November 23, 2021 • 46 mins
This year, we are thankful for Norma Desmond. Hitch a ride with Lianna and Siena as they motor through Old Hollywood celebrating an unhinged lady icon. We ARE big... it's the podcasts that got small. The person most confused by the movie this week was: Both of us trying to recall what the male protagonist looked like.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tossed Popcorn is a production of I Heart Radio. Hi,
I'm Leanna Holston and I'm Sianna Jacole and Freaking Welcome
to Tossed Popcorn, the podcast where two idiots watch every
film on the a f I one hundred Greatest American
Movies of All Time, the very slightly less racist Tampa
(00:22):
Anniversary Edition. This podcast is a safe space for people
who don't know anything about movies. Today we're watching Sunset Boulevard.
I Am Big, the pictures that got Small number sixteen
on the a f I list. Warning. There will be
spoilers about this film. If you like this podcast, please
(00:44):
be sure to subscribe to it and rate us a
gorgeous five stars in the Apple Podcasts app Also, we
are on social media at Tossed Popcorn. We are on
TikTok if you can believe it, Twitter, and Instagram, and
we post gorgeous memes every Saturday. Don't miss those means
A quick content warning. This film does deal with suicidality
(01:06):
and suicide attempts. Sienna, Yeah, Leanna, this movie? What was
so relatable? So good? Where did you fall? I can't
figure out if I loved the woman hated the film
or if I just had a fine time. I get
(01:28):
that for this one. First, I want to know what
you thought this movie would be about. I'd love to
hear your prediction of Sunset Boulevard. Let's start with yours. Hi, Leanna,
it's Sienna. I'm about to watch Sunset Boulevard, another movie
I've never ever heard of. Based on the name, though,
I see something pretty clear in my mind's eye. I
(01:49):
think a man is going to lose his house on
Sunset Boulevard. It's going to fly off in the wind.
It's going to land at the feet of a woman.
They're going to have a beautiful rom calm romance. There
will be big bands at a great hotel, a fifties charm.
It will be in black and white, and someone will die.
(02:13):
Let's see what this film is all about. See that
it wasn't that bad. Actually accord that after watching the film. Okay,
may I make a big innuendo. Yeah, I mean, he
does lose a hat. I'm not sure this makes sense
because I don't actually know that much about penises. Here's okay, No, okay,
(02:36):
I got it. Hang on, A man loses his hat.
A hat could be considered sort of the tip of
a man. The tip, just the tip of him is
lost to a woman. He bones a woman. Okay, I
see what that is. Yeah, listen to my prediction. Good morning, Sienna,
(03:00):
it's Leona. I'm about to watch Sunset Boulevard in the film. I,
of course no nothing about I love this morning. Boys.
I am guessing it's set in Hollywood Land due to
the fact that there's very famously a Sunset Boulevard here
in Los Angeles. Um. And I think Glenn Close was
(03:23):
like involved with this one years after this one came out. Uh,
shut up that I'm imagining glamor and probably a blonde woman,
and I hope a lot of sparkles. Love you buy? Okay.
We both did an okay job. Like they were like whispers.
(03:45):
There were echoes of what was in this movie. In
these predictions. We were onto something. We could sense something
from that title. I will say, like, it's not hard
to get. As soon as you put a blatantly Hollywood
title on a film, what do you think they're going
to guess that it's about true? There were good sparkles though,
and I did think about you, Oh, there were sparkles
(04:08):
in this film. Sianna would you please give us a
summary of Sunset Boulevard. Yes, this eccentric, glamorous, horny, aging
actress named Norma Desmond is obsessed with her old career
and wants to get back into Hollywood, as fate may
have it. A hottie named Joe, also the narrator, who
(04:32):
is struggling to make ends meet as a screenwriter, accidentally
stumbles upon her bizarre mansion on Sunset Boulevard. In this
dark comedy noir, Norma bullies Joe into living in her house,
being her boyfriend, and writing the screenplay that she hopes
to put her back on that big, beautiful silver screen.
(04:54):
Spoiler alert, it ends tragically. I'm so glad you liked
this movie or liked her. She's the greatest. I liked
her so much that, to be honest, most of my
historical context is about her the actress, or who she
supposed to be in Yes, and we'll get to why. Okay,
(05:18):
Hello everyone, Welcome to the historical context segment. Sunset Boulevard
film Apparently. Yeah, as you said, was supposed to be
a dark comedy, which I was like, it is a
film noir, and it's not that far off from reality. Basically,
the premise is about this woman who was at the
(05:39):
height of her career in the nine twenties, in that
golden age of Hollywood, and now it's the forties and
she's still trying to be relevant. But it's not hashtag working.
Silent movies are done. Silent movies are done so and
this happened with a lot of real life actresses. A
bit about the star of the film, William Holden, who
(06:02):
plays whatever Joe served in World War Two. Oh, you
don't care about war? I don't forget every time. I didn't.
A lot of actors serve in the war, didn't have to.
When are you going to learn that in this segment?
I actually need you to just be like, wow, that's
really interesting. I'm so sorry. Okay, wait to say again,
did you know William Holden, who plays Joe, actually served
(06:26):
in World War Two? I did not know that. Cool,
And now I've told you. After the war, William did
super duper well in Hollywood and was nicknamed Golden Holden,
which I think is fun. That's cute. And now onto
Glorious Swanson, who plays Norma in this movie Queen. Oh
(06:48):
my god. Okay, so the role of Norma was originally
offered to Silent Film stars May West, Poland Negri and
Mary Pickford, and all of them were like bitch, no,
like first of all, rude, all know. Gloria was also Okay,
I'm loving the eye contact and the earnest listening, but
(07:09):
I'm getting from you right now. She was actually fifty
one during the filming of this movie, and I was like, Okay,
that's awesome. I did not expect that. She started acting
in nineteen fifteen, left Paramount in nine to produce her
own films, and she produced a film called Queen Kelly,
where they hired a German director named Oh, I didn't
(07:30):
write it down. He spent so much money on the
film that it never got released because they had to
like shut it down. It's too fancy. So Queen Kelly
was never released in the US, but a portion of
that film is seen in Sunset Boulevard when she shows
him an old movie that she was in. It's that movie.
That's so cool, thank you, that's really cool. She retired
(07:52):
in nineteen thirty four from Silent Film acting, and then
she did one film between then and Sunset Boulevard. Then
once she did sensetble of art. She wanted to develop
it into a musical, so she hired two struggling songwriters
and that is where the parallels start. This was afterward
after Sunset Boulevards. Gloria hires two struggling songwriters, falls in
(08:18):
love with one of them, and that is according to
that guy. So it's like, oh right, the studio passed
on the musical and that was like it died. The
project died, and I was like that spooking. It sucks
for something to be based on something that happened in
the future. Yeah, you got that. Gloria was also like
(08:41):
a dope as businesswoman. She started a skincare brand. She
did a lot of yoga, so shouts out to her,
I don't know joints And a fun fact, she was
the visual inspiration for Mortisha Adams in the original New
Yorker Adams Family publications. That is so interesting they take
fun fact. This movie also very Adams Family. There were
(09:05):
other Okay, here's where the film was like I r
L in real life based Cecil B. Demill plays himself.
He actually directed Glorious wantson in Silent Films in the
past and whatever nickname he calls her in the film.
It's like sweet Nugget or old man or whatever is
actually the nickname he used for her on set. Enormous
(09:27):
Poker friends in the film, The quote unquote wax Works
were actual silent film actors playing themselves, Buster Keaton and A. Q.
Nielsen and H. B. Warner. Here's my final fact for
you in the historical contact section, I literally cannot break
eye contact with you when I say this because I
need to see your full reaction. Sunset Boulevard. That film's
(09:52):
working title was A Can of Beans? What why? I
don't know that's exactly I mean. I guess like it's
a noir. So let's talk about beans. And here's what
I we have to talk about this, Like, what is
(10:13):
the difference between a can of beans and a hill
of beans? You may recognize this from our Casablanca episode
where Humphrey Bogger is like, oh, the problems of two
little people don't amount to a hill of beans in
this world? What does the can add to it? Value wise?
What does this mean? Now? That's also like a can
of beans is not not a hill of beans, just
(10:34):
contained within an aluminum cylinder. What does a hill make Wow,
I think we've actually sort of entered into a realm
of poetry. Anyway, that's the end of my history for
this film. Thank you so much for that. Thank you, Siana.
What did you think about this movie? I thought it
(10:55):
was so good. Really. Yeah, more than this being like
oh something him that was perfect made for me, I
just want to watch it all the time. I was
just like, you know what this is. This is a
quality film, and I'm enjoying it. Yeah. I enjoyed my
time watching it. I was really engrossed, particularly once Norma
entered the scene. Shall we move on to phone notes? Yes,
(11:15):
we shall. These are the notes that we take on
our phones while we watched the films, because we watched
them separately, and then we made up to Gassip about
them later. Ak A, write me out. This film is Hollywood.
It lives, breeds exudes Hollywood. Okay. The beginning of this movie,
I was like, oh my god, if this is a
murder mystery, I am down right. But then it wasn't
(11:39):
a mystery. So it opens on a man floating in
a pool of very Gatsby of him to do, and
then the narration. There's a voiceover because of course there's
a voice over, because that's a film noir, which I
did love. Honestly, Okay, this actually was to me a
bit of a murder mystery because I forgot what Joe
looked like. I also did not realize that Joe. I
(12:01):
was like, I don't even think I need to put
William Holden the actor in the historical context, because he
was just a guy, Like, he just looked like some guy.
Apparently he was like the heartthrob. Really, my grandma, Grandma
Jacole loved him. He was the hottia and I was
so interested in that as well, because he's he's a man.
(12:21):
I mean, I didn't get it until he gets out
of the pool and I was like, oh I got
a part way through, Oh I understand. We started really
following Joe's story. Joe Gillis Joe Gillis, and Joe is
a struggling screenwriter navigating Hollywood, trying to decide if he's
gonna get another job, what he's gonna do for work.
And that's when he stumbles upon the home of Norma
(12:45):
because he really needs three hundred dollars because he's got
his car. But he's like, I don't know hasn't paid
the loan the lease on it for some reason. Two
men and hats are coming after him. Wow, Okay, A
lot happens while this boy is looking for money. So
when he goes to the producer on the lot, I
think it's the Paramount lot. It's got to be. And
(13:05):
he's like, please buy my baseball screenplay. A woman comes in.
Who's the best part of this film except for Norma?
What is this woman's name? Bet What? Betty? Betty? You
were so close with bet. She comes in and just
fully ships on this guy's screenplay to her boss, not
realizing that the guy is right behind her. And I
was like, I love you for that. And then she
(13:26):
sees him and she says, do you remember what? She says, No,
I runed it down. She goes, right now, I wish
I could crawl in a hole and pull it in
after me. I love the lines in this movie. That's
the good thing about in No Air. They give you stuff.
They give you some good stuff. Another line in that
scene was you would have turned down gone with the wind,
which I was like, WHOA sort of like acknowledging real
(13:47):
world film. It's the a f I universe. If I
cinematic fucking nightmare of a place to live. But I
was like, that would have been the right thing to do, Like, yeah,
he wouldn't have made money, but he would have been
centuries ahead of time morally. Okay, So he arrives at
this haunted mansion, which does look very haunted, very Adam's
family asked, did you think at all that the house
(14:11):
looked a little bit like the Stanford Alumni Center? No, okay,
I was a tour guy going to Stanford University, and
our tour is always walked right past the end of
NI center. The sort of Spanish mission style architecture or
mission revival actually, with the sort of tiled roofing and
the palm trees around it and the archways, I think
(14:32):
really reminded me of the sorry this is now actually
an architecture podcast having a party all by yourself. Go
get some punch because we'll be right back. So he's
standing outside of this house kind of looking around, thinking
it's abandoned, and then this old woman, Yeah, I know
(14:56):
everything's gonna accidentally keep saying old, but it's aging an
I think that I think is very funny in all
old movies, and this one, it really stands out is
that people decided to get old so much earlier back
in the day, Like they would be like forty, and
they'd be like, all right, time to put on my
sweater and sit in my chair. Oh my goodness. Literally,
(15:16):
And because also people our age at that time, we're
like fully dressed in suits and dresses and heels and walking.
I was like, she's probably like fifty, which actually turns
out she canonically is supposed to be. So yes, this
middle aged actress is standing there, but she's very eccentric
and strange and croaking, and she you know, called to
(15:37):
him like you're supposed to be up here, because she
was waiting for him. She was waiting for the guy
who was bringing her monkey's coffin. And we Sienna said
that so casually, but we will sit with that and
go into a bit for she's dancing. She's dancing, because
this is the point, This is the point in the
movie where you're like, Okay, this is a fun movie.
(15:59):
And landish old woman talking about her monkey's funeral. Now
that's a movie. Now that's a movie. This film absolutely
off the rails in almost every way. Normals that attend
the entire time the first way you meet her is
with a dead monkey. She brings him up the stairs.
She's like, you there, you allege, come up staff and
he goes upstairs. He's like, I really am not supposed
(16:21):
to be here right now, but I am a white
man and so I will just sort of yes and
my way into getting money. She's like, he's just laid
out on the chaise in a lot room and you
don't know what's there. You think, well, it's like maybe
her husband passed away. Maybe like a dear friend. They
pulled back the sheet coroner style in a morgue and
(16:42):
it is a dead old. It's amazing. That's when you
know you're in for a ride. Baby. It's so insane,
and boy, your boy, they take you on a ride.
So they move further into the home. She finds out
he's not act like the monkey. What's the name for
people who do funerals crypt keeper? Not a monkey, crypt keeper.
(17:07):
He figures out that she's Norma Desmond and like your face,
I know it. I know it from being famous. Also,
she has photos of herself everywhere all over the walls.
She this woman is my muse. I She's who I
want to be when I grow up. I love her
so much. She wears glamorous things. She lives in a
(17:27):
stupidly huge, dumb house. She watches videos of herself, and
then she pays a young hot man to just be
there and live with her. We have to talk about
her iconic line when he's like, oh, you used to
be big, and then she goes, I am big. It's
the pictures that got small. I'm obsessed with her. I
(17:48):
wrote that so many times. She is a feminist icon.
She is a lifestyle blog. She is the moment. She
is my mood board, she is my mother. She's like,
she's that Lady Gaga gift, where Lady Gaga is just
listing adjectives. She's like talented, powerful, moving the moment, incredible, inspirational.
(18:13):
There could be a hundred people in a room and
if one of them is Norma, you're going to have
a good day. Listen. Gen Z would love this bitch.
She also brings up astrology. She's literally like, what's your sign?
What's your sign? You know? He's like, I don't want
to work. Here's what's your sign. He's like what the fuck?
She's like, what moon three barn And he's like to
ser goes Sangittarius, Sangittarius. Okay. Also, I gotta say I
(18:38):
love a mysterious, omniscient Butler. I loved Max. What was he?
He's here, he is there, He's omniscient, he is omnipresent.
Max is everywhere, he knows everything. In many ways, this
was my dream life, which I know is like a
very sort of tragic thing to say. And I will say,
like I want to be Norma, but I want to
(19:00):
have friends, and I also I want like my life
to be real and not made up by a guy
named Max who's my ex husband slash now Butler, I
don't think her life was that sad. Actually, she obviously
wasn't doing well. She had some struggles mentally and emotionally. Yeah,
(19:21):
but if she wanted friends, like she could have gotten
friends it was. It wasn't like nobody wanted to be
her friend, and she hadn't poker with friends. I don't know.
That's true. Life really was her own in a in
a way that I don't think we've seen in a
movie yet. That's so true. She throws a party where
nobody's there. It's not because no one comes, they would
have come. It's because she wants to just hang out
alone with this hot man. She's also incredibly rich, like
(19:46):
unfathomably extremely the biggest home you've ever seen, and just
like seems like she's never going to run out of money,
which I guess was the case with those early Paramount stars.
They just had more money than they knew what to
do with. So Normal realizes Joe is not there to
bury the monkey, and so she instead it starts telling
(20:07):
him about her screenplay. It's like it's a Hollywood thing
that we just can't, like, as two women sort of
in the industry, like we can't explain to you how
like normal it is. I know it sounds insane, but
it's just like, oh my god, what are you working?
Oh my god, here's my screen Like hers, though, is
absolutely bonkers. It is handwritten. There didn't seem to be
any page numbers there. I do not know how they
can track of anything handwritten on regular printer paper, stacks
(20:30):
and stacks of it, pied up with ribbons. It seems
like parchment, even because she's from the past. But at
some point she's like, wait, you said you're a writer,
what do you do? Okay, come over here and read
my screenplay. It's good right, I'm going to be the star.
Oh my god. I simply adore her, And so as
a result, she ends up like hiring Max to ghost Matt.
She says, Joe, we know lots of people like Joe.
(20:53):
We all know a Joe. Betty's out here like busting
her ass, like writing, and he's just like I just
rolled into an old Richley the house and she took
me in. Sorry in more ways than one. Um. So
Norma hires Joe to like go straight sort of compile
her screenplay into an actual thing so they can sell
it to Paramount and they can fail sort of. Overtime,
Joe ends up staying in her guesthouse because he can't
(21:15):
go back to his apartment because the hat boys know
where he lives and they know that he has his
car and it's not impumps bring, so he stays in
her guest house. Max, the mysterious butler, goes and like
moves his stuff into the guesthouse, and I was, like,
to be honest, Joe should be grateful for a free
apartment and that somebody moved for him. Oh my gosh. Absolutely,
(21:38):
his life is amazing. Like anybody who handles apartment things
for you. You should be like, thank you so much.
That is a huge favor. I lived in an absolute
ship box before, and now I have a gorgeous home.
I know because this house looks so haunted when you
first get there. I could only sort of think that
this is a horror movie of some sort. That's kind
of what it was trying to tell. I wrote, this
(21:58):
is how a men is a horror figure by organizing
his things for him and making his life better. Yeah.
She's like, come here, boy, I'll give you a nice
coat and hang up your things. He's like, oh my god,
oh this really is a horror film for men. She
wants a commitment. Oh, I, I can leave any time,
(22:21):
but like if I do, she asks where I went,
and it's like, really fucked up? Oh my god, that's
the movie you just that's so funny. Okay, speaking up,
He can leave at any time. Joe goes to a
New Year's party and we have to talk about the
blonde women laughing into the tell about well they sounded
(22:42):
kind of like that. I also I saw that. I
was like Leona, Leona, hello, Hello, Never in a movie
do they represent whenever they represent women or anything, like,
it's women with men, women in the situations like following
their dreams. Forget all that ship. You know what most
of being a woman is. It's holding a phone and
scream laughing with a friend and not being able to
(23:03):
even speak words because you're laughing so hard for no reason.
So anyway, Joe goes to this party. When he gets there,
he tries to use the phone, and there are these
two women who are having a great time. Yeah, And
he goes to the party because he's like, I gotta
be around youth's. I gotta be around the people. I
wanted to talk about that part because he's been at
the mansion working there for quite some time, and then
(23:24):
at some point he's like, oh god, I need to
I need to get out of here. I need to
get out of this isolated multigenerational household. So I thought
that this was a very relatable moment for our generation
and everybody right now, which is I need to get
out of here. I need to find people my own age.
I need to go be in a big group of people.
I'll smushed together in a room, recklessly dunking drinking glasses
(23:48):
right into a communal bowl of punch and then he
floirts with an unavailable person who's in a relationship, and
that's quarantine. Can we talk about the many sort of
hot girl summer moment that happened in this movie. So Betty,
the one who originally read his script, she is at
this New Year's party and she's like, oh my gosh,
I just wanted to say sorry for like shooting all
(24:08):
over your script that I felt bad since. Then he's like,
that's fine, and then they kind of do some banter
and then her boyfriend's like, are you going to go
into the bathroom with him? That's don't do that, and
she's like, it's shop talk, sweetie. Then they go in
to the bathroom and like promptly almost make out immediately.
I mean it's she's not like seduced by Joe the
unapologetic way with which she decided to just fully cheat
(24:30):
on her boyfriend suddenly. Also that also, they had a
very fun dialogue moment between them where Betty's like, oh
my god, what was that screenplay? Real? I what was it?
And Joe was like, oh, dark Windows, how do you
like it? She says, I didn't thank you the dialogue
like I didn't know, No, it was bad oh. But
(24:55):
then okay, so another content warning. We're going to talk
about suicidality currently now, so you'd like to skip feel free.
Norma struggles a lot with suicidality and depression, and so
they had to take the door knobs off the home
and take out any like possible things she could use
for self harm. But somehow she gets ahold of some things,
and so she has a suicide attempt on New Year's
(25:16):
Eve and Joe gets a call about it and he's like,
oh my god, where is she? And unfortunately my problematic
take here was me and who not in the suicide part,
but in like Who's gonna run home and be like
where is she? Sort of Batman style and then come
up to where I'm sort of sleeping and take my
(25:37):
shoes off for me and be like how are you? Also,
her bed is a boat. I loved her bed. I
loved her bed, okay because also her bed is a
boat and it is a single person bed, which I
gotta say, I think Queen bed's too big, all right.
I think they're just a little too big for comfort.
They take up a lot in my room. It was
kind of a spacious twin high up it's a boat.
(25:59):
It's luxurious. That is the way to sleep. Did you
know that? Bet the boat? It's from the nineteen The
Phantom of the Opera Hill And here here's where we
must talk about early in the film, the first moment
where Joe is in the home, he comes downstairs. He's like, hey,
(26:20):
I gotta ask somebody some questions because I'm really confused,
and Max is not listening because he's loudly playing the organ.
Max the Phantom of the Boulevard is playing the organ
through Joe being like, sir, I need to a He's like, Max,
So yes, he's just like very spooky, ridiculous, chaotic butler.
(26:42):
But then we find out he wasn't just a butler.
He wasn't born into servitude and has been working for
her this whole time. He reveals in this absolutely boinko
banco crazy conversation with Joe. Max opens up to Joe.
(27:03):
He's like, listen up, buddy, stop trying to get in
here and show this woman reality. She needs this, I
need her, she matters to me, and you want to
know why because A I was her director, and you're like,
what the fuck? Then he goes also her husband talk
(27:26):
about a plot to it. This is another way in
which this woman is my absolute hero. Her ex literally
works for her, does her absolute bidding. How did that
statish switch happen? I can't imagine the like pitch meeting
for that, Like they've sort of finalized the divorce papers,
and then she's like, hey, I was thinking, do you
(27:47):
want to be my butler? Do you think it happened
before they even got divorced started being her butler? We
already sort of shifted. Okay. So Norma is trying to
sell this movie to Paramount, to actual Cecil b. DeMille,
of the director who she's worked with in the past.
She's like, oh, Cecil will love it, he'll buy the film,
he'll produce it will be big stars again. And she
goes to the lot, she visits him, She sits, and
(28:09):
I was like, once again, men are such cowards who
just will not tell you what's going on. And that
is what most of this film hinges on is just
men being like, oh, you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings,
So I'm actually just gonna not do anything about this,
So instead I guess it just let her like shoot
someone go to jail. One thing that we didn't say
(28:32):
a second ago when you did your men Who the
very dark moment where she's at the end of her
rope okay, um, he finds her. He's like, oh my god,
are you okay whatever. She's like, yes, don't look at me.
If you're not going to love me, go away. Basically
they bang. It's crazy. You're like, wait, what you thought
(28:55):
that this was gonna be a movie about like this
woman who She falls in love with him and he's
like no, no way, but at this and he's like, yeah,
I'm gonna do it. Okay. Here was my question for you.
And I can't tell if this is just I have
trust issues or if this was the actual film. What
did he actually love her care about her. I don't
think he banged her because he loved her. Maybe he did.
(29:19):
This is My greatest fear is the guy being like,
all right, I guess I guess I'll bone you. This
is an interesting question, though that's not my greatest fear.
I guess I should. My greatest fear is killing someone
with my car. My second greatest fear is it guy
being like sure instead of like, how lucky am I okay?
More importantly, how the hell did that hourglass coffee pot work?
(29:43):
The thing was so cool? Do you know it? Have
you seen these before? I really trust you to sort
of know about like laundry and oh my god, I
am being so misogynistic right now because the second thing
I was going to say it was kitchen item. This
is only because you're like, put vinegar on your clothes
and then also here's how you use a juicer. It's
only because those are the things that I care about.
(30:05):
Was always in the kitchen or the laundry. I do
love those places. I feel very safe there also the bathroom, though,
um did do my makeup? I danced to Valentine a
little bit right back. Betty and Joe are like, let's
(30:29):
write a screenplay together, and we'll meet late at night
and we definitely won't bone, because that's for sure how
group projects work. This part was say it it was hot.
It was hot. It was hot because this one it
wasn't just like right in your face horny. It was
like this man and this woman decide to work together
write a screenplay. He also has to listen to what
(30:51):
she says about his work. That was one thing this
movie feature that I've literally never seen in many movies
and definitely not in any on this list. And then
him be like, yeah, okay, yeah, let me implement that note.
They're working together, and it's all this build up of
them just getting along, and then when they finally do kiss,
it was like I threw my arms up in the
(31:13):
air at seven in the morning and I said, yes,
just like the ghost of all my pent up horny
nous just coming out. Wally, it happened for someone. It
was really good. The female characters in this movie were
like fun. I mean, they were just better than a
(31:34):
lot of female characters. Yeah, definitely, but they still were
very like tied to men. But Betty was still like
striking out on her own doing her own thing. Norma
didn't need anyone. She was like very financially independent. A
man worked for her. Um, how did Norma get a gun?
How did she get a gun? Yeah? You know how.
(31:55):
There's a thing of like, if you see a gun
in the first act, checkout gun, it'll go off. In
the third we don't see the gun in the first act.
Chekhov's gun was introduced in the third act and then
pulled two minutes later. She's like, I got also, we
see it revealed. She rolls over and she was lying
on a gun the whole time. We're like, so what.
And then she comes up to Joe because Joe is
(32:16):
finally like, I'm moving out your bonkers. I had to
tell Betty that I'm boning you after I kissed her
because she was like stressed anyway, moving back to Ohio
to do sales, and then Norma comes into his room.
Do you remember how she holds the gun? No, okay,
she has it in both of her hands, palms up,
and she's like, look at this guy. I love her
(32:41):
so much, what are you doing? I want to be her.
She was like offering it to the gods. What what?
Looking back gun and sit down? Oh my god. I
just love her so much. And then the murder mystery
is solved. Right, The murder mystery that was only a
mystery for those with the smooth brains like ourselves, is
(33:02):
solved when he runs out near the swimming pool where
we see the man floating at the beginning. Although he
casually walks like I don't think he feels threatened at
all because he's just got his little suitcase. Yeah. Yeah,
he's walking into the car because Max is like, I'll
take you to Ohio the airport. I don't know where
he's gonna take him, and then she shoots him in
(33:22):
the back. She freaking shoots him. It was awesome, absolute
icon incredible aim hits him. She's three for three on shots.
It's unreal. The other thing I liked about this movie
was the ending was satisfying in that way where Betty
comes and she's like, you know what, I don't care
that you've been pimping yourself out for this woman and
that this is where you've been living. Let's just get
(33:44):
out of here. And he's like, honestly, Betty, like this
is like kind of awesome, Like I actually don't want
to leave the situation. And it's also like where am
I going to live? Let's be real, like this doesn't suck.
There's champagne on tap, I eat only caviare all of
my suits are just for me and no men and
hats are spotting me on the road, which is true.
(34:05):
Like I don't think that this has to be the
thing for everybody, but like I think this could completely
work for someone. It does logistically make more sense. And
so he's like no, and then he ends up leaving
which I'm like, what do you just explained? What? But
he leaves and then she has the gun and where
another movie might not have it, might they might have
held it up and then artistically dropped it. She's like,
(34:25):
I'm gonna shoot him. I'm gonna fully shoot I'm mad
at him, and I have a gun. Also she shoots
him in the back, but he doesn't like fall over,
which I've never shot anyone, but I would think wouldn't
the force of the bullet like shove you in some way?
He kind of just gets like gently sort of pushed
and he floats forward and he's like what and he
(34:46):
still has time to like saunter backwards and gaps be
into the pool. You're so right, so weird. It's a
weird way to go. He's kind of like, hey, there's
too many in me now, WHOA Okay? Norma is literally
Easma from The Emperor's New Groove. I didn't think about that.
(35:08):
I didn't even google it, but I would bet money
that that character was based off of her in Sense
at Boulevard, even just the eyeshadow, the big I make up,
the expressions, all the level crock you there. This is
my screenplay they're the same. You're so right, thank you,
Oh my god, I love so much. Unfortunately I did
(35:29):
laugh at the final shot of the film. So this
is like Norma has done her absolutely batshit dissension of
the Stairs. The police have arrived because she did a murder,
and she thinks she's finally going to be on the
big screen because the news cameras are. She's like, when
the camera's ready and Max, MAXI sadly like, you're on camera,
come down. It's you see, he's having a big delusion.
(35:51):
And she does this unreal dissension of the Stairs to
a very good score, which did win the Oscar that year,
and she does that iconic line all right, Mr de Mail,
I'm ready for my clothes up, and then she sort
of does like a very lower jaw forward look into
the camera, and that's where I was like, funny, She's funny, Leona.
(36:14):
Shall we move on? I feel like this whole episode
has been a badge already, but yes, yes we shall.
This is the part of the podcast where we tell
you badges, the things we liked from the film and trages,
the parts of the film that we found tragic. Badge
for streets, I know he said Franklin and Evar, I said,
I've seen that intersection. Badge for proudly displaying selfies. I
(36:38):
take a lot of selfies and don't want anyone to
see him, and she is my icon. Badge for a robe.
I love a robe. Badge for an adorable tow truck
when his car gets taken away. It's cute and stout. Okay.
Badge for short ties, also cute and stout. Badge for
a little car phone that she uses to talk to Max.
(36:59):
Badge for a been hating a man's screenplay. Oh. Badge
for left up bangs. She accidently messes up her bangs
at one point, and I was like, I feel you.
A badge for a woman saying you that. Oh. A
badge for a woman saying oh you. Badge for a
woman saying the garage women speak more. A badge for Max, Oh,
(37:24):
I have A badge for the husband's A badge for
chaotic hot girl summer moments. A badge for Norma saying
cut away from me. A badge for a woman pretending
to be Charlie Chaplin a little bit as four play.
(37:44):
I could see you doing this. I mean, I all
but have I have a badge for a woman eating
a sandwich, which is when Betty is just like nourishing
herself at Adeli, and I was like, we need more
of that in film. Badge for a woman saying it's
not your career, it's my career. Badge for the line
from of course Max Madam will pardon me. The shadow
(38:07):
over the left eye is not quite balanced. Badge for
a big powder it's for the big oar sweating I'm
actually sweating so much. Badge for that big poof to
apply powder. This movie unites us all. We have all synchronized.
(38:32):
Every woman in the world has synchronized with this film. Oh,
she's preparing Mr. De Mille for her clothes up and
she's doing her makeup, and she's got that huge poof
that they used to apply powder, which I didn't know
was real. I've only seen it in animated films. It
was so big and covered in so much powder. And
she was like to the cops, She's like, sorry, boys,
I need to get prepared. The two men are like,
(38:55):
she should just let her do this. Are there any trages?
I do have some tragic as well. I got a trage,
of course, for Hollywood assistance the whole film. I was like, okay,
I do have to after this go to my job
as a Hollywood assistant. There's just one line in it
that's like the Betre thought of just some assistant calling me,
(39:17):
and I was like, all right, okay, I send emails
like that's hurtful, kind of similar. I just have a
tradge for triggered this being just a tough business. They
portray it. I have a trag for it. When he's
meeting the producer at the lot, the producer is pitching
a film and the log line for it is the
story of a woman. I was like, oh boy, a
(39:38):
traged four. I am so tired from X because he's
the only one who worked there, and he was carrying bags,
and then he was over, you know, serving dinner, and
he was ever playing the organ, and then whenever anything
needed to be done, he had to do it. And
I was like, oh my god, I can get in
the car and I can wash my face, and those
are the two things I can do in a day.
I've got a trage for a woman saying I'm just
(39:59):
not good enough to do it all by myself, which
Betty says about her screen plan. I was like, Betty, bitch,
you got a nose job. You can do anything. Trade
for the romance between Betty and Joe just being confusing
to me because I can't decide if I liked it
or didn't. So she's casually cheating on her boyfriend, which
is like, I guess, like you go curl and but
she's getting with him, and she's also younger and anyway,
(40:20):
I'll jump to my final trade, which was a trad
for him saying, oh, nothing like being two. Um, being
twenty two was awful. Twenty two was bullshit. It was
one of my worst years. I think I was in
the basement the whole year long. The audacity of a
man to be like what a year now? At that time,
that was the first time I rolled into an old
lady's house and she gave me everything. Shall we move
(40:44):
on to our segment? How to pretend you've seen this film?
This is for You are at a New Year's party,
You're sitting on the edge of a bath tub. You
are speaking with Joe, who does he have a girlfriend?
Of course he did, and he's bringing up Sunset Boulevard.
Here are a few sentences you could say to pretend
(41:05):
you've seen that film. Ah, you don't like a girl
who's small, do you? Well? I am big. It's the
pictures that got small, you know. Joe Sunset Boulevard can
be seen as kind of an unrerequited love letter to Hollywood. Um, okay,
this is sort of I have to set the scene
(41:27):
for this one. Joe sort of bursts into the bathroom
and I am powdering my face with a big, big
I turned all right, Mr Demil, I'm ready for my
clothes up. She's doing a very strong jaw sort of
a cure nightly. Okay, Joe, don't fall into the bathtub.
(41:47):
You know. There are several allusions to the Phantom of
the Opera in this film, with the boat as her
bed and with Max playing on the organ, And that's
because Max represents the Phantom of the Opera teaching his pupil,
Norma honing her talents. Do I understand the fit with
(42:08):
the upbroaking sort of the power dynamic is completely wrong?
But yeah, Norms the Phantom WHI Joe is Christine, Betty
is Raoul, Max is everyone else? That seems perfectly accurate.
Now it is time for our segment. Should you watch
this or in which we tell you if we think
you should watch this film or if you should do
(42:30):
something else with your time. You know, what's your recommendation?
I recommend you watch this film. It's a good movie.
And trust me, we only just scratched the surface of
what is fun about this lady, and what's good about
this movie. You gotta get a load of it, all right, Lena,
(42:50):
what about you, babe? I think you maybe should watch
this movie. Is this your first one where you actual
recommend they should do it? I think so, but I
will still tie it, of course, in the sense of
you should watch Sunset Bouleabard, then use the inspiration of
Norma's iconic energy, her confidence, her eyeshadow, and then literally
(43:17):
go purchase George mackay and make him live with you
for the rest of your career slashlight. Wow. Alright, well,
what would you rate this Filmlyanna? I would rate this
film four poofs out of five, and it loses one
(43:39):
just because it's still like a very male, heavy, very
white film. And okay, okay. One thing I haven't said
on this episode is there was something about it that
irked me in the sense of, yes, I loved Norma
and I loved the portrayal of her, but it did
feel like she sort of was a punchline throughout the film,
Like it felt like two men writing about, oh my god,
this woman is like crazy. That's really interesting, especially because
(44:02):
I think some of the things that were good about
this movie where that I thought they didn't just show
her as like a sad sack or a fool. A
lot of people would defend her and say, actually, she
was a great talent. Don't say that about her. But
it was also men observing her. Yeah, it was always
men observing going hey, younger man, don't say that about her.
(44:23):
I was there when I was making her into a star. Yeah, yeah,
that's interesting, thank you. It's true. It's a nuanced noirrence
what okay? Nuanced film noir, a nuanced take. I actually
(44:44):
love that. So similarly, I would give this film a
six out of five, but for sort of similar reasons
as you, And because at the start, I really when
they were talking about the Baseball movie and crap, I
was like, whoa, where am I what going on? Yeah?
I'm gonna give it a five out of five, five
monkey coffins out of five. Very good, Yeah, amazingly excellent,
(45:07):
one of the best movies we've seen. Yeah, okay, everybody
for our episode on Chunado. Thank you so much for
listening to our episode on task pop car Like subscribe,
follow us on social media darting. Next week we will
(45:30):
be watching a graduate horny film. That's all I know
about it. I'm excited. Okay, thank you, We love you, my.
You can find us on Instagram as at Sienna Jacob
and at Leanna Holston. Please check the description for the
spelling of our dumb names. We put our episodes every Tuesday,
(45:53):
so make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss
an episode. See you next week on tossed Popcorn. For
more Podcas asked for my heart radio, check the i
Heart Radio app.
Tossed Popcorn is a production of I Heart Radio. Hi,
I'm Leanna Holston and I'm Sianna Jacole and Freaking Welcome
to Tossed Popcorn, the podcast where two idiots watch every
film on the a f I one hundred Greatest American
Movies of All Time, the very slightly less racist Tampa
(00:22):
Anniversary Edition. This podcast is a safe space for people
who don't know anything about movies. Today we're watching Sunset Boulevard.
I Am Big, the pictures that got Small number sixteen
on the a f I list. Warning. There will be
spoilers about this film. If you like this podcast, please
(00:44):
be sure to subscribe to it and rate us a
gorgeous five stars in the Apple Podcasts app Also, we
are on social media at Tossed Popcorn. We are on
TikTok if you can believe it, Twitter, and Instagram, and
we post gorgeous memes every Saturday. Don't miss those means
A quick content warning. This film does deal with suicidality
(01:06):
and suicide attempts. Sienna, Yeah, Leanna, this movie? What was
so relatable? So good? Where did you fall? I can't
figure out if I loved the woman hated the film
or if I just had a fine time. I get
(01:28):
that for this one. First, I want to know what
you thought this movie would be about. I'd love to
hear your prediction of Sunset Boulevard. Let's start with yours. Hi, Leanna,
it's Sienna. I'm about to watch Sunset Boulevard, another movie
I've never ever heard of. Based on the name, though,
I see something pretty clear in my mind's eye. I
(01:49):
think a man is going to lose his house on
Sunset Boulevard. It's going to fly off in the wind.
It's going to land at the feet of a woman.
They're going to have a beautiful rom calm romance. There
will be big bands at a great hotel, a fifties charm.
It will be in black and white, and someone will die.
(02:13):
Let's see what this film is all about. See that
it wasn't that bad. Actually accord that after watching the film. Okay,
may I make a big innuendo. Yeah, I mean, he
does lose a hat. I'm not sure this makes sense
because I don't actually know that much about penises. Here's okay, No, okay,
(02:36):
I got it. Hang on, A man loses his hat.
A hat could be considered sort of the tip of
a man. The tip, just the tip of him is
lost to a woman. He bones a woman. Okay, I
see what that is. Yeah, listen to my prediction. Good morning, Sienna,
(03:00):
it's Leona. I'm about to watch Sunset Boulevard in the film. I,
of course no nothing about I love this morning. Boys.
I am guessing it's set in Hollywood Land due to
the fact that there's very famously a Sunset Boulevard here
in Los Angeles. Um. And I think Glenn Close was
(03:23):
like involved with this one years after this one came out. Uh,
shut up that I'm imagining glamor and probably a blonde woman,
and I hope a lot of sparkles. Love you buy? Okay.
We both did an okay job. Like they were like whispers.
(03:45):
There were echoes of what was in this movie. In
these predictions. We were onto something. We could sense something
from that title. I will say, like, it's not hard
to get. As soon as you put a blatantly Hollywood
title on a film, what do you think they're going
to guess that it's about true? There were good sparkles though,
and I did think about you, Oh, there were sparkles
(04:08):
in this film. Sianna would you please give us a
summary of Sunset Boulevard. Yes, this eccentric, glamorous, horny, aging
actress named Norma Desmond is obsessed with her old career
and wants to get back into Hollywood, as fate may
have it. A hottie named Joe, also the narrator, who
(04:32):
is struggling to make ends meet as a screenwriter, accidentally
stumbles upon her bizarre mansion on Sunset Boulevard. In this
dark comedy noir, Norma bullies Joe into living in her house,
being her boyfriend, and writing the screenplay that she hopes
to put her back on that big, beautiful silver screen.
(04:54):
Spoiler alert, it ends tragically. I'm so glad you liked
this movie or liked her. She's the greatest. I liked
her so much that, to be honest, most of my
historical context is about her the actress, or who she
supposed to be in Yes, and we'll get to why. Okay,
(05:18):
Hello everyone, Welcome to the historical context segment. Sunset Boulevard
film Apparently. Yeah, as you said, was supposed to be
a dark comedy, which I was like, it is a
film noir, and it's not that far off from reality. Basically,
the premise is about this woman who was at the
(05:39):
height of her career in the nine twenties, in that
golden age of Hollywood, and now it's the forties and
she's still trying to be relevant. But it's not hashtag working.
Silent movies are done. Silent movies are done so and
this happened with a lot of real life actresses. A
bit about the star of the film, William Holden, who
(06:02):
plays whatever Joe served in World War Two. Oh, you
don't care about war? I don't forget every time. I didn't.
A lot of actors serve in the war, didn't have to.
When are you going to learn that in this segment?
I actually need you to just be like, wow, that's
really interesting. I'm so sorry. Okay, wait to say again,
did you know William Holden, who plays Joe, actually served
(06:26):
in World War Two? I did not know that. Cool,
And now I've told you. After the war, William did
super duper well in Hollywood and was nicknamed Golden Holden,
which I think is fun. That's cute. And now onto
Glorious Swanson, who plays Norma in this movie Queen. Oh
(06:48):
my god. Okay, so the role of Norma was originally
offered to Silent Film stars May West, Poland Negri and
Mary Pickford, and all of them were like bitch, no,
like first of all, rude, all know. Gloria was also Okay,
I'm loving the eye contact and the earnest listening, but
(07:09):
I'm getting from you right now. She was actually fifty
one during the filming of this movie, and I was like, Okay,
that's awesome. I did not expect that. She started acting
in nineteen fifteen, left Paramount in nine to produce her
own films, and she produced a film called Queen Kelly,
where they hired a German director named Oh, I didn't
(07:30):
write it down. He spent so much money on the
film that it never got released because they had to
like shut it down. It's too fancy. So Queen Kelly
was never released in the US, but a portion of
that film is seen in Sunset Boulevard when she shows
him an old movie that she was in. It's that movie.
That's so cool, thank you, that's really cool. She retired
(07:52):
in nineteen thirty four from Silent Film acting, and then
she did one film between then and Sunset Boulevard. Then
once she did sensetble of art. She wanted to develop
it into a musical, so she hired two struggling songwriters
and that is where the parallels start. This was afterward
after Sunset Boulevards. Gloria hires two struggling songwriters, falls in
(08:18):
love with one of them, and that is according to
that guy. So it's like, oh right, the studio passed
on the musical and that was like it died. The
project died, and I was like that spooking. It sucks
for something to be based on something that happened in
the future. Yeah, you got that. Gloria was also like
(08:41):
a dope as businesswoman. She started a skincare brand. She
did a lot of yoga, so shouts out to her,
I don't know joints And a fun fact, she was
the visual inspiration for Mortisha Adams in the original New
Yorker Adams Family publications. That is so interesting they take
fun fact. This movie also very Adams Family. There were
(09:05):
other Okay, here's where the film was like I r
L in real life based Cecil B. Demill plays himself.
He actually directed Glorious wantson in Silent Films in the
past and whatever nickname he calls her in the film.
It's like sweet Nugget or old man or whatever is
actually the nickname he used for her on set. Enormous
(09:27):
Poker friends in the film, The quote unquote wax Works
were actual silent film actors playing themselves, Buster Keaton and A. Q.
Nielsen and H. B. Warner. Here's my final fact for
you in the historical contact section, I literally cannot break
eye contact with you when I say this because I
need to see your full reaction. Sunset Boulevard. That film's
(09:52):
working title was A Can of Beans? What why? I
don't know that's exactly I mean. I guess like it's
a noir. So let's talk about beans. And here's what
I we have to talk about this, Like, what is
(10:13):
the difference between a can of beans and a hill
of beans? You may recognize this from our Casablanca episode
where Humphrey Bogger is like, oh, the problems of two
little people don't amount to a hill of beans in
this world? What does the can add to it? Value wise?
What does this mean? Now? That's also like a can
of beans is not not a hill of beans, just
(10:34):
contained within an aluminum cylinder. What does a hill make Wow,
I think we've actually sort of entered into a realm
of poetry. Anyway, that's the end of my history for
this film. Thank you so much for that. Thank you, Siana.
What did you think about this movie? I thought it
(10:55):
was so good. Really. Yeah, more than this being like
oh something him that was perfect made for me, I
just want to watch it all the time. I was
just like, you know what this is. This is a
quality film, and I'm enjoying it. Yeah. I enjoyed my
time watching it. I was really engrossed, particularly once Norma
entered the scene. Shall we move on to phone notes? Yes,
(11:15):
we shall. These are the notes that we take on
our phones while we watched the films, because we watched
them separately, and then we made up to Gassip about
them later. Ak A, write me out. This film is Hollywood.
It lives, breeds exudes Hollywood. Okay. The beginning of this movie,
I was like, oh my god, if this is a
murder mystery, I am down right. But then it wasn't
(11:39):
a mystery. So it opens on a man floating in
a pool of very Gatsby of him to do, and
then the narration. There's a voiceover because of course there's
a voice over, because that's a film noir, which I
did love. Honestly, Okay, this actually was to me a
bit of a murder mystery because I forgot what Joe
looked like. I also did not realize that Joe. I
(12:01):
was like, I don't even think I need to put
William Holden the actor in the historical context, because he
was just a guy, Like, he just looked like some guy.
Apparently he was like the heartthrob. Really, my grandma, Grandma
Jacole loved him. He was the hottia and I was
so interested in that as well, because he's he's a man.
(12:21):
I mean, I didn't get it until he gets out
of the pool and I was like, oh I got
a part way through, Oh I understand. We started really
following Joe's story. Joe Gillis Joe Gillis, and Joe is
a struggling screenwriter navigating Hollywood, trying to decide if he's
gonna get another job, what he's gonna do for work.
And that's when he stumbles upon the home of Norma
(12:45):
because he really needs three hundred dollars because he's got
his car. But he's like, I don't know hasn't paid
the loan the lease on it for some reason. Two
men and hats are coming after him. Wow, Okay, A
lot happens while this boy is looking for money. So
when he goes to the producer on the lot, I
think it's the Paramount lot. It's got to be. And
(13:05):
he's like, please buy my baseball screenplay. A woman comes in.
Who's the best part of this film except for Norma?
What is this woman's name? Bet What? Betty? Betty? You
were so close with bet. She comes in and just
fully ships on this guy's screenplay to her boss, not
realizing that the guy is right behind her. And I
was like, I love you for that. And then she
(13:26):
sees him and she says, do you remember what? She says, No,
I runed it down. She goes, right now, I wish
I could crawl in a hole and pull it in
after me. I love the lines in this movie. That's
the good thing about in No Air. They give you stuff.
They give you some good stuff. Another line in that
scene was you would have turned down gone with the wind,
which I was like, WHOA sort of like acknowledging real
(13:47):
world film. It's the a f I universe. If I
cinematic fucking nightmare of a place to live. But I
was like, that would have been the right thing to do, Like, yeah,
he wouldn't have made money, but he would have been
centuries ahead of time morally. Okay, So he arrives at
this haunted mansion, which does look very haunted, very Adam's
family asked, did you think at all that the house
(14:11):
looked a little bit like the Stanford Alumni Center? No, okay,
I was a tour guy going to Stanford University, and
our tour is always walked right past the end of
NI center. The sort of Spanish mission style architecture or
mission revival actually, with the sort of tiled roofing and
the palm trees around it and the archways, I think
(14:32):
really reminded me of the sorry this is now actually
an architecture podcast having a party all by yourself. Go
get some punch because we'll be right back. So he's
standing outside of this house kind of looking around, thinking
it's abandoned, and then this old woman, Yeah, I know
(14:56):
everything's gonna accidentally keep saying old, but it's aging an
I think that I think is very funny in all
old movies, and this one, it really stands out is
that people decided to get old so much earlier back
in the day, Like they would be like forty, and
they'd be like, all right, time to put on my
sweater and sit in my chair. Oh my goodness. Literally,
(15:16):
And because also people our age at that time, we're
like fully dressed in suits and dresses and heels and walking.
I was like, she's probably like fifty, which actually turns
out she canonically is supposed to be. So yes, this
middle aged actress is standing there, but she's very eccentric
and strange and croaking, and she you know, called to
(15:37):
him like you're supposed to be up here, because she
was waiting for him. She was waiting for the guy
who was bringing her monkey's coffin. And we Sienna said
that so casually, but we will sit with that and
go into a bit for she's dancing. She's dancing, because
this is the point, This is the point in the
movie where you're like, Okay, this is a fun movie.
(15:59):
And landish old woman talking about her monkey's funeral. Now
that's a movie. Now that's a movie. This film absolutely
off the rails in almost every way. Normals that attend
the entire time the first way you meet her is
with a dead monkey. She brings him up the stairs.
She's like, you there, you allege, come up staff and
he goes upstairs. He's like, I really am not supposed
(16:21):
to be here right now, but I am a white
man and so I will just sort of yes and
my way into getting money. She's like, he's just laid
out on the chaise in a lot room and you
don't know what's there. You think, well, it's like maybe
her husband passed away. Maybe like a dear friend. They
pulled back the sheet coroner style in a morgue and
(16:42):
it is a dead old. It's amazing. That's when you
know you're in for a ride. Baby. It's so insane,
and boy, your boy, they take you on a ride.
So they move further into the home. She finds out
he's not act like the monkey. What's the name for
people who do funerals crypt keeper? Not a monkey, crypt keeper.
(17:07):
He figures out that she's Norma Desmond and like your face,
I know it. I know it from being famous. Also,
she has photos of herself everywhere all over the walls.
She this woman is my muse. I She's who I
want to be when I grow up. I love her
so much. She wears glamorous things. She lives in a
(17:27):
stupidly huge, dumb house. She watches videos of herself, and
then she pays a young hot man to just be
there and live with her. We have to talk about
her iconic line when he's like, oh, you used to
be big, and then she goes, I am big. It's
the pictures that got small. I'm obsessed with her. I
(17:48):
wrote that so many times. She is a feminist icon.
She is a lifestyle blog. She is the moment. She
is my mood board, she is my mother. She's like,
she's that Lady Gaga gift, where Lady Gaga is just
listing adjectives. She's like talented, powerful, moving the moment, incredible, inspirational.
(18:13):
There could be a hundred people in a room and
if one of them is Norma, you're going to have
a good day. Listen. Gen Z would love this bitch.
She also brings up astrology. She's literally like, what's your sign?
What's your sign? You know? He's like, I don't want
to work. Here's what's your sign. He's like what the fuck?
She's like, what moon three barn And he's like to
ser goes Sangittarius, Sangittarius. Okay. Also, I gotta say I
(18:38):
love a mysterious, omniscient Butler. I loved Max. What was he?
He's here, he is there, He's omniscient, he is omnipresent.
Max is everywhere, he knows everything. In many ways, this
was my dream life, which I know is like a
very sort of tragic thing to say. And I will say,
like I want to be Norma, but I want to
(19:00):
have friends, and I also I want like my life
to be real and not made up by a guy
named Max who's my ex husband slash now Butler, I
don't think her life was that sad. Actually, she obviously
wasn't doing well. She had some struggles mentally and emotionally. Yeah,
(19:21):
but if she wanted friends, like she could have gotten
friends it was. It wasn't like nobody wanted to be
her friend, and she hadn't poker with friends. I don't know.
That's true. Life really was her own in a in
a way that I don't think we've seen in a
movie yet. That's so true. She throws a party where
nobody's there. It's not because no one comes, they would
have come. It's because she wants to just hang out
alone with this hot man. She's also incredibly rich, like
(19:46):
unfathomably extremely the biggest home you've ever seen, and just
like seems like she's never going to run out of money,
which I guess was the case with those early Paramount stars.
They just had more money than they knew what to
do with. So Normal realizes Joe is not there to
bury the monkey, and so she instead it starts telling
(20:07):
him about her screenplay. It's like it's a Hollywood thing
that we just can't, like, as two women sort of
in the industry, like we can't explain to you how
like normal it is. I know it sounds insane, but
it's just like, oh my god, what are you working?
Oh my god, here's my screen Like hers, though, is
absolutely bonkers. It is handwritten. There didn't seem to be
any page numbers there. I do not know how they
can track of anything handwritten on regular printer paper, stacks
(20:30):
and stacks of it, pied up with ribbons. It seems
like parchment, even because she's from the past. But at
some point she's like, wait, you said you're a writer,
what do you do? Okay, come over here and read
my screenplay. It's good right, I'm going to be the star.
Oh my god. I simply adore her, And so as
a result, she ends up like hiring Max to ghost Matt.
She says, Joe, we know lots of people like Joe.
(20:53):
We all know a Joe. Betty's out here like busting
her ass, like writing, and he's just like I just
rolled into an old Richley the house and she took
me in. Sorry in more ways than one. Um. So
Norma hires Joe to like go straight sort of compile
her screenplay into an actual thing so they can sell
it to Paramount and they can fail sort of. Overtime,
Joe ends up staying in her guesthouse because he can't
(21:15):
go back to his apartment because the hat boys know
where he lives and they know that he has his
car and it's not impumps bring, so he stays in
her guest house. Max, the mysterious butler, goes and like
moves his stuff into the guesthouse, and I was, like,
to be honest, Joe should be grateful for a free
apartment and that somebody moved for him. Oh my gosh. Absolutely,
(21:38):
his life is amazing. Like anybody who handles apartment things
for you. You should be like, thank you so much.
That is a huge favor. I lived in an absolute
ship box before, and now I have a gorgeous home.
I know because this house looks so haunted when you
first get there. I could only sort of think that
this is a horror movie of some sort. That's kind
of what it was trying to tell. I wrote, this
(21:58):
is how a men is a horror figure by organizing
his things for him and making his life better. Yeah.
She's like, come here, boy, I'll give you a nice
coat and hang up your things. He's like, oh my god,
oh this really is a horror film for men. She
wants a commitment. Oh, I, I can leave any time,
(22:21):
but like if I do, she asks where I went,
and it's like, really fucked up? Oh my god, that's
the movie you just that's so funny. Okay, speaking up,
He can leave at any time. Joe goes to a
New Year's party and we have to talk about the
blonde women laughing into the tell about well they sounded
(22:42):
kind of like that. I also I saw that. I
was like Leona, Leona, hello, Hello, Never in a movie
do they represent whenever they represent women or anything, like,
it's women with men, women in the situations like following
their dreams. Forget all that ship. You know what most
of being a woman is. It's holding a phone and
scream laughing with a friend and not being able to
(23:03):
even speak words because you're laughing so hard for no reason.
So anyway, Joe goes to this party. When he gets there,
he tries to use the phone, and there are these
two women who are having a great time. Yeah, And
he goes to the party because he's like, I gotta
be around youth's. I gotta be around the people. I
wanted to talk about that part because he's been at
the mansion working there for quite some time, and then
(23:24):
at some point he's like, oh god, I need to
I need to get out of here. I need to
get out of this isolated multigenerational household. So I thought
that this was a very relatable moment for our generation
and everybody right now, which is I need to get
out of here. I need to find people my own age.
I need to go be in a big group of people.
I'll smushed together in a room, recklessly dunking drinking glasses
(23:48):
right into a communal bowl of punch and then he
floirts with an unavailable person who's in a relationship, and
that's quarantine. Can we talk about the many sort of
hot girl summer moment that happened in this movie. So Betty,
the one who originally read his script, she is at
this New Year's party and she's like, oh my gosh,
I just wanted to say sorry for like shooting all
(24:08):
over your script that I felt bad since. Then he's like,
that's fine, and then they kind of do some banter
and then her boyfriend's like, are you going to go
into the bathroom with him? That's don't do that, and
she's like, it's shop talk, sweetie. Then they go in
to the bathroom and like promptly almost make out immediately.
I mean it's she's not like seduced by Joe the
unapologetic way with which she decided to just fully cheat
(24:30):
on her boyfriend suddenly. Also that also, they had a
very fun dialogue moment between them where Betty's like, oh
my god, what was that screenplay? Real? I what was it?
And Joe was like, oh, dark Windows, how do you
like it? She says, I didn't thank you the dialogue
like I didn't know, No, it was bad oh. But
(24:55):
then okay, so another content warning. We're going to talk
about suicidality currently now, so you'd like to skip feel free.
Norma struggles a lot with suicidality and depression, and so
they had to take the door knobs off the home
and take out any like possible things she could use
for self harm. But somehow she gets ahold of some things,
and so she has a suicide attempt on New Year's
(25:16):
Eve and Joe gets a call about it and he's like,
oh my god, where is she? And unfortunately my problematic
take here was me and who not in the suicide part,
but in like Who's gonna run home and be like
where is she? Sort of Batman style and then come
up to where I'm sort of sleeping and take my
(25:37):
shoes off for me and be like how are you? Also,
her bed is a boat. I loved her bed. I
loved her bed, okay because also her bed is a
boat and it is a single person bed, which I
gotta say, I think Queen bed's too big, all right.
I think they're just a little too big for comfort.
They take up a lot in my room. It was
kind of a spacious twin high up it's a boat.
(25:59):
It's luxurious. That is the way to sleep. Did you
know that? Bet the boat? It's from the nineteen The
Phantom of the Opera Hill And here here's where we
must talk about early in the film, the first moment
where Joe is in the home, he comes downstairs. He's like, hey,
(26:20):
I gotta ask somebody some questions because I'm really confused,
and Max is not listening because he's loudly playing the organ.
Max the Phantom of the Boulevard is playing the organ
through Joe being like, sir, I need to a He's like, Max,
So yes, he's just like very spooky, ridiculous, chaotic butler.
(26:42):
But then we find out he wasn't just a butler.
He wasn't born into servitude and has been working for
her this whole time. He reveals in this absolutely boinko
banco crazy conversation with Joe. Max opens up to Joe.
(27:03):
He's like, listen up, buddy, stop trying to get in
here and show this woman reality. She needs this, I
need her, she matters to me, and you want to
know why because A I was her director, and you're like,
what the fuck? Then he goes also her husband talk
(27:26):
about a plot to it. This is another way in
which this woman is my absolute hero. Her ex literally
works for her, does her absolute bidding. How did that
statish switch happen? I can't imagine the like pitch meeting
for that, Like they've sort of finalized the divorce papers,
and then she's like, hey, I was thinking, do you
(27:47):
want to be my butler? Do you think it happened
before they even got divorced started being her butler? We
already sort of shifted. Okay. So Norma is trying to
sell this movie to Paramount, to actual Cecil b. DeMille,
of the director who she's worked with in the past.
She's like, oh, Cecil will love it, he'll buy the film,
he'll produce it will be big stars again. And she
goes to the lot, she visits him, She sits, and
(28:09):
I was like, once again, men are such cowards who
just will not tell you what's going on. And that
is what most of this film hinges on is just
men being like, oh, you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings,
So I'm actually just gonna not do anything about this,
So instead I guess it just let her like shoot
someone go to jail. One thing that we didn't say
(28:32):
a second ago when you did your men Who the
very dark moment where she's at the end of her
rope okay, um, he finds her. He's like, oh my god,
are you okay whatever. She's like, yes, don't look at me.
If you're not going to love me, go away. Basically
they bang. It's crazy. You're like, wait, what you thought
(28:55):
that this was gonna be a movie about like this
woman who She falls in love with him and he's
like no, no way, but at this and he's like, yeah,
I'm gonna do it. Okay. Here was my question for you.
And I can't tell if this is just I have
trust issues or if this was the actual film. What
did he actually love her care about her. I don't
think he banged her because he loved her. Maybe he did.
(29:19):
This is My greatest fear is the guy being like,
all right, I guess I guess I'll bone you. This
is an interesting question, though that's not my greatest fear.
I guess I should. My greatest fear is killing someone
with my car. My second greatest fear is it guy
being like sure instead of like, how lucky am I okay?
More importantly, how the hell did that hourglass coffee pot work?
(29:43):
The thing was so cool? Do you know it? Have
you seen these before? I really trust you to sort
of know about like laundry and oh my god, I
am being so misogynistic right now because the second thing
I was going to say it was kitchen item. This
is only because you're like, put vinegar on your clothes
and then also here's how you use a juicer. It's
only because those are the things that I care about.
(30:05):
Was always in the kitchen or the laundry. I do
love those places. I feel very safe there also the bathroom, though,
um did do my makeup? I danced to Valentine a
little bit right back. Betty and Joe are like, let's
(30:29):
write a screenplay together, and we'll meet late at night
and we definitely won't bone, because that's for sure how
group projects work. This part was say it it was hot.
It was hot. It was hot because this one it
wasn't just like right in your face horny. It was
like this man and this woman decide to work together
write a screenplay. He also has to listen to what
(30:51):
she says about his work. That was one thing this
movie feature that I've literally never seen in many movies
and definitely not in any on this list. And then
him be like, yeah, okay, yeah, let me implement that note.
They're working together, and it's all this build up of
them just getting along, and then when they finally do kiss,
it was like I threw my arms up in the
(31:13):
air at seven in the morning and I said, yes,
just like the ghost of all my pent up horny
nous just coming out. Wally, it happened for someone. It
was really good. The female characters in this movie were
like fun. I mean, they were just better than a
(31:34):
lot of female characters. Yeah, definitely, but they still were
very like tied to men. But Betty was still like
striking out on her own doing her own thing. Norma
didn't need anyone. She was like very financially independent. A
man worked for her. Um, how did Norma get a gun?
How did she get a gun? Yeah? You know how.
(31:55):
There's a thing of like, if you see a gun
in the first act, checkout gun, it'll go off. In
the third we don't see the gun in the first act.
Chekhov's gun was introduced in the third act and then
pulled two minutes later. She's like, I got also, we
see it revealed. She rolls over and she was lying
on a gun the whole time. We're like, so what.
And then she comes up to Joe because Joe is
(32:16):
finally like, I'm moving out your bonkers. I had to
tell Betty that I'm boning you after I kissed her
because she was like stressed anyway, moving back to Ohio
to do sales, and then Norma comes into his room.
Do you remember how she holds the gun? No, okay,
she has it in both of her hands, palms up,
and she's like, look at this guy. I love her
(32:41):
so much, what are you doing? I want to be her.
She was like offering it to the gods. What what?
Looking back gun and sit down? Oh my god. I
just love her so much. And then the murder mystery
is solved. Right, The murder mystery that was only a
mystery for those with the smooth brains like ourselves, is
(33:02):
solved when he runs out near the swimming pool where
we see the man floating at the beginning. Although he
casually walks like I don't think he feels threatened at
all because he's just got his little suitcase. Yeah. Yeah,
he's walking into the car because Max is like, I'll
take you to Ohio the airport. I don't know where
he's gonna take him, and then she shoots him in
(33:22):
the back. She freaking shoots him. It was awesome, absolute
icon incredible aim hits him. She's three for three on shots.
It's unreal. The other thing I liked about this movie
was the ending was satisfying in that way where Betty
comes and she's like, you know what, I don't care
that you've been pimping yourself out for this woman and
that this is where you've been living. Let's just get
(33:44):
out of here. And he's like, honestly, Betty, like this
is like kind of awesome, Like I actually don't want
to leave the situation. And it's also like where am
I going to live? Let's be real, like this doesn't suck.
There's champagne on tap, I eat only caviare all of
my suits are just for me and no men and
hats are spotting me on the road, which is true.
(34:05):
Like I don't think that this has to be the
thing for everybody, but like I think this could completely
work for someone. It does logistically make more sense. And
so he's like no, and then he ends up leaving
which I'm like, what do you just explained? What? But
he leaves and then she has the gun and where
another movie might not have it, might they might have
held it up and then artistically dropped it. She's like,
(34:25):
I'm gonna shoot him. I'm gonna fully shoot I'm mad
at him, and I have a gun. Also she shoots
him in the back, but he doesn't like fall over,
which I've never shot anyone, but I would think wouldn't
the force of the bullet like shove you in some way?
He kind of just gets like gently sort of pushed
and he floats forward and he's like what and he
(34:46):
still has time to like saunter backwards and gaps be
into the pool. You're so right, so weird. It's a
weird way to go. He's kind of like, hey, there's
too many in me now, WHOA Okay? Norma is literally
Easma from The Emperor's New Groove. I didn't think about that.
(35:08):
I didn't even google it, but I would bet money
that that character was based off of her in Sense
at Boulevard, even just the eyeshadow, the big I make up,
the expressions, all the level crock you there. This is
my screenplay they're the same. You're so right, thank you,
Oh my god, I love so much. Unfortunately I did
(35:29):
laugh at the final shot of the film. So this
is like Norma has done her absolutely batshit dissension of
the Stairs. The police have arrived because she did a murder,
and she thinks she's finally going to be on the
big screen because the news cameras are. She's like, when
the camera's ready and Max, MAXI sadly like, you're on camera,
come down. It's you see, he's having a big delusion.
(35:51):
And she does this unreal dissension of the Stairs to
a very good score, which did win the Oscar that year,
and she does that iconic line all right, Mr de Mail,
I'm ready for my clothes up, and then she sort
of does like a very lower jaw forward look into
the camera, and that's where I was like, funny, She's funny, Leona.
(36:14):
Shall we move on? I feel like this whole episode
has been a badge already, but yes, yes we shall.
This is the part of the podcast where we tell
you badges, the things we liked from the film and trages,
the parts of the film that we found tragic. Badge
for streets, I know he said Franklin and Evar, I said,
I've seen that intersection. Badge for proudly displaying selfies. I
(36:38):
take a lot of selfies and don't want anyone to
see him, and she is my icon. Badge for a robe.
I love a robe. Badge for an adorable tow truck
when his car gets taken away. It's cute and stout. Okay.
Badge for short ties, also cute and stout. Badge for
a little car phone that she uses to talk to Max.
(36:59):
Badge for a been hating a man's screenplay. Oh. Badge
for left up bangs. She accidently messes up her bangs
at one point, and I was like, I feel you.
A badge for a woman saying you that. Oh. A
badge for a woman saying oh you. Badge for a
woman saying the garage women speak more. A badge for Max, Oh,
(37:24):
I have A badge for the husband's A badge for
chaotic hot girl summer moments. A badge for Norma saying
cut away from me. A badge for a woman pretending
to be Charlie Chaplin a little bit as four play.
(37:44):
I could see you doing this. I mean, I all
but have I have a badge for a woman eating
a sandwich, which is when Betty is just like nourishing
herself at Adeli, and I was like, we need more
of that in film. Badge for a woman saying it's
not your career, it's my career. Badge for the line
from of course Max Madam will pardon me. The shadow
(38:07):
over the left eye is not quite balanced. Badge for
a big powder it's for the big oar sweating I'm
actually sweating so much. Badge for that big poof to
apply powder. This movie unites us all. We have all synchronized.
(38:32):
Every woman in the world has synchronized with this film. Oh,
she's preparing Mr. De Mille for her clothes up and
she's doing her makeup, and she's got that huge poof
that they used to apply powder, which I didn't know
was real. I've only seen it in animated films. It
was so big and covered in so much powder. And
she was like to the cops, She's like, sorry, boys,
I need to get prepared. The two men are like,
(38:55):
she should just let her do this. Are there any trages?
I do have some tragic as well. I got a trage,
of course, for Hollywood assistance the whole film. I was like, okay,
I do have to after this go to my job
as a Hollywood assistant. There's just one line in it
that's like the Betre thought of just some assistant calling me,
(39:17):
and I was like, all right, okay, I send emails
like that's hurtful, kind of similar. I just have a
tradge for triggered this being just a tough business. They
portray it. I have a trag for it. When he's
meeting the producer at the lot, the producer is pitching
a film and the log line for it is the
story of a woman. I was like, oh boy, a
(39:38):
traged four. I am so tired from X because he's
the only one who worked there, and he was carrying bags,
and then he was over, you know, serving dinner, and
he was ever playing the organ, and then whenever anything
needed to be done, he had to do it. And
I was like, oh my god, I can get in
the car and I can wash my face, and those
are the two things I can do in a day.
I've got a trage for a woman saying I'm just
(39:59):
not good enough to do it all by myself, which
Betty says about her screen plan. I was like, Betty, bitch,
you got a nose job. You can do anything. Trade
for the romance between Betty and Joe just being confusing
to me because I can't decide if I liked it
or didn't. So she's casually cheating on her boyfriend, which
is like, I guess, like you go curl and but
she's getting with him, and she's also younger and anyway,
(40:20):
I'll jump to my final trade, which was a trad
for him saying, oh, nothing like being two. Um, being
twenty two was awful. Twenty two was bullshit. It was
one of my worst years. I think I was in
the basement the whole year long. The audacity of a
man to be like what a year now? At that time,
that was the first time I rolled into an old
lady's house and she gave me everything. Shall we move
(40:44):
on to our segment? How to pretend you've seen this film?
This is for You are at a New Year's party,
You're sitting on the edge of a bath tub. You
are speaking with Joe, who does he have a girlfriend?
Of course he did, and he's bringing up Sunset Boulevard.
Here are a few sentences you could say to pretend
(41:05):
you've seen that film. Ah, you don't like a girl
who's small, do you? Well? I am big. It's the
pictures that got small, you know. Joe Sunset Boulevard can
be seen as kind of an unrerequited love letter to Hollywood. Um, okay,
this is sort of I have to set the scene
(41:27):
for this one. Joe sort of bursts into the bathroom
and I am powdering my face with a big, big
I turned all right, Mr Demil, I'm ready for my
clothes up. She's doing a very strong jaw sort of
a cure nightly. Okay, Joe, don't fall into the bathtub.
(41:47):
You know. There are several allusions to the Phantom of
the Opera in this film, with the boat as her
bed and with Max playing on the organ, And that's
because Max represents the Phantom of the Opera teaching his pupil,
Norma honing her talents. Do I understand the fit with
(42:08):
the upbroaking sort of the power dynamic is completely wrong?
But yeah, Norms the Phantom WHI Joe is Christine, Betty
is Raoul, Max is everyone else? That seems perfectly accurate.
Now it is time for our segment. Should you watch
this or in which we tell you if we think
you should watch this film or if you should do
(42:30):
something else with your time. You know, what's your recommendation?
I recommend you watch this film. It's a good movie.
And trust me, we only just scratched the surface of
what is fun about this lady, and what's good about
this movie. You gotta get a load of it, all right, Lena,
(42:50):
what about you, babe? I think you maybe should watch
this movie. Is this your first one where you actual
recommend they should do it? I think so, but I
will still tie it, of course, in the sense of
you should watch Sunset Bouleabard, then use the inspiration of
Norma's iconic energy, her confidence, her eyeshadow, and then literally
(43:17):
go purchase George mackay and make him live with you
for the rest of your career slashlight. Wow. Alright, well,
what would you rate this Filmlyanna? I would rate this
film four poofs out of five, and it loses one
(43:39):
just because it's still like a very male, heavy, very
white film. And okay, okay. One thing I haven't said
on this episode is there was something about it that
irked me in the sense of, yes, I loved Norma
and I loved the portrayal of her, but it did
feel like she sort of was a punchline throughout the film,
Like it felt like two men writing about, oh my god,
this woman is like crazy. That's really interesting, especially because
(44:02):
I think some of the things that were good about
this movie where that I thought they didn't just show
her as like a sad sack or a fool. A
lot of people would defend her and say, actually, she
was a great talent. Don't say that about her. But
it was also men observing her. Yeah, it was always
men observing going hey, younger man, don't say that about her.
(44:23):
I was there when I was making her into a star. Yeah, yeah,
that's interesting, thank you. It's true. It's a nuanced noirrence
what okay? Nuanced film noir, a nuanced take. I actually
(44:44):
love that. So similarly, I would give this film a
six out of five, but for sort of similar reasons
as you, And because at the start, I really when
they were talking about the Baseball movie and crap, I
was like, whoa, where am I what going on? Yeah?
I'm gonna give it a five out of five, five
monkey coffins out of five. Very good, Yeah, amazingly excellent,
(45:07):
one of the best movies we've seen. Yeah, okay, everybody
for our episode on Chunado. Thank you so much for
listening to our episode on task pop car Like subscribe,
follow us on social media darting. Next week we will
(45:30):
be watching a graduate horny film. That's all I know
about it. I'm excited. Okay, thank you, We love you, my.
You can find us on Instagram as at Sienna Jacob
and at Leanna Holston. Please check the description for the
spelling of our dumb names. We put our episodes every Tuesday,
(45:53):
so make sure to subscribe so that you don't miss
an episode. See you next week on tossed Popcorn. For
more Podcas asked for my heart radio, check the i
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