13 Close-Up Facts About “Sunset Boulevard”

Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 13 Close-Up Facts About Sunset Boulevard.   Here are three of my favorites… [Beware of Spoilers!]

1. MAE WEST WAS BILLY WILDER’S FIRST CHOICE TO STAR.
Initially, writer-director Wilder envisioned the movie as a straightforward comedy, and the famously saucy West seemed like a perfect fit. But she wanted to rewrite her dialogue (as was her custom)—a nonstarter for Wilder, who seldom let his actors change their lines even slightly from what was on the page. It’s probably just as well, since the darker, more nuanced story that eventually emerged was quite different from West’s wheelhouse anyway. [I can’t imagine the movie having near the impact if done as a comedy. Although Mae West in a drama/tragedy would have been interesting. – Craig]

6. THE UNDERWATER SHOT WAS NOT FILMED UNDERWATER.
One of the few showy bits of camerawork in the film is near the beginning, when the corpse floating in Norma Desmond’s pool is seen from underneath. But it was too difficult to put a camera underwater to get the shot, so Wilder and cinematographer John Seitz came up with an ingenious solution: they put a mirror on the bottom of the pool and filmed the reflection from above.

9. HEDY LAMARR WANTED $25,000 TO DO A CAMEO.
When Norma visits DeMille at Paramount, he’s in the midst of shooting Samson and Delilah, which really is what he was up to at the time. For added meta-truthfulness, Wilder wanted to have that film’s lead actress, Hedy Lamarr, be there too, so that DeMille could ask her to let Norma sit in her chair (you know, those behind-the-scenes chairs that have the star’s name on them). For this Lamarr wanted $25,000 (which would be about $250,000 in 2015 dollars). Wilder changed the scene so that DeMille offered Lamarr’s chair to Norma without Lamarr being present. But even to show a chair with her name on it, Lamarr wanted $10,000. So Wilder gave up, and DeMille (who was already being compensated) gave Norma his own chair.