Screenings

Sunset Boulevard

  • to This is a past program

In Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder’s mordant 1950 film noir, an aging and half-crazed silent film star fantasizes about her triumphant comeback in the “talkies” as Princess Salome. Actress Gloria Swanson was herself 51, the same age as Sarah Bernhardt when she appeared—amid scandal—in the title role of Salome, the play that Oscar Wilde had written for her. (1950, Dir. Wilder, 110 min.)

In conjunction with the exhibition A Strange Magic: Gustave Moreau’s Salome.

Trailer for Sunset Boulevard

All Hammer public programs are free and made possible by a major gift from the Dream Fund at UCLA.

Generous support is also provided by Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, the Simms/Mann Family Foundation, The Brotman Foundation of California, Good Works Foundation and Laura Donnelley, and all Hammer members.