The Historic Asolo Theatre,

http://www.ringling.org/HistoricAsoloTheater.aspx,
is the only recreated 18th century theatre in the United States. It’s yet
another of the wonderful, many faceted aspects of The John and Mable
Ringling Museum, http://www.ringling.org/ which sits at the end of
University Parkway in Sarasota. The current cinema program is “We
Could Make Beautiful Music Together: Six Decades of Academy Award
Winning Film Scores”:

Film Score by Year

Chariots of Fire Vangelis 1981
Sunset Boulevard Franz Waxman 1950
The Red Violin John Corigliano 1998
The Summer of ’42 Michael Legrand 1971
The Heiress Aaron Copland 1949
Tom Jones Jon Addison 1963

Getting There
I wolfed a supper of spaghetti with a wonderfully simple
marinara, and a refreshing salad with lots of fresh ingredients,
including some chopped fresh mint. I left later than I did last
week to avoid the “sunshine delay”, but it was overcast anyway,
so, no problem. I stopped to get some cash, and arrived about
6:15 (I learned last week that getting there early helps in order
to get a seat with good sight lines).

The Audience
The audience again seemed comprised primarily of seniors, but
not ancient seniors, like last week. I struck up a conversation
with an affable couple to my right. He was from Ohio – I think –
and she was from Chicago, although not for some time. They
were big fans of the film program here, and were regulars
(during our chat they waved twice to two sets of acquaintances
and/or neighbors). We agreed that it had been years that we’d
seen Sunset Boulevard.

Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard was an amazing cinematic experience. The
film explored what can become of our heroes, our stars, our
idols, when, callously replaced and forgotten, they obstinately
(and tragically) cloak themselves in a gossamer cocoon of
memories of fame that are as evanescent as the images that
flickered on the silver screen. And when the lights again go on,
as they inevitably must, the maintenance of those memories of
fame requires reinforcement from a panoply of photos, artifacts,
and manufactured fan mail.

Part of what makes this film so awesome is that although the

main character, Norma Desmond (silent film star Gloria
Swanson), a silent film actress whose star had long faded, is
thoroughly unapologetic, she is completely sympathetic. Her
abject emptiness and loneliness are heartbreaking. In the world
of Sunset Boulevard, rejection can be brutal, cold, and isolating.
And the ensuing loneliness can be pure anguish.

Academy Recognition
Seeing the film again after 20+ years, I was initially surprised
that it didn’t win an Academy award for Best Picture, nor Best
Actress. It was nominated for 11 awards, and won three, which
are, according to http://www.filmsite.org/suns.html

Best Story and Screenplay (co-authored by Charles Brackett,

D.M. Marshman, Jr., and Billy Wilder);

Best Black and White Art Direction/Set Decoration; and

Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Franz

Waxman).

The eight unsuccessful nominations were for

Best Picture
Best Actor (William Holden)
Best Actress (Gloria Swanson)
Best Supporting Actor (Erich von Stroheim)
Best Supporting Actress (Nancy Olson)
Best Director (Billy Wilder)
Best B/W Cinematography (John Seitz), and
Best Film Editing

Franz Waxman (1906 – 1967)

According to http://www.franzwaxman.com/about.html,
“…Waxman … scored such famous Spencer Tracy films as
Captains Courageous, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Woman of
the Year. In 1937, he was loaned by M-G-M to David O.
Selznick for The Young at Heart, and was nominated for both
Best Original Music and Best Score - the first two of 12
Academy Award nominations he was to receive for the 144
films he scored in his 32 years in Hollywood. In 1940 he was
again loaned to Selznick, this time for Rebecca and was
nominated for his third Academy Award.

“Waxman won the Academy Award in 1950 for Billy Wilder's

Sunset Boulevard, and in 1951 for George Stevens’ A Place in
the Sun. For over half a century, he was the only composer to
have won the award for Best Score in two successive years.

“Together with Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner, Dimitri

Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Newman a United
States postage stamp was issued in 1999.”

William Holden (1918 – 1981)

He was 32 in 1950, the year Sunset Boulevard was released. It
was his breakthrough role, for which he earned his first
Academy Award nomination. Holden would win Best Actor three
years later for his work in Stalag 17 (also directed by Wilder),
and would be nominated again in 1977 for his acting in Network
(the award that year went to Richard Dreyfuss for his work in
The Goodbye Girl).

The Best Actor Oscar that year went to Jose Ferrar for Cyrano
de Bergerac

Gloria Swanson (1899 – 1983)

According to Wikipedia, Swanson “Was nominated for the first-
ever Academy Award for Best Actress … as the title character
in the 1928 film Sadie Thompson … one of the greatest silent
film classics.” Unlike her Norma Desmond character in Sunset
Boulevard, Swanson, according to Wikipedia, didn’t dwell on
the past. When her cinema star faded, “… she threw herself into
painting and sculpting, writing a syndicated column, touring in
summer stock, political activism, radio and television work,
clothing and accessories design and marketing, and
sporadically making appearances on the big screen.”

Swanson’s performance was amazing on so many levels that I

wondered how she could lose to whoever Judy Holliday (1921 –
1965) was. Somewhere down the road I’m going to have to rent
Born Yesterday, and check out Holliday’s Oscar-winning
performance. However, I did learn that two years after receiving
her Best Actress Oscar, Holliday, according to Wikipedia, “…
was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee to answer claims that she was associated with
communism. Although not blacklisted from films, she was
blacklisted from radio and television for almost three years.”

The Best Actress Oscar that year went to Judy Holliday for
Born Yesterday.
Erich von Stroheim (1885 – 1957)
According to Wikipedia, Von Stroheim “was an Austrian-born
star of the silent film age, lauded for his directorial work
in which he was a proto-auteur. As an actor, he is noted
for his arrogant Teutonic character parts which led him
to be described as ‘not a character actor, but what a
character!’. Playing villainous German roles during the
Great War, he became known as ‘The Man You Love to
Hate’.

“He is perhaps best known as an actor for his role as von

Rauffenstein in Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion (1937) and as
Max von Mayerling in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950).

“For the latter film, which co-starred Gloria Swanson, Stroheim

was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actor . . . The Mayerling character states that he used to be one
of the three great directors of the silent era, along with D.W.
Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille; many film critics agree that
Stroheim was indeed one of the great early directors.
Stroheim's character in Sunset Boulevard thus had an
autobiographical basis that reflected the humiliations suffered
through his career.”

The Best Supporting Actor Oscar that year went to George

Sanders for All About Eve.

Nancy Olson (1928 - )

After Sunset Boulevard, and several less successful pairings
with Holden, Olson's career, according to Wikipedia, stalled, “…
though she did make several memorable appearances in films
for the Walt Disney studio. The Absent-Minded Professor and
Son of Flubber paired her with Fred MacMurray and were
popular with movie-goers. She also appeared alongside Hayley
Mills in Pollyanna and Dean Jones in Snowball Express. Olson
then moved to New York City where she appeared on
Broadway.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, she did guest roles on

television, and has been retired since the mid 1980s, although
she made a brief, uncredited appearance in Flubber, the 1997
remake of The Absent-Minded Professor.

The Best Supporting Actress Oscar that year went to Josephine

Hull for Harvey.

Billy Wilder (1906 – 2002)

According to Wikipedia, “Wilder's directorial choices reflected
his belief in the primacy of writing. He avoided the exuberant
cinematography of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles because,
in Wilder's opinion, shots that called attention to themselves
would distract the audience from the story. Wilder's pictures
have tight plotting and memorable dialogue. Despite his
conservative directorial style, his subject matter often pushed
the boundaries of mainstream entertainment.

“Wilder was skilled at working with actors, coaxing silent era

legends Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim out of
retirement for roles in Sunset Boulevard. For Stalag 17, Wilder
squeezed an Oscar-winning performance out of a reluctant
William Holden (Holden wanted to make his character more
likeable; Wilder refused). Wilder sometimes cast against type
for major parts such as Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity
and The Apartment. Many today know MacMurray as a
wholesome family man from the television series My Three
Sons, but he played a womanizing schemer in Wilder's films.
Humphrey Bogart shed his tough guy image to give one of his
warmest performances in Sabrina. James Cagney, not usually
known for comedy, was memorable in a high-octane comic role
for Wilder's One, Two, Three. Wilder coaxed a very effective,
and in some ways memorable performance out of Marilyn
Monroe in Some Like It Hot.
“In total, he directed fourteen different actors in Oscar-
nominated performances: Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland,
William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy
Olson, Robert Strauss, Audrey Hepburn, Charles Laughton,
Elsa Lanchester, Jack Lemmon, Jack Kruschen, Shirley
MacLaine and Walter Matthau. Milland, Holden and Matthau
won Oscars for their performances in Wilder films.

“Wilder mentored Jack Lemmon and was the first director to

pair him with Walter Matthau, in The Fortune Cookie (1966).
Wilder had great respect for Lemmon, calling him the hardest
working actor he had ever met. Lemmon starred in seven of
Wilder's films.”

The Best Director Oscar that year went to Joseph L.

Mankiewicz for All About Eve.

John Seitz (1892 – 1979)

According to Wikipedia, “In 1916 during the silent era he
established himself, achieving great success with the Rudolph
Valentino film, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921).

“Highly regarded by director Billy Wilder, Seitz worked with him

on the film noirs Double Indemnity (1944), The Lost Weekend
(1945), and Sunset Boulevard (1950), receiving Academy
Award nominations for each.”

His seven Academy nominations were for:

The Divine Lady, 1929
Five Graves to Cairo, 1943
Double Indemnity, 1944
The Lost Weekend, 1945
Sunset Boulevard, 1950
When Worlds Collide, 1951
Rogue Cop, 1954
The Best Cinematography Oscar that year went to Robert
Krasker for The Third Man.

Arthur Schmidt (1912 - 1965 ), Doane Harrison (1894-1968)

Schmidt, according to Wikipedia, “began his career as an editor
in 1934 on the film Anne of Green Gables and continued until
his sudden death in 1965. During that time he worked on
several of the Bulldog Drummond B-movies, as well as The
Blue Dahlia (1946), When Worlds Collide (1951) and The Old
Man and the Sea (1958).

“He was a particular favorite of Billy Wilder's and edited Sunset

Boulevard (1950, for which he received an Academy Award
nomination). Other films in their extended, notable collaboration
include Ace in the Hole (1951), Sabrina (1954), The Spirit of St.
Louis (1957) and Some Like It Hot (1959) for the director. He
received a second Oscar nomination in 1957 for his work on
Sayonara.

“The latter part of his career was largely spent working on Jerry
Lewis films, either as an editor (Cinderfella in 1960) or as an
associate producer (The Nutty Professor in 1963). He died on
July 22, 1965 in Los Angeles, California. His son, Arthur
Schmidt, is also a notable film editor who has won two
Academy Awards so far for Who Framed Roger Rabbit and
Forrest Gump.”

Harrison, according to
http://theoscarsite.com/whoswho2/harrison_d.htm, “worked
mainly for Paramount, cutting some of that studio's prime films
of the 40s and early 50s, including:
The Major and The Minor, 1942
Five Graves to Cairo, 1943
Double Indemnity, 1944
The Lost Weekend, 1945
A Foreign Affair, 1948
Sunset Boulevard, 1950
Ace in the Hole, 1951
Stalag 17, 1953
Sabrina, 1954
Witness for the Prosecution, 1957

“A favorite of Mitchell Liesen and Billy Wilder he later became

the latter's associate producer for The Seven Year Itch (1955),
Love in the Afternoon (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959), The
Apartment (1960), One, Two, Three (1961), Irma La Douce
(1963), Kiss Me, Stupid (1964), and The Fortune Cookie (1966).

“Harrison was also nominated for Best Editing in 1943 for Five
Graves to Cairo.”

The Best Editing Oscar that year went to Ralph E. Winters and
Conrad A. Nervig for King Solomon’s Mines.