On this day in movie history - Sunset Boulevard (1950 movie & books):

Sunset Boulevard

aka SUNSET BLVD.,

directed by Billy Wilder,

written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and D. M. Marshman Jr.,

was released in the United States on August 10, 1950.
Music by Franz Waxman.

Cast:

William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Jack Webb, Franklyn Farnum, Larry J. Blake, Charles Dayton, Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, Ray Evans, Jay Livingston, Fred Aldrich, Joel Allen, Gertrude Astor, Anne Bauchens, Edward Biby, Danny Borzage, Ken Christy, Ruth Clifford, John Cortay, Archie R. Dalzell, Eddie Dew, Peter Drynan, Julia Faye, Al Ferguson, Gerry Ganzer, Rudy Germane, Kenneth Gibson, Joe Gray, Sanford E. Greenwald, Creighton Hale, Chuck Hamilton, James Hawley, Len Hendry, E. Mason Hopper, Stan Johnson, Tiny Jones, Howard Joslin, Arthur Lane, Perc Launders, Alan Marston, William Meader, Gertrude Messinger, Harold Miller, John ‘Skins’ Miller, Lee Miller, Ralph Montgomery, Bert Moorhouse, Jay Morley, Bernice Mosk, Howard Negley, Ottola Nesmith, Eva Novak, Frank O’Connor, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Jack Perrin, Virginia L. Randolph, Bill Sheehan, Sidney Skolsky, Emmett Smith, Roy Thompson, Archie Twitchell, Yvette Vickers, Edward Wahrman, Jack Warden, Henry Wilcoxon.

Recommended reading:

Sunset Boulevard

By Billy Wilder.

Published by University of California Press.

Published 1999.

ISBN-10: 0520218558

ISBN-13: 978-0520218550

Description:

Sunset Boulevard (1950) is one of the most famous films in the history of Hollywood, and perhaps no film better represents Hollywood's vision of itself. Billy Wilder collaborated on the screenplay with the very able Charles Brackett, and with D. M. Marshman Jr., who later joined the team. Together they created a film both allusive and literate, with Hollywood's worst excesses and neuroses laid out for all to see. After viewing Sunset Boulevard Louis B. Mayer exclaimed: "We should throw this Wilder out of town!" The New York Times, however, gave the movie a rave review, praising "that rare blend of pungent writing, expert acting, masterly direction, and unobtrusively artistic photography." The film was nominated for Best Picture, and Wilder won an Academy Award for Best Story and Best Screenplay.

This facsimile edition of Sunset Boulevard makes it possible to get as much pleasure from reading the highly intelligent screenplay as from seeing the film. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction provides an intriguing array of background details about Wilder, the film's casting and production, and the lives of those connected to what has become a classic.

Sunset Boulevard

By Steven Cohan.

BFI Film Classics.

Published by British Film Institute.

Published 2022.

ISBN-10: 1839024089

ISBN-13: 978-1839024085

Description:

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard was a critical and commercial success on its release in 1950 and remains a classic of film noir and one of the best-known Hollywood films about Hollywood. Both its opening, with William Holden as the screenwriter Joe Gillis floating face down in ageing star Norma Desmond's (Gloria Swanson) pool, and lines such as 'I am big, it's the pictures that got small' are some of the most memorable in Classical Hollywood cinema.

Steven Cohan's study of the film draws on original archival research to shed new light on the film's production history, and the contribution to the film's success and meanings of director Wilder, stars Holden and Swanson but also supporting actors Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson (who plays Betty Schaefer), Cecil B. DeMille, and Hedda Hopper, as well as costumier Edith Head, and composer Franz Waxman. Cohan considers the film both as a 'back studio' picture (a movie about Hollywood) and as a film noir, and in the context of McCarthyism, blacklisting and the Hollywood Ten.

Cohan explores how the film was marketed, its reception and afterlife, tracing how the film is at once a product of its own particular historical moment as the movie industry was transitioning out of the studio era, yet one that still speaks powerfully to contemporary audiences, and speculates on the reasons for its enduring appeal.

On this day in movie history - Move Over, Darling (1963 movie & novel):

Move Over, Darling

directed by Michael Gordon,

written by Bella Spewack, Sam Spewack, Leo McCarey, Hal Kanter and Jack Sher,

was released in the United States on December 25, 1963.
Music by Lionel Newman.

Cast:

Doris Day, James Garner, Polly Bergen, Thelma Ritter, Fred Clark, Don Knotts, Chuck Connors, Edgar Buchanan, John Astin, Elliott Reid, Pat Harrington Jr., Alan Sues, Max Showalter, Eddie Quillan, Jack Orrison, Pami Lee, Leslie Farrell.

Recommended reading:

Move Over, Darling

By Marvin H. Albert.

Novelization.

Published by Dell.

Published 1963.

ASIN: B0DT1L53Q7

Description:

So you think you've got troubles? Take Nick for example – a respectable, bright, successful lawyer, blissfully enjoying his wedding night with his luscious new bride. Everything was perfect. Until his other wife showed up. Everyone thought she was dead. But here she was, beautifully, delightfully alive. And kicking. Don’t miss the riotous motion picture starring Doris Day, James Garner and Polly Bergen.

On this day in movie history - The Unsuspected (1947):

The Unsuspected

directed by Michael Curtiz,

written by Ranald MacDougall and Bess Meredyth,

based on the novel by Charlotte Armstrong,

was released in the United States on October 11, 1947.
Music by Franz Waxman.

Cast:

Joan Caulfield, Claude Rains, Audrey Totter, Constance Bennett, Hurd Hatfield, Ted North, Fred Clark, Harry Lewis, Jack Lambert, Nana Bryant, Walter Baldwin, Ray Walker, Barbara Woodell.

On this day in movie history - Cry of the City (1948 movie & novel):

Cry of the City

directed by Robert Siodmak,

written by Richard Murphy and Ben Hecht,

based on the novel The Chair for Martin Rome by Henry Edward Helseth,

was released in the United States on September 29, 1948.
Music by Alfred Newman.

Cast:

Victor Mature, Richard Conte, Fred Clark, Shelley Winters, Betty Garde, Berry Kroeger, Tommy Cook, Debra Paget, Hope Emerson, Roland Winters, Walter Baldwin, Robert Adler, Mimi Aguglia, George Beranger, Oliver Blake, Harry Carter, Dolores Castle, Ken Christy, Davison Clark, Ruth Clifford, John Cortay, Antonio Filauri, Tiny Francone, Howard Freeman, Ed Hinton, Kathleen Howard, Thomas Ingersoll, Robert Karnes, George Magrill, George Melford, Joan Miller, Tom Moore, Thomas Nello, Jane Nigh, Eddie Parks, Emil Rameau, Claudette Ross, Elena Savonarola, Harry Seymour, Konstantin Shayne, Dan Sheridan, Michael Stark, June Storey, Charles Tannen, Helen Troya, Tito Vuolo, Charles Wagenheim.

Recommended reading:

The Chair for Martin Rome

By Henry Edward Helseth.

ASIN: B0007I5CI0

First published 1947.

Published by Pocket Books.

Paperback.

Description:

Condemned killer escapes.

Martin Rome killed a policeman during a robbery. For this the State sentenced him to the electric chair. But before that bleak final moment Martin Rome had business to finish outside the jail – matters of stolen jewels and some human rats and a girl whose very existence he denied to the detectives but whose reality for him transcended all things. The swift, terrifying story of his mad undertaking, the grim revelation it brought to the police and, even more grimly, to Rome itself, is an emotional experience that leaves the reader thrilled and unnerved at the closing page.

“Just about the most real and convincing tough-job that has come in this season. Not easily forgettable.”

– Saturday Review of Literature.

On this day in movie history - White Heat (1949):

White Heat

directed by Raoul Walsh,

written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts,

based on a story by Virginia Kellogg,

was released in the United States on September 3, 1949.
Music by Max Steiner.

Cast:

James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly, Steve Cochran, John Archer, Wally Cassell, Fred Clark, G. Pat Collins, Paul Guilfoyle, Ian MacDonald, Robert Osterloh, Ford Rainey, Aline Towne, Jim Thorpe.