On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder
[ORDER]
[ORDER]
The
first comprehensive critical biography of the writer-director of Double
Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, 22 other
films, and at least 28 other scripts. From his Jewish childhood in
Krakow through his teenage years in Vienna and his first career (as a
shady reporter for two disreputable newspapers) to his years of struggle
in Berlin, his first screenwriting jobs, his early success at Ufa (the
German film studio), his escape from the Nazis, and of course his long
and brilliant career in Hollywood, On Sunset Boulevard is a detailed
portrait of a complex, funny, troubled man and his art.
How
many takes did Gloria Swanson have to perform at the end of Sunset
Boulevard before Billy got what he wanted? What did the corpses say to
each other in the opening morgue scene, which was greeted by such
derisive laughter at a screening that it had to be cut and another scene
reshot? What did Fred MacMurray say in the gas-chamber sequence in
Double Indemnity, also cut because of bad previews? Why was Jimmy
Stewart such a terrible pain in the neck during the filming of The
Spirit of St. Louis? Who was the only star ever to get away with
rewriting Billy's dialogue on the set? (Answer: Bing Crosby.) What was
the real beginning of Billy Wilder's career as a journalist? Which Billy
Wilder films never got made? (They include: a 1950s movie about an
abortionist and a comedy for Julie Andrews.)
Built
on extensive new research and interviews, On Sunset Boulevard combines
detailed biography with in-depth criticism of Wilder's work, from his
journalism in Vienna and Berlin (translated for the first time into
English) to his German film scripts and Hollywood feature films. New
interviews with people who knew and worked with him (from Susan Sarandon
and Joan Fontaine to some unsung people who knew him way back when)
round out this picture of one of the American cinema's most blazingly
talented, articulate, and quirky filmmakers. As Billy says, "My life is
an open book. A little pornographic maybe, but open."
