, Yes, you used to be
big. And then Jonathan Taylor Thomas turns to you and says, I am
big. It's the pictures that got sitcoms that got small. It's the mid
sized family sitcoms that got small. So we cut to the mill he's got.
He's gotten on the phone with Gordon Cole. Turns out Cole works in
the props department. His only interest in Norma is in her car. They're
interested in renting it for a few weeks for a bing Crosby picture. That's
why he keeps calling her. Oh man, that is a real kick in
the tits. Demill is like, all right, fine, and he goes
back. He's gonna break the news to Norma and then he sees it.
She's crying and she's just said, I'm just so moved by how much everyone
liked me, and I'm so happy to be back on the set. And
Salomon is going to be the greatest film either of us ever do. It
will be our masterpiece. And remember, Darling, I never worked before ten
in the morning and never after four thirty in the afternoon. I love that
because you get like, oh, okay, there she is yep. And
Demill he just can't do it. He just can't. He just tells her,
look, I need to get back to work. I'm gonna think about
it, and I'm gonna be in contact with you, and he kind of
starts. He's like, hang out on set and watch how movies are made.
Maybe learn a little bit. Yeah. Then he turns the assistant.
He's like, tell Gordon Cole never to call her again. Yeah. Outside
the soundstage, Joe is just like sitting in the car waiting for Norma to
be finished with Cethlaby demel So. Joe spots Betty going into her office in
the reader's department, and he decides to stop and pay her a visit.
Joe offers to give her his story for free so she can write her script.
He's being nice. He's like, look, I know you love that
story. Just take it. You don't owe me anything. He's like,
if you win an oscar, give me a leg. She begs him to
write it with her. She's like, look, you are so good and
I need your help. Like I'm free all nights and weekends this month because
Artie's on location shooting a Western in Arizona, And so it's so funny how
like in nineteen fifty that means like women have no like I literally can't leave
my house because my man is not here, so stupid. They can't get
on that bike. We talked about that last time, Joe kind of perks
up and he's like, what does Artie have to do with how often like
you go out at night? And she goes, well, we're actually engaged
now, so we're gonna get married soon. And Joe genuinely congratulates her.
There's no jealousy or weirdness there. He's like, congratulations, you actually found
the nicest guy in Hollywood, and she wholeheartedly agrees. She's like, I
agree, and I love I love Armie. So Max starts honking loudly while
Joe's talking to Betty, and Betty kind of ignores it, and Joe is
like, clearly distracted. He decides to leave immediately. He's like, well,
I'll see you later, kid, have a great life. Joe goes
downstairs and Max tells him that the real reason Paramount's been calling is for the
car, right, like somehow Max has figured it all out, and he's
like, we have to get out of here quickly before someone lets Norma know.
At that moment, luckily, Norma is being ushered out of the set
by by Demil. He kisses her goodbye and they get in the car and
they just fuck off. They all leave, so we cutch a little montage,
Norma goes full Madeline Ashton right, she does the things that Maddeline Ashton
wished were still legal, and death becomes her. It is a punishing route.
I punished it and and none of it involves exercise. It seems to
all involved like snake oil of some sort or another, sweating, lots of
sweating. So she thinks Salome is getting made. She has to get herself
ready for the camera, and she starts this punishing health and beauty regimen that
keeps her very busy during the day and sends her to bed at nine o'clock
every night. And because she's going to bed so early every night, Joe
has started sneaking out to work on this script with Betty. So even though
he turned Betty down, the siren call of Hollywood and a big hit has
drawn him back. Norma figures this out because one night she had a nightmare,
she called out for him and he wasn't there and the husband's sweep next
door ha ha. So he says, I've just been driving to the beach
and going for walks. I'm not doing anything behind your back. Norma like,
please, please, Joe, I just need patience. This is so
difficult for me, and he says, I'm not doing anything, and she
kind of runs her hand through his very gelled hair, which just so everyone
knows, is gross. It's not even Jelle's palmmage. Yeah, fifty,
it's hard, and she just warns him, Oh, I know you're not.
She so yes, starts off as like a caress, and then she
balls her hands like a fist in his hair and she's like, you better
not do anything, yeah, and like like holy shit. Nevertheless, he
heads off as soon as her lights are out to work with Betty. The
threat is not enough to scare him off. They're in Betty's office. She's
complaining that Artie's movie is running long, which is keeping him in Arizona,
and Joe absent mindedly says good and then oh okay. So now he's like,
I'm sorry, what'd you say? No? Nothing, nothing, nothing
nothing. Betty grabs a cigarette from Joe's solid gold cigarette case, fuck yeah
and reads the inscription mad about the boy love norma holy crap, which to
which she asks about it. She also says the iconic line I'm sorry,
I don't usually read private cigarette cases. What Joe half lies, he says,
he did some script work for a rich old lady and she gave him
the cigaret cases a thank you gift, so he obfuscates, yeah, it's
going on. So they start walking on the lot and Betty tells him about
like she says this really charming line of like, doesn't matter where she is,
what country she's in, this is still gonna always be her favorite street
in the whole wide world, even though it's all smoking mirrors, it's all
cardboard and paint. And he's like, wow, you really love the movies
that much, right, And she's like, not just that. I used
to play here when I was a kid. I grew up on this lot.
My family is an old Hollywood family. My dad was the head electrician.
My mother still works in wardrobe. And he's like, wow, you're
two generations in. She goes three. My grandmother was a stunt double for
Pearl White. I mean, like, what a great childhood this woman had.
It's a company town and she's a company gal, you know, so
naturally, because she was so pretty, they her whole family was like,
well, you're going to be a great star. That's how you're going to
contribute. And so they did all the things you're supposed to do. They
did dancing lessons in alcution lessons, and then she took a screen test and
I didn't like her nose. Her nose was a little crooked to the to
the left, so she had to fix it. So she paid three hundred
dollars and got her nose fixed, which I feel like is very reasonable.
And then she did another screen test, but of course they they all missed
the first time because of the hideous nose. Yeah, she can't act right.
He's like, wow, they really kicked in the teeth. And she's
like, no, it was the best thing that ever happened to me because
I got a job in the mail room and then the script department, and
now I'm doing what I love. I'm writing. And she's like, that's
what I should have always been doing the whole time. Yeah, Joe is
completely enchanted by her. I have to save me too. Oh yeah,
this speech is so charming. I love Betty Shaeffer and Nancys. He compares
her to freshly washed linen, something new and clean, like movie is not
subtle, not something old and dingy and perhaps sequins and terrifying. Yeah,
he like kind of leans in and he almost kisses her, and she doesn't
move. She she just kind of stays there and like she's like, what
is he going to do? Then he pulls back very quickly and he's like,
you know what, from now on, you do not let me get
within two feet of you. Yep. And if I get within two feet
of you, you were allowed to take your shoe off and clock me on
the head with it. And she just smiles and agrees, like she is
clearly also smitten with him, and she knows he was about to kiss her.
Yeah. Late one night, Joe comes back for a writing session.
Okay, here we go. He pulls in and he finds Max lurking in
the shadows like a butler does, still in his outfit. Like it's like,
never takes off the outfit. It's one o'clock in the morning. Max,
what if madam needs me? Holy shit? So he sleeps in that
outfit. He sleeps. I think the only time he's not in an outfit
is when he is showering in order to put on the outfit again. Directly
afterwards, Max tries to warn Joe not to let Norma see him cross the
patio or else she's going to know something's up. The thing I want to
point out here, though, is Max is not angry at Joe's genie.
He's trying to help him. He's like, hey, man, if you
cross this way, she can see you, and it's going to be a
whole thing, and like, let's just work together. Let's make this as
easy as possible for everyone. So Max is like he's got one laser focus
in his life. Max calmly tells Joe, I don't care where you go
at night, but I'm worried about Norma. And Joe tells Max, you're
not doing Norma any favors by lying to her about the Salame picture, that
she'll never star in. This a little bit of the pot calling the kettle
black. But sure, Max says, it's my job to make sure she
never finds out. And I intend to make sure that that job gets done.
What is Max's plan? All right, here, hang under your butts,
people, We're about to get Max's backstory. Well, it turns out,
Erica, that Max was a famous director who discovered Norma when she was
sixteen and directed all of her early films. And also he was her first
husband. What when that happened? I did not know that part of the
plot, and my jaw dropped. I was like, I'm sorry, what
kind of fucked up relationship is this that makes the whole thing so so dark?
Yep, Max says, when I was younger, there were three directors
with promise, Cecil B. Demil, d W. Griffiths, and Max
von Meyer. That's me so wait. So he didn't go into the studio
because he didn't want Cecil B. Demil to recognize him. That's why I
think he stays in the car and doesn't follow Norma in there. I think
because he and Cecil B. Demill know each other. They were buds.
No, Now I'm also wondering, like obviously, like Buster Keaton and Anna
Nielsen and the other dude all know who he is too, Like everyone's just
cool, cool with the fact that Norma has broken this man's mind, and
like, okay, so he discovers her when she's sixteen years old, right,
he is at least fifteen years older than her. Yeah, I think
that makes sense. Right, So he's in his thirties, she's sixteen.
He discovers her, he marries her, makes her a star, like she's
his muse. He puts her in all his films and then she leaves him.
The power dynamic on this is gonna switch real fast. He says that
after she left him, he begged her to let him work for her in
any capacity, and Joe sneers and goes, so she turned you into a
servant, and he goes, Madame is the greatest star of all time.
Let's say it gets hold. That is all that Max ever says obviously the
audience, but also Joe, this is the moment Joe's like, what have
I wandered him? To? The Chip funeral really should have been the moment
that he left. So Max took the vicuna. Max is the vicuna.
He got skinned for that code. The backstory is so fascinating. Yeah,
who are the other two husbands? Did they know that Max was the first
husband? And like at that time you would think like if they would know
him, he couldn't have fallen into obscurity in the space of five years.
If he was on the pa of Cecil B. De Mill and d W.
Griffiths, people remembered him for at least a decade. Yeah, his
face would have been in the newspapers at some point. Did he live under
like in the house while she was married, happily married and then unhappily married
to two other guys, and who slept in his bed, the bed that
used to be his. All of her ex husbands slept in that bed.
Yes, so that used to be his bed. And then he got demoted
to the servants swing. But the thing is too like before you start to
feel really sorry for Max. He's a big part of what's making her crazy.
Now they're living in this like dual delusion together where she's still the greatest
thing ever and he's her trusted best friend and servant and like and not loverr
but like father figure at this point, because she runs to him for help,
what she needs anything, and she like she cries out for him at
night when she's scared and expects him to come, and he does. He
does. He is a victim, but so is she. Anyways. You
know, what is it Carol Burnett and Matthew Lillard in that SVU episode that
we did, that's what That's what's going on there. Ever, there's the
grooming. It's just going in the opposite direction. Then it flips. Oh
god, this is a dark path. It is a dark, dark movie.
Yeah, so Joe somehow still walks back into that house. I would
have been like, Nope, that's it aps a fuckolutely not. Later that
night, Norma is pacing her room. She's awake, Joe, Joe,
where do you go at night? Why do you leave me? Joe?
She storms into Joe's room to confront him, and he's sound asleep and she's
about to wake him up, and then she sees on his desk this piece
of paper and she goes over to it. She takes it back to her
room. She puts up her glasses and she looks at it and it says
untitled Love Story by Joe Gillis and Betty Schaeffer. The score tells us it's
a big moment. A few nights later, Joe and Betty are working in
her office. Betty can't stop staring at Joe. He's like writing at a
and she's at her desk and she just keeps staring at him. She's almost
like she does that creepy thing where she's lost in thought, and he's like,
hey, Bennet, are you there? And it takes her a minute
to snap out of it, right, and Joe immediately jumps to like his
in his mind. The worst case scenario, she's found out about him yep,
and he's like, well, wait, what have you heard? You
know, she'll never want to work with me now, Like she thinks something,
I'm disgusting. I'm some disgusting joke, right, I'm a prostitute.
Basically, that's not it. It's actually something else. Entirely. She's distracted
because Artie wants her to marry him. Joe says, well, that's great.
He's just mostly relieved that she doesn't caught on to Norma. And he's
like, well, what's keeping you then from running straight into Artie's arms?
And she goes you yeah, and the two of them kiss passionately, like
oh no, where are that? I was like, wait, he's not
gay. I had gotten at this point. It wasn't a surprise. I
mean. The funny thing is is Montgomery Cliff was supposed to play this part
and he turned it down. I love Montgomery Cliff, but I think William
Holden was a better choice because he he plays it very like surface, see
almost like that's that's the wrong thing to say. He plays it light like,
he doesn't get too heavy really into it, and I feel like Montgomery
Cliff might have gotten a little heavier. It might have done too much excavation
of the character. Yeah, but honestly, like and also if Montgomery Cliff
had played it, I think the gay themes would have come out a little
bit more. Why I don't know, Paul because his best friend was Elizabeth
Taylor. His best Judy was Elizabeth. Maybe that's why. Maybe that's why.
Who knows. Joe heads back to Norma's house. He's in voiceover.
He's like, maybe maybe I cane out of this. Maybe I can somehow,
just like erase, pretend this never happened. It do a mad man
on it. You won't believe how much this never happened. If you just
pretended what a good pull. That is perfect, thank you. But as
he's sitting in his room, remember there's no doorknobs in the door, so
you can hear he hears Norma on the phone. And Norma has tracked down
Betty Schaeffer, and she called Betty's apartment and she gets Betty's roommate who she
has like two lines. But for some reason I found her very funny,
like Betty, that weird woman with the voices on the phone. Again,
Betty gets on the phone, and Norma starts to talk to her. She's
like, you don't know much about Joe Gillis. Do you do you know
where he lives? Do you know what he does for money? Do you
know what he lives on? Yes? Just as she's about to break the
most salacious details, Joe walks in. He grabs the phone out of Norma's
hand, and he tells Betty, Hey, Betty, it's me. Why
don't you come see for yourself where I live? This is the address.
Come on over. Yeah. Norma plays the suffering victim. She has a
beautiful like flash dance off the shoulder moment in her negligee or slip whatever she's
wearing. Just don't hate me, Joe. She threatens to kill herself if
he leaves her. Look, I even't bought her revolver to do it.
Oh my god. Joe stands there quietly. He doesn't give Norma the satisfaction
of her response. Her calling Betty was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Like I think beforehand, what he was thinking about doing is is there
a way for me to do this where no one gets hurt? That's the
he was at Also that no one finds out. No one finds out.
This is the worst thing that could possibly happen. Now Betty's gonna know who
he is and what he's done. I think her threatening to kill herself over
his affair with Betty would have worked if she hadn't called Betty. That was
I think Norma's mistake because he is such a passive character and he has no
backbone. Yeah, if she had just again, like what she's done numerous
times in the film, Oh Joe, like, y'all, I'll kill myself.
You can't leave me, Joe, Joe, Joe. That works,
But her threatening to expose him to Betty, who he actually like, has
fallen in love with and is like, you know, the Madonna figure of
the film is what pushes him over the edge and starts to get that I
don't care if you kill yourself. Yeah, moment, I like, something's
got to give, man, Like, can't I can't keep pretending to love
you. You have to be in charge of not killing yourself. I can't
be in charge of that anymore. Yeah. Yeah, So the doorbell rings,
Betty gets there real quick. She does her roommate is so nice because
her roommate drives her there, and he's like, let me go inside with
you, and then he's like, probably better that you stay outside. Only
one of us needs to die tonight. Joe goes downstairs. He lets Betty
in. She looks genuinely frightened. She's like, what am I about to
walk into? Joe? What's going on? Are you okay? Are we
all? Are we gonna get hurt in this big haunted mansion that I've walked
into. Yeah. He brings her inside. He's being Joe in the most
Joe way possible. He's like, hey, Betty, thanks for coming.
Take a look at this big old house. They don't make them like this
anymore, these old Hollywood villas from the twenties. Ever been in one of
these before? Check out that floor. Valentino danced on it like he's He's
just putting it all out there, and she's like, what is going on?
He starts to show her the many, many, many pictures and paintings
of Norma Desmond. Okay, I've already discussed that I do have a little
bit of a shrine for myself. We don't need to I heard you.
I will fix it. I will fit I will take down some of the
photos Okay, so what I don't understand. It's like some of them are
really like well done right, and I appreciate that proportion and like, but
you've kept up the ones where you're sneezing. I think, and I don't.
There's a whole wat. I think there's beauty in moments, Erica.
There's beauty in life. Yeah, okay, what about this one over here?
It looks like you have your head cock like you're thinking, but then
also like it. Oh my god, Paul, are you on the toilet?
Is that where that is? I recognize that bathroom. I'm trying to
connect the banality of life with beauty, Erica. And the most beautiful thing
I can find are the pictures of myself. Oh my god, I can
smell this picture. That's disgusting. Paul. Look, I've been meaning to
ask you this for years. What is this thing in the jar by the
door? It's got this like, Oh my god, is that your appendix?
Of course not, Erica. I never had my appendix removed. Who's
appendix am I looking at? That is a mock up of my appendix that
I had made by a professional Hollywood makeup artist after getting my appendix X rayed,
We're gonna have to talk about this later. Let's just finish this movie.
So he's like Joe, He's like, uh, take a look around
now, like, do you recognize Norma Desmond? Don't you? She was
so famous back in her day. He basically explains his entire situation to her
and asks her what she thinks of him now that she knows he's a sugar
baby. Yeah, like all right, now what do you think of me?
Now? I see you must hate me. I sleep with Norma,
I take advantage of a helpless old lady and take her money. Now what
do you think of me? And Betty says, I was never here.
I didn't hear any of this story. I think I should leave, and
I think you should come with me. She gives him an out, the
biggest doorway. All he has to do is walk. Yeah, I will
never bring this up again. And she also makes it like the way she
delivers it I think is so sympathetic, like like like she really seems like
she's not judging him. It's not like she's cool. Yeah, it's not
like a okay, we could you've had an affair with this woman. It's
exactly what he was thinking before it's mad metting it can this just didn't happen.
Yeah, it doesn't have to happen. You made choices that you have
to make at that time, and now we can make a different choice.
All you have to do is walk through that door with me. I'm not
going to judge you, and I'm not going to bring it up ever again
if that's if it's something you don't want to talk about. I don't know
if you remember, I was raised in Hollywood. I've heard shit. You
think this is the first time I've seen this? Yeah, I think the
first time I've seen a sugar baby at Desmond's. She's like, I bet
maximum Marling's around here somewhere, right, I've heard this story. That's my
uncle. So he he like softens for a minute after she says that he
looks really moved and like you see him like harden himself back up again,
and he goes, why would I do that when I can stay here and
have all the financial security I want and I can't leave behind these gifts and
all the clothes she's gotten me, and like this is a sure thing.
Why would I go after something that I thought was was going to fail?
When I can stay here and have a sure thing, and she says,
if you love me, she gives him another chance. She goes, if
you love me, you should leave with me right now. Yep, and
he goes, thanks for coming, Betty, have a good night. Yeah,
it's for heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking because she knows what he's doing. Yeah,
and she's trying. She's like, trust me, you have to trust
me, and he's like, I can't. I actually can't. I'm sorry.
He kisses her on the forehead. He wishes her luck, and she
just cries. As she walks away, She's like, bye, Joe.
Joe turns around and one of the best shots in the movie, such a
good shot. He's outside in the front door, which is like a filigreed
gate right. He turns around and we see Norma towering above him in the
landing on the second floor of the house, watching the whole scene. He
climbs the stairs and as he gets to the top normousness, Oh, thank
you Joe, thank you for choosing me over Betty, but he ignores her.
He goes into the room. He starts to pack his bags. He
has been so broken by this, like that was an act he had to
get rid of Betty because he hates himself so much for what he's done,
for being exposed that now he's going to go back to Dayton, Ohio and
get the job at like the newsroom and live a quote unquote nor life.
Ye, he packs only his original wardrobe. He tells Norma that the clothes
she bought him will look out of place in Dayton, Ohio. Norma pleads
with him to stay. She offers him more money, anything you could possibly
ever want. She threatens to kill herself. I'll do it Joe, and
Joe is unmoved. He says, that's your life. Norma doesn't have anything
to do with me. Those are your choices. And then he looks at
her and he says, look and again this is he doesn't do it cruelly.
She thinks he's doing her a kindness. Yeah, he says. There
are no fan letters pouring in. There is no movie with Demil. The
only reason Paramount called was to use your car. Like, come on,
he says, being fifty isn't a tragedy unless you keep trying to be twenty
five. That's the point in the movie you realize she's only fifty fifty,
That is where my fifty came from, because truly, the movie acts as
if she's eighty six. Like obviously Glorious Wantson does not look eighty six,
but like the way people talk about her, you're like, this is this
woman is one slip in the bathtub away from departing this mortal coil. Norma
cries out for Max. Max. He appears at the doorway. He says,
I will take mister Gillis's bags, and he just leaves. He doesn't
deny anything. That's the meanest he is to Joe the whole movie. He
looks at him, He's like, let me take your bags, you piece
of shit. I thought we had a deal. Joe begs him tell Norma
the truth, but Max only says madam is the greatest star of them all.
The two men leave the room. Norma clutches the gun to her chest.
She keeps telling herself, I'm a star. Nobody leaves a star,
Nobody leaves a star. And Glorious Wantson is now dialing up right like,
oh she broken, She's broken now right, there's no going back. She
follows Joe outside. She calls his name, he doesn't answer her, turnaround
and she shoots him in the back. Joe still doesn't turn around, keeps
fairly calmly walking forward. That's how much he wants out of this relationship.
I think a little piece of me is like, did William Holden have to
hit a mark and didn't get there in time? And now he's just trying
to get there? How many? How many shots? Did this too?
Is this it? This is the only shot? Okay, I'm gonna keep
walking, gotta get to the pool. She shoots him again. He turns
around, She shoots him again. He stumbles, clutching his stomach and crashes
into the pool. Norma, fully disassociating from what just happened, looks at
the sky. She craddles the gun and she whispers to herself. The stars
are ageless, aren't they? Oh no, oh no, oh no,
oh no. We cut to dawn. It's the same shot of Joe's body
floating in the pool from the very beginning of the movie, and we hear
his voice over again say, well, this is where you came in.
Back at the pool again, the one I always wanted. Yep, we
watched the police fish Joe's body out of the pool, or as Joe puts
it, they beached me like a harpoon baby whale. We see crowds lurking
out side the house and the newsreel cameras and photographers waiting to get footage of
the aging forgotten star and her dead lover's corpse. Joe knows the headlines are
going to be harsh about Norma's age and irrelevance, and he actually feels sorry
for her, even though she murdered him. He's like, whoof this is
going to be a bad day for Norma Desmond. We cut to Norma's bedroom.
Famed gossip columnist Heada Hopper is there. She's sitting on her bed.
She's reporting the story into the desk. Norma is sitting at her makeup table.
Did you notice there are moments in this movie where she's she looks like
is it Avonta Carlo the bride of Frankenstein? Like she's holding angling her face
in a certain way. There's also moments in this movie where she looks exactly
like Helen Mirren, but that's a separate conversation. This is like she's pulling
her hair up, Yeah, it's up up, and she has this look
on her face right She's staring at herself in the mirror. She's ignoring all
of these questions. Is she's gone? This is how how a rich white
lady gets questioned by the police Los Angeles. No one's a her. They're
just asking her a bunch of questions and letting her do her makeup, Like,
so, why did you kill him? Lady? There doesn't even be
any question that she did kill him. Oh yeah, they all agree she
killed him. Yeah. I would imagine Max is like, yeah, madam
is the greatest star. Who killed that guy. One of the cops mentions
a newsreel camera that has arrived, and Norma looks up into the cameras cameras
camera. She is very Jennamarone, very jen is Norma Desmond, basically without
the success with that exactly Max Max. And Max appears and he kind of
is like, yes, the cameras are here and Demilla is here. They're
ready to shoot your scene. So the homicide detectives are like, all right,
Max, get her downstairs and we will play along. So Norma starts
readying herself for her for the cameras. She puts on as like she puts
on all this makeup and like rhinestones on her skin, like to get herself
like dressed for Salome. She thinks she's making Salome. So Max goes downstairs,
he clears a path for her. He goes to the newsreel cameras like
he's like back in his directing chair again. He goes, all right,
lights go, sound go, and he turns back up and he's like,
Norma, they're ready for you, and he directs Norma. He's like,
descend the stairs, Norma. And it's an amazing shot because the house is
filled with I mean probably three dozen people, at least three or four dozen
people. There's cameraman, there's a fucking head a hopper playing herself, there's
just police everywhere, and everyone freezes as Norma descends the stairs. As Salome
exiting the temple, Norma stops at the bottom of the stairs after her grand
walk, and she breaks character. She says, I'm so sorry. I'm
sorry, but I just have to tell everyone how how happy I am to
be back back where I belong, and how I promise I'll never leave you
again. It'll just be us and the cameras and those wonderful people out there
in the dark and glorious wants and spikes the camera and looks right at us
and reaches. She reaches towards us as she says, those people out there
in the dark, and she starts to walk toward the camera, and she
tells Demil aka Max. Now she thinks to max is Demil, and she
goes, I'm ready for my close up, mister Demil, and she walks
towards the camera and fades. The movie doesn't quite fade out so much as
like it's almost like we're watching Norma fulfilling her dream and disappearing. It fades
into RuPaul's Drag Race Season one camera len more and more vasline scrub. Yeah,
you see Norma walk towards the camera until it's all just vasaline. End
of film. All right, stick around to come right back and we'll give
you our random observations and final rankings on Sunset Boulevard, and we're back.
Boy. Your thoughts, your delicious thoughts on Sunset Boulevard. Did you notice
in the scene where Joe and Betty are walking they're eating apples. Yes,
Joe just takes his and tosses it into the the set. It's not a
real street, Joe, Joe Hey don't do it on the real street either.
But also someone has to fucking clean that up now, yeah you fuckerr
they're gonna attract fucking mice and rats onto the set. Jesus, Olivia Havlin
has to work there. Come on, she shouldn't have to kick your gross
discarded apple. That woman lived like one hundred and seventeen. You think she
has time to like kick your garbage out of the way where she slipped on
an apple and died. Then that we would have been robbed of like ninety
years of Olivia to have way to kill Olivia de Havlin. Fucking Joe Gillis.
Just because Joan Fonteanne asked you to do it, doesn't mean you should.
Haha. Johan Fonteane is around the corner just dropping banana peels. She's
like, I'm gonna get that bitch. I hate my sister. I hate
her so much. So there's a moment where Max is driving the car and
they're and like, oh, it's when they're on their way to Paramount,
that's what it is. And Norma's fixing her makeup and she's she's getting ready
for her big meeting with Demil right and and Joe can barely look at her.
He's just like staring out the side, and Max, by the way
driving in traffic, looks at her through the rear view mirror, then gets
on the like little microphone, ye, like the little blower horn, Yeah,
the horn they have in the car, and says, madam will pardon
me. But the shadow over the left eye is not quite balanced everything about.
I'm like, holy. And she immediately is like thank you, thank
you, Max, and she fixes it and she fixes her eyeshadow, and
I'm like, how does he see that he's driving? He should be paid
to the road, and like Joe has that same look. Joe as the
audience story again and it's just like the hell, I only have one more
In that first scene with shell Drake in his office, that with the with
the development executive in his office, so they make a comment about him having
like a stomach issue. Oh my god, Yes, I know that line.
You know, I wrote it down ready. His name was Shell Drake.
He was a smart producer with a set of ulcers to prove it.
Yes, that. So in the course of the scene, the actor playing
Shell Drake like takes out a cigar, starts getting the cigar ready starts smoking
the cigar, burps and goes ooh because of his ulcers, and then just
takes a swing of a glass of milk. I don't think that cigars and
milk are the cure for ulcers, sir. I don't think that's it.
In Madmen, they have Sterling drinking milk all the time his ulcers. I
can't believe that actually helps. Also, by the way, just my small
bit of color about Sheldrake. He's supporting this movie the guy who turned down
Gone with the Wind for paramount who wants to see a movie about the Civil
War. Everything about Sheldrake is excellent. I just have one more too.
Mine is not funny. Mine's a bit of a downer. The one line
that really always gets me in the movie is Max is trying to explain Norma
to Joe and the best way he can, and he's like, why is
she so miserable? Like she had a great career, And then Max says,
a dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.
All right, Erica, how are we going to rank Sunset Boulevard one
to ten? Twists we did not see coming? So many of them so
many. Oh god, what is that a monkey arm? He's her husband?
What what there's a husband's sweet one to ten shrines to me? Uh
huh yeah, complete with pickle the pendices. Okay, look, there's something
else I've been wanting to talk to you about. And it's weird because it's
in a candy dish. And so when I went in there one day,
like I lifted the top thinking I was going to get like a delicious Werther's
Original or some sort of hard candy. I just are these toenail clippings?
Yes, it's just that's a candy dish, not fingernail clippings. Crucially,
just the tea I knew. Yeah, the good luck tonail clippings. Okay,
that's what how many years of toenail clippings? At least fifteen years?
Yeah, yeah you can. There's there's a smell. It's a distinct odor.
Yeah, it's it's quite an aroma. Yeah, it's quite an aroma.
I want you to know. Like, I put the lid back on
it, and I would appreciate if you never ever put that out when I
was here again, no problem, I'll cover it with it. I don't
want to move it because that is where my astrologer told me to leave it.
I will cover it with a blanket. Okay, yeah, okay,
I do have a blanket that's just my face on it. That is that
okay? If that Yeah, that's fine, that's totally fine. I don't
mind. I'm also sitting in a chair that's made out of a mold of
your body. That's correct. So it feels like I'm sitting on your lap
at all times. Yeah, it's very very uncomfortable. Yeah, well I
am erect when they made the mold. So there's that's that is. Okay.
It is digging into my back pretty hard. Yeah yeah, okay,
okay, one to ten very important monkey corpses, so they really really he
should have hit the eject button at the monkey corpse. Me. I see
the monkey corpse, and I don't I'm just gone, yeah, like,
yeah, I'm going back to Dayton, Ohio. Imagine you're in Farah Fawcett's
house and you and you see a dead monkey. You're just like, I'm
sticking here. I would be like, well, it was so nice meeting
you. I loved you and Charlie's angels. Yeah, I'm gonna head out
now, thank you so much, miss Fass, thanks for having me.
Oh that's Ryan O'Neill. Okay, okay, okay, gonna walk away now,
walking backwards, walking backwards. So you both knew about the monkey then,
okay, okay, all right, I'm not the monkey undertaker. I
could see how you thought that, but I'm I'm gonna leave now. I'm
really budde one to ten homocides. Last known homocide was when Billy Jean King
kicked the shit out of Bobby Riggs. Oh that was a homocide. Side
absolutely, very very satisfying homicide. That was a homicide. When Tom Daly
beat the Chinese diving at the Olympics. Oh yeah, there you go.
That was a homocide. The Chinese got homocide. Yeah yeah, let's definitely
do homocides. Okay, okay, do you want to go first? Or
shall I? Either way? I mean, honestly, like everyone knows my
answer. So why don't we let you go first? I will just talk
for forty five minutes if you let me. Perfect Um, this is a
great movie. This is a great, great fucking movie. I told you
so, I told you so so. It's from nineteen fifty again, and
we made a really big deal about the black man who just sits in the
corner for two seconds as the as the shoe shine man. That's because that's
all the diversity you're getting, not even the orchestra. No, like,
come on, yeah, no, obviously there is queer content, but there
is no gay content in the movie. Joe Gillis, despite my misreadings of
many things, is not a positive homosexual in anyway, or it's not even
meant to be read that way. I don't think. It's just kind of
like the differences of language and how people interact with each other that to me
reads is a little fay and the nineteen of the audiences just how people talk.
Does not pass the Bechdel test. I don't think, hmm, well
no, because the only other woman is Betty's roommate, and there's the scene
where she's like that lady is calling it again. That's true. But I
don't know that woman's name. I don't know that's true. Yeah, I
think she's built as Betty's roomate. Yeah, I don't know if that woman
is ever named. No, there were only two women in the movie,
right, I can't even think of a third. Yeah, so doesn't pass
the Bechdel Test. All that being said, so it basically does nothing that
we asked movies to do. I'm gonna rate it really high. I know
it's just a great movie. I'm not the diversity thing nineteen fifty again.
You don't go into a movie they've made from nineteen fifty and expect a rainbow
of different ethnicities being of different ethnicities being represented. They have a German,
yeah something. There's obviously a lot of queer content in the movie, in
so far as like the performance and the drag and the melodrama of it,
that there's like queer energy to it. I think I think it's fair to
say. I don't know that that would necessarily have read as queer energy in
nineteen fifty, but it certainly does now. I think the two female characters
are actually great, and I think they're given as much as the male characters
of the four. I think Betty is the slightest, but she's not just
a love interest there to balance out Norma like. She has her own ambitions
that she pursues Joe for a while and not romantically. She wants to.
There's a career ambition in Betty, and that's what she wants to accomplish,
and she's she's plucky, and she's got moxie, and she's really charming,
and you want her to wind up. You want Joe to wind up with
her because she's so much better than Joe. She'll make Joe better. Yeah.
Actually, I think she gets a little bit more backstory than Max does.
Even Maxie, we get the horrified story, but then he doesn't say
anything else. That's it. That's all he gets. Uh. Norma Desmond
a character for the ages, a character upon which musicals have been built,
movies have been built, like what is upon swimming pools. Swimming pools have
been built on this character. What an icon. I think it's kind of
cool that the movie engages with progressive ideas for its time. The fact that
Norma is being ostracized from Hollywood for the for the sin of getting older and
obviously has broken with reality. At this point, it can no longer come
back. But whatever she did, it seems to have been pretty mild.
It's not like, oh, yes, there was that time where she slapped
Betty Betty Betty Grabel Betty Grabil across the face and she got ostrat from Hollywood.
No, it just seems like she out at thirty and no one would
give her a part anymore, and you know, or maybe it was getting
harder for her to get parts, and she was starting to get mean to
people, and that was all the excuse everyone needed. Okay, now she's
awful. She's a bitch, right, and now she's just wiling of her
time away in this dilapidated mansion. She's she's gray gardening in this mansion.
I want to give it, like, I want to give it a crazy
high score, but I probably shouldn't because it doesn't agent too. I don't
think it's offensive to anybody. It's sins of omission, not sins of like.
They're not They're not like beating up gay guys on the street or anything.
I'm going to give it an eight, Okay, I'm going to give
it an eight. I want to give it higher, but like I think,
for movies from like the thirties, forties, fifties, it's probably not
possible to be higher than an eight, really, so I'm going to give
it an eight and eight out of ten. Homocides Erica, what do you
think giving it a nine? Pall you give it a nine? Okay,
I know you said it's not possible. Guess what is possible? Possible?
Because this this gal over here has a sliding scale. And if I fucking
love a movie, I'm giving it a nine because here's but it is.
The movie does so much for the mythology of Hollywood. Yeah, and like
turning it on its ear and showing the dark, gross underbelly of it all
which other movies had before this. It's not like a new thing. And
Hollywood loves nothing more than to talk about itself. Yeah, and to parody
itself and to satirize itself. Yeah. It stars, it stars women.
I mean, I know Bill Holden is the lead, but like Norma is
the reason for the season, Like Norma is why we're here, and Betty
is, like you said, a great secondary like character, and Max is
a great character. And it's pretty much a foehander. Right, it's just
four characters. There's just nothing I have to say bad about this movie.
Yeah, I'm gonna give it a nine only because for the reasons you elucidated,
yeah, sins of omission. Other than those, it's such a strong
film and it has such a point of view, and it's it speaks so
much to like, like what happens to women when they age, and the
cruelty of the patriotch toward women. And I just think everyone and their mother
needs to see this movie. So I'm gonna give it a nine out of
ten Homo sides. Yes, all right, I don't think either one of
us want to offer a palate cleanser. This is going to be my palate
cleanser for the next five films we cover. Okay, every film we talk
about, I'm gonna be like, watch Sunset Boulevard. What are you waiting
for? So that is the end of our show. We would like to
thank everyone listening. You can all follow us on social media on Instagram,
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we like them too, You do that just like b Burgeois ninety one that
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aged well is produced and edited by Paul Kiola. We would like to thank
Louis Morgan and Melissa Who are these people? Who are these people who love
us and listen to us? Thank you Louise Morgan and Melissa for reaching out
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have been by podcasts? So offended? We can't, you can't. You
can't even see our faces. Knows that we don't have faces. The performances
that we are pulling out here into the void, the void exactly. Ah
okay, seriously, though, head on over to our patreon, patreon dot
com slash that Aged Well podcast to find out more. Now, Erica,
some tears on the Patreon do come with a thanks from a podcast character.
And today we are hearing from Oh okay, now, this is unprecedented.
We're hearing from two podcast characters at the same time. We have a this
person. This patron has requested a thanks from both Katherine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall.
Hello again, it's your friend, your family, your greatest star of
all of Hollywood. Katherine Hepburn, Kate, you never did lack for self
esteem, did you. I was the biggest box office draw of ninety thirty
six. I remember when I met you on the African Queen. I immediately
thought, there's a woman with a high opinion of herself. Ah. Yes,
I'm here with my good friend Lauren. Hello, Lauren, Hello Katie,
Lauren bcall also missus Humphrey Buggert Spencer. Bring me a Brandy Crussa.
It's got a rim to it, Bogie. I want an espresso martini,
but make it with high point. It's decaffeinated Lauren. We are here today
to say thank you to our friend Kayla. Mmm. She says her sister
loves this podcast. I think it's pronounced podcaste ah. Yes, it says
here in these notes that these people provided for us, that we're supposed to
say that she has a sister and she loves Keanu. So she started her
on speed. Have you ever started someone on speed? Oh? I love
speed. In fact, one moment that gives me an idea spencer, take
some man fetimin, shove it in the drink. I want a Brandy krusta
with an infetament rim so delicious. It will bring you up and take you
down, just like Hollywood, just like coffee, depending on if you have
it caffeinated or decaffeinated. That's right, it's just like coffee, only instead
it's a thousand proof alcohol and amphetamies. So thank you, Kayla. We
love being here, We love thanking you for being a patron of that age.
Well, pop coast, think that's how you say it. That's right,
it's a popcoast, I believe. Yes, whatever happened to the good
old fashioned radio plays? You know, the ones about unwed mothers who were
murdered by their families. Just good family entertainment. Those always put me off
to sleep at night when I'm feeling a little over caffeinated. So thank you,
Kayla. Oh good, Spencer brought my drink. All right, Spencer
go back to swimming in the pool. He thinks it's a pool. It's
just a puddle we have in the driveway. Bogie thinks our poodle is a
wolf. I let him hold onto his dream so he feels more like a
man. Wow. Wow, old like real famous, old timey Hollywood legends,
Green legend, famous friends Lahen Catherine famously friends. We looked it up
and they definitely met. It's on the internet, so it must be true.
They met once, and in our minds they are best friends forever.
Yeah, Erica. Any final thoughts on Sunset Boulevard. No final thoughts in
this movie, which again I think is absolutely fucking perfect. Everyone should see
it. But I do have a thought that it's been plaguing me ever since
we started this conversation about shrine that you built to yourself in the house.
So, okay, remember a few weeks ago when you served me some toast
and you were like, try this butter it's in the it's like a butter
bust. It's in the shape of my face. And I thought, oh,
that's really silly but fun and like I tried it and it tasted rancid
and weird and like, yeah, not exactly like butter at all. Paul,
did I eat an ear wax structure of your face? I can neither
confirm nor deny that. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna go have my stomach
pumped. I'll see you later. Say it's your appendix. No, No,
that's funnier, that's funny. I really thought you were gonna say it's
my opinions. It was weighing me down.