SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950)

The story "Sunset Boulevard", set in the Hollywood '50s, focuses on Norma Desmond, a silent-screen goddess whose pathetic belief in her own indestructibility turns her into a demented recluse. The crumbling Sunset Boulevard mansion where she lives with only her butler, Max, who was once her director and husband, has become her self-contained world. Norma dreams of a comeback to pictures and she begins a relationship with Joe Gillis, a small-time writer who becomes her lover and that ends with murder and total madness. Director: Billy Wilder. Cast: William Holden, Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim.