“I AM big! It’s the pictures that got small.” So goes one of many famous quotes from “Sunset Boulevard,” the 1950 Billy Wilder classic that celebrated its 70th anniversary on Aug.
10. Like many of the film’s now-iconic lines, it is spoken by Norma Desmond, the forgotten silent screen goddess (fearlessly portrayed by real-life silent starlet Gloria Swanson) who serves as the grotesque centerpiece of Wilder’s cynical show business fable; it’s a proclamation of contempt, hurled against a Hollywood that has left her behind as it moves into an era that has no room for her larger-than-life ego.
Wilder’s beloved film noir, which he co-wrote with Charles Brackett, is one of those classics that stands the test of time. Equal parts bitter tragedy