annefrankzappa: annefrankzappa: Sunset Boulevard  In the film’s original opening sequence

annefrankzappa:annefrankzappa:Sunset Boulevard In the film’s original opening sequence, newly arrived bodies at the Los Angeles morgue talk about how they got there:The corpse lying next to me asks how I died and I say I drowned. And he asks me how can a young guy like you drown and I say, “Well, first I was shot in the back,” and then he says, yeah, he was shot also. He was a Chicago gangster killed in Los Angeles. Then a little kid on a slab across from me says, “I drowned too—swimming with my friends off the Santa Monica pier. I bet him I could hold my breath two minutes.” Some dame is over by the kid and she says he shouldn’t be unhappy as his parents will come and take him to a nice place. Then from way down there’s this great big Negro corpse and he says, “Hey man, did you get the final score on the Dodger game before you got it?” and I say, no, I died before the morning papers came out… .Charles Bracket, Wilder’s writing partner, hated the opening scene; he thought it was “morbid and disgusting.” He wasn’t alone. When Paramount previewed Sunset Boulevard in Evanston, Illinois, headquarters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the audience jeered and filled out preview cards deriding Wilder’s masterpiece. When Wilder complained to Paramount that Evanston, Illinois, was simply too unsophiticated for his movie, the studio demographers sent Wilder’s Gothic take on Hollywood to a town they insisted was the most sophisticated in America: Great Neck, Long Island. But they hated Sunset Boulevard, too. “The most sophisticated town in America” walked out on it.Paramount reacted to the preview to the preview audiences’ disdain by refusing all showings for the next six months, and Wilder was sent back to rewrite the opening scene. The final version that made it into the film was no less bizarre, opening with the corpse of Joe Gillis, the young screenwriter, telling the story of how he wound up floating facedown in Norma Desmond’s swimming pool.- Sam Kashner and Jennifer MacNair, “The Bad And The Beautiful” on Billy Wilder’s Sunset BoulevardI don’t want to be the bitch who reblogs an original post just to source it properly, but it was wrongly sourced and I actually found it in a book and took the time to type it out, so I’m re-sourcing it. Anyways, enjoy. -- source link

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