I... don't see that as working quite as well as the way they did it in the final version.

Well, Wilder wrote it and directed it so he agreed with you.

I only note it because it shows how dark/offbeat it was in his original conception.

There are so many things I love about it. It has both this reverence for old Hollywood and a scathing satire of it at the same time. This is really one of the great mythmakers of Hollywood, so deep into its old lore.

It's a noir, and it's also the definitive Hollywood Gothic. That amazing funeral scene with the monkey and the card game with all the real silent stars, and DeMille. And Swanson fought to make her character more human and tragic - less monstrous.

That scene where Norma goes back to the studio and is treated like visiting royalty was a scene that Wilder wrote after he saw Gloria Swanson actually returning to the studio and seeing her surrounded by veteran techies, swarming around her. Treating her like the star she was. (Swanson had moved away to NYC, and was quite different from the character. Swanson was rather quirky and practical instead of an egomanical diva.)

Did you know she was an amateur inventor? That weird little cigarette holder that she uses in the film was her invention.

I love the insider stuff on low level screenwriters trying to make it. All that stuff with Nancy Olson's character as they're collaborating on the script.

::high fives fellow Sunset Boulevard fans::

There are so many things I love about it. It has both this reverence for old Hollywood and a scathing satire of it at the same time.

So many things about Hollywood have Not. Changed. One. Bit.

the card game with all the real silent stars,

Buster Keaton! "Pass." Such a glorious face, doing such great sadness in that scene.

All that stuff with Nancy Olson's character as they're collaborating on the script.

Yet another early example of a strong, three dimensional female. I'm always delighted when those come up. On that theme we talked about The Best Years of Our Lives (which we both love, and have discussed before). Best Years of Our Lives had several strong, complicated female characters, and took a strong anti-war stance that seems unusual for the era it came out in.

Sean, that's why I love Shadow of a Doubt so much. Hitchcock's favored ice-blonde queens were absent. Just a quick thinking, strong young woman in Charlie. She doesn't even have to get rescued by her love interest--she handles her murdering uncle all by herself.

t adds Shadow of a Doubt to his Must Watch Soon list

Favorite movies about Hollywood:

Sunset Boulevard
Barton Fink
In a Lonely Place
Mulholland Drive
Bad and the Beautiful (see where that scary ass Donnie Darko rabbit came from. Also, alludes to Val Lewton's career.)
The Big Picture
Ed Wood (The Brain plus Vincent D'onorfrio = Orson Welles!)
The Player (a bit overrated but still some choice bits

TV Shows: Action
Extras
Entourage

LOVE Ed Wood. Landau is AMAZING.

Shadow of a Doubt is great. Both for Charlie's character and an almost Lynchian darkness-in-a-small-town vibe.

Ed Wood

"It's all in the wrist."

I mean - really: Martin Landau as BELA LUGOSI? What's not to absolutely, whole-heartedly ADORE about that combo.