‘Sunset Blvd.’: A Woman Obsessed

The Newport Harbor Art Museum on Friday launches its three-movie film series dedicated to “the many sides of the female psyche” with “Sunset Blvd.,” the 1950 classic starring Gloria Swanson as a has-been actress who topples into madness during her comeback.

The program, called simply “The Women,” is one of two now in Orange County with a distaff leaning. UC Irvine opened its “Standing in a Different Light: No Longer Silent, a Woman Seizes Her Moments” series earlier this month. As part of that program, John Sayles’ 1983 “Lianna,” which explores a lesbian relationship, screens Friday night at UCI.

“Sunset Blvd.,” directed by Billy Wilder, is an attack on Hollywood, especially its image-making fickleness and casual exploitation of all things shimmery.

The film is considered one of the first to satirize the industry, opening the door for later, more realistic takes on Hollywood, such as “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952), “A Star Is Born” (1954) and Robert Altman’s “The Player” (1992). It also was the inspiration for the musical, now on Broadway.

A faded, reclusive screen star and a bitter screenwriter propel “Sunset Blvd.” Swanson, in an eerie, courageous performance, plays Norma Desmond, and William Holden, in his most bilious portrayal, plays Joe Gillis, the loser who stumbles into Desmond’s life.

Gillis knows a good deal when he sees it, letting Desmond support him while working on her comeback script, a ridiculous remake of “Salome.” But there’s a price to all this--Gillis has to romance a woman obsessed with her past and unable to make a life for herself in the real world.

In voice-overs that start when we see his body floating face-down in a pool at the film’s start, Gillis chronicles his descent.

There are many assets to the movie, from Wilder’s alternately glib and edgy direction to art direction by Hans Dreier and John Meehan and spook-house sets by Sam Comer and Ray Moyer. Then there’s the famous last scene, one of the most unsettling ever shot.

In it, Swanson, like an apparition, moves slowly down the stairs of her musty mansion for that final close-up. When she pushes her disturbed face toward the camera, the actress has turned isolation into a weapon and ambition into the creepiest of ironies.

“The Women” series continues May 19 with “Desperately Seeking Susan,” the Susan Seidelman-directed 1985 movie starring Rosanna Arquette as a suburban housewife obsessed with a freewheeling street chick played by Madonna.

The program ends June 16 with “The Terminator,” James Cameron’s 1984 release featuring Linda Hamilton as a woman being stalked by a cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) with halitosis from a violent future.

* What: Billy Wilder’s “Sunset Blvd.”

* When: Friday, April 21, at 6:30 p.m.

* Where: Newport Harbor Art Museum, 850 San Clemente Drive, Newport Beach.

* Whereabouts: Take Pacific Coast Highway to Jamboree Road. Head north on Jamboree to Santa Barbara Drive, then east to San Clemente Drive.

* Wherewithal: $5 general; $3 for museum members, seniors and students.

* Where to call: (714) 759-1122.

MORE SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Lianna

(R) John Sayles’ film about a woman who, questioning the sacrifices she has made for an unhappy marriage, goes back to school and falls in love with her female teacher. Screens Friday at 7 and 9 p.m. at the UCI Student Center Crystal Cove Auditorium. Sponsored by the UCI Film Society. $4 general admission, $3 for seniors and $2 for students. (714) 824-5588.

Emerging Indochina

(NR) Filmmaker Rick Ray shows the human side of postwar Vietnam, from busy markets to the streets of Hanoi. Screens Friday at 7 p.m. at Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa, as part of OCC’s “Armchair Adventures” series. $7 in advance, $9 at the door. (714) 432-5880.

Como Agua Para Chocolate

(Like Water for Chocolate)

(NR) This widely acclaimed 1992 Mexican film adapts Laura Esquivel’s novel of romance, passion and cooking and stars Lumi Cavazos, in Spanish with English subtitles. April 28 at 7 p.m. in Room 313 of the Science and Math Building, Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Part of an international film festival sponsored by Saddleback College’s division of Liberal Arts and Associated Student Government. (714) 542-4788. FREE.