Memorable quotes - Sunset Blvd.

Memorable quotes for Sunset Blvd. (1950)

*Betty Schaefer: Don't you sometimes hate yourself?
*Joe Gillis: Constantly.

*Joe Gillis: [narrating] The poor dope - he always wanted a pool. Well, in the end, he got himself a pool.

*Joe Gillis: You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.
*Norma Desmond: I *am* big. It's the *pictures* that got small.

*Norma Desmond: They took the idols and smashed them, the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos! And who've we got now? Some nobodies!

*Joe Gillis: I didn't know you were planning a comeback.
*Norma Desmond: I hate that word. It's a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting the screen.

*Max Von Mayerling: She was the greatest of them all. You wouldn't know, you're too young. In one week she received 17,000 fan letters. Men bribed her hairdresser to get a lock of her hair. There was a maharajah who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings. Later he strangled himself with it!

*Norma Desmond: We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!

***

The street after which the film is named has been associated with Hollywood film production since 1911 when the town's first film studio opened on Sunset Boulevard. The film workers lived modestly in the growing neighborhood, but during the 1920s profits and salaries rose to unprecedented levels. With the advent of the star system, luxurious homes noted for their often incongruous grandeur were built in the area. The stars were the subject of public fascination throughout the world as magazines and newspapers reported the excesses of their lives.

As a young man Billy Wilder was interested in American culture, with much of his interest fueled by the country's films. In the late 1940s many of the grand Hollywood houses remained, and Wilder, now a Los Angeles resident, found they were part of his everyday world. Many former stars from the silent era still lived in them, although most were no longer involved in the film business. Wilder wondered how they spent their time now that "the parade had passed them by" and began imagining the story of a star who had lost her celebrity and box-office appeal.