27 Days With Billy Wilder And Me

Every Movie He Directed…From Mauvaise Graine to Buddy Buddy

27 Days With Billy Wilder And Me header image 5

Entries Tagged as 'On Sunset Boulevard'

Day Twenty Two: The Fortune Cookie

July 21st, 2011 · No Comments · 1966, Academy Award, Cliff Osmond, Ed Sikov, Fortune Cookie, Howard McNear, IAL Diamond, Jack Lemmon, On Sunset Boulevard, Walter Matthau

Billy Wilder’s twenty-second movie, The Fortune Cookie, the Academy-Award winning film starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, was released in 1966. Billy was 60 years old. It’s a good thing I like Jack Lemmon. Here he is again in The Fortune Cookie. (All told, Lemmon appears in seven Wilder films!) Fortunately, this time he’s with […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Day Ten: Ace In the Hole

July 9th, 2011 · 2 Comments · 1951, Ace In the Hole, Ed Sikov, Frank Cady, Jan Sterling, Kirk Douglas, Lesser Samuels, On Sunset Boulevard, Porter Hall, Robert Arthur, Victor Desny

Billy Wilder’s tenth movie, Ace In the Hole, starring Kirk Douglas, was released in 1951. Billy was 45 years old. According to the book On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder, by Ed Sikov, Ace in the Hole is an unabashedly cynical Billy Wilder movie. It’s the story of a crusty, down-on-his-luck, […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Day Nine: Sunset Boulevard

July 8th, 2011 · No Comments · 1950, Academy Award, Ed Sikov, Erich von Stroheim, Fred Clark, Gloria Swanson, Jack Webb, Lloyd Gough, Montgomery Clift, Nancy Olson, On Sunset Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard, William Holden

Billy Wilder’s ninth movie, Sunset Boulevard, arguably one of the greatest films ever made, was released in 1950. Billy was 44 years old. If all Billy Wilder had ever directed was Sunset Boulevard it would have been enough to secure him a place on the Mount next to Zeus. This is the stuff of legend. […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Day Six: Death Mills

July 5th, 2011 · No Comments · 1946, Concentration Camps, Death Mills, Documentary, Ed Sikov, On Sunset Boulevard

Billy Wilder’s sixth movie, Death Mills, is a documentary about Nazi concentration camps released in 1946. Billy was 40 years old. I’m glad this was film only 21 minutes long. Despite it’s brevity, I feel like I just lost half my life. Or, rather, I feel like half of my soul was sucked out of […]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Day Four: Double Indemnity

July 3rd, 2011 · No Comments · 1944, Adaptation, Barbara Stanwyck, Double Indemnity, Ed Sikov, Exposition, Film Noir, Fred MacMurray, Miklos Rozsa, On Sunset Boulevard, Raymond Chandler, Woody Allen

Billy Wilder’s fourth movie, Double Indemnity, a classic film noir starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, was released in 1944. Billy was 38 years old. Now, Double Indemnity is a movie. And a half. This is a movie I can watch again and again and again — and never get tired of it. It crackles […]

[Read more →]

Tags: