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The film provides examples of:

  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Max's motivations are a bit more overtly ambiguous in the musical. In the film, when confronted by Joe about lying to Norma, he says "I cannot let her be destroyed". In the play, he says "I will not allow her to surrender". This hints that he's not merely feeding Norma flattering lies to keep her from breaking down, but maintaining his own vicarious fantasy through her.
  • Award Snub:
    • Painfully. Gloria Swanson lost the Best Actress Oscar only because Bette Davis in All About Eve was her main competitor. Swanson and Davis cancelled each other out (as both were playing over-the-hill, sharp-tongued actresses in films about the anxieties of aging and acting), leaving newcomer Judy Holliday winning for Born Yesterday.
    • In general, the film likely would've done much better at the Oscars had it not had the misfortune of being released in the same year as All About Eve, which beat it for Best Picture, Director and Supporting Actor and may have caused split votes in other categories, as above. Sunset only beat Eve in technical categories, and both won separately for their screenplays (Best Original Screenplay for Sunset, Best Adapted for Eve).
  • Awesome Ego: Norma Desmond is this in spades. Gloria Swanson gives her character several memorable one-liners and an incredible performance. She even has a handful of fans who agree with some of her points. She's also one of the film's most popular characters.
  • Awesome Music: Franz Waxman's soundtrack is another masterpiece of his brilliant career, and earned him an Academy Award.
  • Common Knowledge: Due to some Leaning on the Fourth Wall, it's sometimes assumed that Gloria Swanson just played herself on screen. Unlike Norma, Gloria was extremely active after leaving Hollywood; she moved to New York, starred in many stage productions, had her own television show and newsletter, and had additional careers as a clothing designer and political activist. She just played the part of Norma so well, people were convinced she couldn't have been acting.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Due to her status as a Tragic Villain, Norma is often viewed far more sympathetically than intended. Sure she was forgotten by Hollywood once The Talkies came along, and she's being indulged by Max, but she still emotionally abuses Joe and murders him when he's finally had enough of her. Norma is a fascinating character, of course (with a strong dose of Reality Subtext) but she is first and foremost a villain. In fact, some of Norma's humanizing moments just make her look worse by today's standards - threatening suicide to prevent a partner from leaving is recognised as a major form of emotional abuse.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Modern-day viewers tend to like Norma's butler Max, who's also her first husband and a former director. They tend to feel bad for everything he's had to deal with during the movie's course and love him for his Undying Loyalty to her. Plus there's a clever reference as how Max used to be a director. His actor, Erich von Stroheim, was actually a real world director as well.
    • Betty's also fairly popular due to being one of the nicest characters in the film, and actually caring about creating films with a message rather than doing it for the fame. There's also her relationship with Joe.
  • Fountain of Memes: Pretty much anything Norma says in the film has been made into a meme of some kind. Especially her most famous lines.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Norma Desmond's idea for her comeback vehicle – a Biblical epic about Salome – is regarded as laughably ridiculous by Cecil B. DeMille and the other Hollywood types. However, not only was an actual mind-bogglingly awful Salome film (starring Rita Hayworth) produced in 1953, but numerous filmmakers throughout the rest of the '50s (including DeMille himself) would turn to Biblical epics as a way of competing with the television audience, and some of these efforts turned out to be every bit as schlocky as Norma's. Furthermore, DeMille's current production when Norma pitches her script is Samson and Delilah, which was a critical and commercial success. Norma's script was bad, and she was out of touch with contemporary styles, but her selection of genre was appropriate, even a little ahead of it's time.
    • Her declaration that the movies were dead, though based in the industry's abandonment of silent cinema, would indeed come to pass within a few years, as television ate away at film's dominance of American entertainment.
    • Buster Keaton's appearance as one of the forgotten actors; now that he's arguably better-remembered than anyone else in the cast.
    • William Holden ending up essentially being Norma's kept man. Fast forward to The World of Suzie Wong where he once again nearly has a woman financially supporting him - this time an actual prostitute!
  • Hype Backlash: While the film holds up very well from a technical point of view, it can sometimes be lost on modern viewers just how scandalous it was when it got released. The metatextual story showing a once great Silent Era star as a deranged recluse hit so close to home that Mary Pickford couldn't show her face afterwards, and Louis B Mayer called the director a disgrace for portraying the industry this way. Mainstream audiences were certainly not used to such scathing Horrible Hollywood depictions as today. The sexual tension between Norma and Joe was also very risqué for the time - particularly the pool scene where she ogles him in a swimsuit.
  • It Was His Sled:
    • Norma shoots Joe out of jealously of his attempted departure. Of course, Joe's death does open the film but still...
    • Norma becomes insane and assumes the people are filming a silent film.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Both Norma and Joe. Both are extremely selfish and highly manipulative people who are always using those around them and each other to get what they want. But at the same time, they both have very understandable motivations for why they behave that and both are, in a way, victims of the Hollywood system. In Joe's case, he's merely a struggling screenwriter desperately trying to survive in the cutthroat and highly competitive world of film writing. While in Norma's case, she is desperate to return to the spotlight after her fall from relevancy thanks to talkies and the changing audience tastes and studio preferences that came with that.
  • LGBT Fanbase: Norma herself became something of a queer icon, because of the Camp associated with her.
  • Nightmare Fuel: During Norma's final speech, she stated that her life was in a studio with just them, the cameras, and "those wonderful people out there in the dark". It's possible Norma was referring to the actual audience watching the film, and it might send a shiver down some viewers' heads. Yep, Gloria Swanson's acting was that convincing.
  • Retroactive Recognition:
    • Betty's actress Nancy Olson would be best known as ...Nancy in Pollyanna.
    • Most would recognize Jack Webb, who plays Artie Green, as Sgt. Joe Friday from Dragnet.
    • A young Jack Warden can be glimpsed as a guest at Artie's New Years party.
  • She Really Can Act: On paper, Gloria Swanson as the lead is a case of Dancing Bear. Seeing a silent era icon playing a character not too dissimilar to herself would've appealed to audiences at the time mainly for novelty value, and odds are they weren't expecting too much in the way of her performance. Instead, Swanson gave one of the most amazing performances in Hollywood history, making Norma chillingly believable.
  • Signature Scene: The ending: Norma sees news crews in her house, convinces herself she's beginning her comeback, and announces "Alright, Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." The quote is referenced so often even people who have never watched the film are aware of its existence.
  • Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: If there is one flaw the movie has it is that very few of its characters are even remotely likeable (Max is probably the least objectionable character, and even then he's a hard luck case who's enabling Norma) and some of them just get worse as the film goes on. Though in the end this is pretty much unavoidable considering the whole theme is the dark side of Hollywood and those who don’t like the film will still often agree that this darkness is important to the message.

The musical also provides examples of:

  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The amount of Elisabeth alums in the German-language productions of Sunset Boulevard, given that the former show also has a death connected to the name "Mayerling". Particularly amusing with two productions (Theater Dortmund in 2017 and Theater Bonn in 2018) that had European musical theatre legend Pia Douwes as Norma and Oliver Arno (whose Elisabeth character Rudolf died at the Mayerling hunting lodge. Rudolf's grandfather was named Max, whose daughter was Elisabeth, the role that made Douwes a star).
  • My Real Daddy: While Patti LuPone was first, and while other acclaimed actresses such as Betty Buckley and Petula Clark have played Norma, Glenn Close is the best known, even returning to the role in the 2017 Broadway revival.
  • Nightmare Fuel: "The Phone Call" (from beginning to end), in which Norma's paranoia is growing more and more, as she makes a phone call to Betty while Joe overhears it and approaches her. After Joe tells Betty to come over and hangs up the phone, he becomes pissed at Norma, who begs him not to hate her... and this is just the tip of the iceberg for "The Final Scene"...
    • Speaking of "The Final Scene", when Norma fires the first gunshot at Joe, we hear a bit of his choking sound and some audible, painful gasps as he struggles to breathe... for a good ten seconds! This is followed by two more gunshots, and at the third gunshot... a few seconds of silence. It's truly painful to listen to, especially when you and Joe know he's about to die.
    • Also, Diahann Carroll in the Toronto production did something different with her Norma in the Final Scene. Just as she finishes the last reprise of With One Look, Norma starts to return to reality and lets out a blood-curdling shriek as she tears at her headdress in aghast of what she has done. Just terrifying.
      • Some other productions have also presented Norma having the same realisation at the end.
  • Tough Act to Follow: Most productions of Sunset today have one big problem: John Napier's iconic set for Norma's house in the original productions has become as iconic as the actresses, so after the disastrous first US Tour, a new production with an easier set by Derek Mc Lane paled in comparison and since then most big productions attempt to stay far away from the original as possible.
  • Older Than They Think: The current London production has Nicole Scherzinger ending the show covered in blood, however, it was first done in a German Productionnote .


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