Billy Wilder is known as one of Hollywood’s great dependables. His career spanned more than 50 years, and his output was nearly perpetual. As evidenced by a remarkably diverse list of credits—Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Ace in the Hole, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard—Wilder never tied himself down to a specific genre. An astute thoughtfulness and inclination toward sharp-witted comedy were among the few commonalities between his films.
Wilder’s grueling upbringing nurtured a talent for revealing the humorous aspect of characters with a dark disposition. He was born to a family of Austrian Jews in Sucha in 1906, and in a 1999 interview with Cameron Crowe for Vanity Fair, a detached Wilder stated, “I was beaten in the home.” In 1928, Wilder’s father died in Berlin, and his mother, grandmother, and stepfather all died in the Holocaust. Wilder combated this devastating personal history with an incomparable perseverance throughout his career. In 1933, he escaped to the U.S. to further pursue his writing and directing career; by 1944, he received his first Best Director Academy Award nomination for his third film as a director, Double Indemnity.
While a visionary auteur, Wilder rarely worked in isolation. The success of his films depended on his collaboration with two gifted screenwriters: Charles Brackett and I.A.L. Diamond. Wilder and Brackett co-wrote many of Wilder’s films, from Ninotchka (1938) to Sunset Boulevard (1950). Given how fruitful their partnership was, it might be surprising to learn that the two men’s backgrounds and personalities sharply opposed each other. Where Wilder was a blunt cynic with a troubled Austrian upbringing, Brackett was a gentleman born into a wealthy family in New York. Wilder stated that he and Brackett “had nothing in common except writing. We did get along. We just never saw each other, or very rarely, after the shooting or after the writing, for dinner. We never did that.”
In response to his initial inspiration behind Sunset Boulevard, Wilder wanted to provide honest, previously unavailable insight into the film industry, stating “I wanted to make things a little harder for myself, I wanted to do that thing which never quite works—a picture about Hollywood.” Wilder and Brackett first envisioned the film as a comedy about the glorious comeback of a has-been silent film queen. Soon, the duo moved towards their darker sensibilities, and the story started to focus on a relationship between the former star and a younger writer to comment on how the film industry affects its former stars. Aware of the story’s provocative criticism of Hollywood, Wilder was afraid of Paramount Studios and the Production Code discovering his plans and subsequently censoring the film’s subversive content. To lead the film executives off their trail, Wilder and Brackett created a fictitious working title, “A Can of Beans.”
The duo boldly went to great lengths to preserve the film’s unrelenting criticism of Hollywood, as proven by their deceiving of the suits and the lengthy casting process for the role of Norma Desmond. Wilder, in particular, played a crucial role in casting the film. While he and Brackett initially imagined Mae West as the has-been film actress, she turned down the role, along with Mary Pickford and Pola Negri, who all found the character unflattering. Wilder and Brackett eventually thought of Gloria Swanson, whose grandiose expressions, theatricality, and self-confidence made the duo determined to cast her.
However, the longtime collaboration between Wilder and Brackett also came to an end after the production of Sunset Boulevard. Brackett felt the film had become too cynical and reliant on a bleakly ironic tone, and bitter quarrels between him and Wilder pervaded the production. They specifically disagreed over the montage where Norma endures various beauty treatments to prepare for her big-screen comeback. Brackett believed the montage was too mean-spirited and vulgar, while Wilder thought it was necessary to realistically evoke the desperation of an older actress. As the director, Wilder’s vision prevailed and the montage stayed in the film, thereby demonstrating his commitment to the film’s downbeat, ruthless investigation of fame. Wilder and Brackett’s argument was the point of no return for Wilder, who resolved never to collaborate with Brackett again.
Wilder’s determination to give an honest rendering of Hollywood transcended his bickering with Brackett and covering up production details from Paramount Studios. With Sunset Boulevard, Wilder was writing about an industry of which he had first-hand experience, unlike the more off-the-wall premises and subject matter belonging to Some Like It Hot or Double Indemnity. Wilder had a sharp understanding of the film industry—from the pursuit of fame to fading stardom—and this made Sunset Boulevard a deeply personal film.
