Film Buffs Return ‘Sunset Boulevard’ to Big Screen

One of Hollywood’s minor pleasures is imagining how great films might have gone wrong.

This Saturday, Glendale’s Alex Film Society will screen “Sunset Boulevard” (1950), Billy Wilder’s immortal metamovie about fame, ambition and the dark side of Hollywood.

Did you know that Mae West was originally sought for the Gloria Swanson part and Montgomery Clift was penciled in to play Joe Gillis, the role so persuasively performed by William Holden?

Can you imagine the impact of Norma Desmond’s “I am big--it’s the pictures that got small” uttered by Mae West in full terrify-the-church-ladies, over-the-top mode? In contrast, Swanson’s cobra-like performance is an exercise in admirable restraint.

“Everybody was nice to me,” says Nancy Olson, who was only 20 when she was cast as Betty Schaefer, the aspiring screenwriter Gillis falls for before he ends up face down in the pool. Once wed to songwriter Alan Jay Lerner, Olson has been married for 36 years to former Capitol Records head Alan Livingston, whose legendary clients have included Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys.

Olson, who appeared in a string of Disney movies after “Sunset Boulevard,” says she did not know that she was making a masterpiece during the shoot, but, “I knew I was in one of the most interesting films they were making in this town that year.”

Even if she couldn’t foresee the film’s Oscars and immortality, she says, “To work with true artists--the real McCoy--I sensed, even though I was very young, was a privilege.”

Among the artists involved in the film were fellow cast members Cecil B. De Mille, Erich von Stroheim and Buster Keaton.

The chance to see “Sunset Boulevard” on the big screen and to hear Olson reminisce about the making of the film is the kind of experience that the Alex Film Society was founded to provide.

“We all loved classic films,” explains Brian J. Ellis, an assistant director on TV’s “Cheers” and “Frasier” who co-founded the nonprofit organization in 1994. “We all wanted to see them on the silver screen, and to be honest, we were all a little lazy and we didn’t want to drive to the Westside to see them.”

Originally built as a vaudeville and movie house in 1925, the Alex Theatre had been restored and was about to be reopened as a performing arts center when Ellis and his fellow film buffs persuaded city agencies and others to donate a movie screen and sound equipment to show films as well.

The Alex Film Society’s first offering was a screening in 1994 featuring a gorgeous new print of “Gone With the Wind.” The theater management didn’t think the screening warranted staffing the concession stand, so Ellis and co-founder Randy Carter ran out to Smart & Final to buy soda and candy to sell at intermission. Great old movies have been on the bill at the Alex ever since.

According to Ellis, the society has a mailing list of 11,000, and its screenings attract such local notables as director Arthur Hiller, actress Annie Potts and actor Sam Bottoms.

But not every film packs them in, even in this industry town. Says Ellis: “We’ve gone from sellout crowds to 50 people in the theater for a western.”

Ellis says the society helps sustain the Alex. “We bought most of the marquee letters they’re using now,” he said.

And it promotes film preservation by regularly reminding the studios that there is a market, not just for videos, but for 35-millimeter prints of classic films.

“We want the studios to keep striking new prints,” says Ellis, who would love to screen the 1965 Marlon Brando “Mutiny on the Bounty,” but is stymied by the lack of a decent 35-millimeter print.

Ellis and the others in the society love and know movies. They can tell you that “Sunset Boulevard” marked the end of an era. It was the last major studio film shot on nitrate negative stock. The future would belong to color safety film.

Why should someone pony up $8.50 (the cost of a ticket for the evening screening) to see a movie, albeit a great one, that might well show up on cable the very same day?

There’s nothing special about a screening at the Alex, Ellis says, except “it’s a brand new print, it’s on the big screen, and there’s going to be 1,200 people sitting around you.”

“Sunset Boulevard” will be screened at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday. Olson will appear at the evening screening. The Alex Theatre is at 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. For more information, call (818) 754-8250.