Ms Kathleen's Movie Review

Screen 5 of 8

In “Sunset Boulevard”, what Joe doesn't foresee is that he will be reeled in and end up fatally dependent upon Norma, with his John the Baptist's head on a platter for her. She will actually become the temptress Salome character with her dance of the Seven Veils. Luring him in, she demands that he cannot leave her house with the script. Norma suggests that he live in a room over the garage and Max the butler promptly shows him the apartment where he will stay. It is here that Max explains how Norma was worshipped by fetishistic men in her heyday: "She was the greatest of them all. You wouldn't know. You are too young. In one week, she received 17,000 fan letters. Men bribed her hairdresser to get a lock of her hair. There was a Maharajah who came all the way from India to beg one of her silk stockings长袜 — a close-fitting covering for the leg. Later, he strangled himself with it."

Things quickly become even queerer as Joe goes about his day in and day out routine. For one, there is the memorabilia stuffed residence, the private screenings of Norma's old silent films, the bridge games attended by other faded silent films stars to include cameo's by Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and studio head H.B. Warner and the midnight ceremony of the last rites and burial of the pet monkey.