:09:01
was written for Monty Clift.
:09:04
He actually accepted the role. He was
filming "The Heiress" at the time.
:09:10
He was very young and very famous,
with a stark magnetism.
:09:17
He went skiing in Switzerland
and thought about it.
:09:20
Perhaps on the advice of his agent,
he turned them down.
:09:24
So they approached William Holden,
whose problem was
:09:28
that he'd made his name in a film
made 10 years earlier, "Golden Boy".
:09:33
People forget Bill Holden was really
in a very frayed part of his career.
:09:40
It was a long time since "Golden Boy",
since he was the Great White Hope.
:09:46
He was a has-been himself.
He'd kept working but nobody noticed.
:09:52
Wilder met with him
and really saw the intelligence,
:09:56
the character and the talent
underneath this All-American façade.
:10:02
It turned out to be perfect,
better than Clift would have been.
:10:06
He was a better choice than Clift,
:10:09
because here was the All-American
boy being corrupted.
:10:13
Remember where he comes in
at the party in a vicuòa coat?
:10:19
You just die! There's something
about him that is so exquisite.
:10:26
For me, he's the lynchpin of the film.
:10:29
He is the one who makes it really
work because he is so real.
:10:36
She's quite a character,
that Norma Desmond.
:10:39
She was the greatest.
You wouldn't know, you're too young.
:10:42
Erich von Stroheim, perfect casting.
:10:45
Here's a great director
of the '20s and '30s.
:10:48
Made fantastic pictures but blew it
by making a film called "Greed",
:10:54
which was far too long, truncated,
a big scandal and a big mess.
:10:59
And then by making "Queen Kelly",
starring Gloria Swanson.