One of the greatest and possibly THE most unique performance ever
It is simply mind blowing to imagine this film being released in 1950.
Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond is the maybe the strangest, creepiest most perfectly delivered performance I have ever seen.
This film defines weird movies. There have been thousands of films made after this trying to be more strange and none of them have maybe delivered in such a nonchalant way as this film. This film is so effortlessly bizarre, unsettling and spot on. "I got three blocks downtown and oil pumping in Bakersfield. Pumping, pumping, pumping."
The first quarter of the film is like a barrage of amazing lines. Just one insightful acerbic crack after another about Hollywood.
How does a person come up with the delivery Swanson came up with for this film? How in the world did she pull this part off so perfectly, toe the line so relentlessly, without going over? It never seems like overacting and yet every single moment of her performance is so over the top. There really has never been anything like it on screen before or after.
What did Wilder and Brackett envision when they wrote that part? How could they possibly have imagined Swanson's finished product?
This film and Swanson's performance boggle my mind.