*Sunset Blvrd* (1950)

I am half way through *Sunset Boulevard* and I have decided I am not going to watch the rest, because I know how it ends. (The body in the pool, Norma Desmond coming down stairs to the arresting officers, ‘I’m ready for my close up, Mr DeMille’.)

Nope, I’m going to write a happy ending… because this is what happened. Norma was living in the past, but not delusional. She realised that she wouldn’t be playing Salome, the sixteen year old dancer, but she really wanted the role of Salome’s mother who is, after all, the much more interesting role. She’s the one who demands that Salome request the head of John the Baptist. She’s the pivot of the drama.

Norma accepts Joe’s editing of the script and it is taken up by De Mille who is the middle of his OTT Biblical epic kick of the 1950s. Norma makes a triumphant come back (return), stealing the show with her speaking eyes. She wins an Academy. Her speech thanks them for her second Best Actress Award and then blasts modern film as foolish and inferior to the silent movies. Hollywood is unsure whether to snub her or embrace her as an eccentric.

Joe admires her Academy speech. Slowly he comes to stop being such a giant twit. He takes a long hard look at his life, realises he is not actually a very good writer. (Even Betty, his would-be squeeze, thinks he was OK in one six page segment where he recounted a story told to him by someone else). He begins to take his life as a gigalo seriously, which includes talking with the guests at her soirees. He realises he is uniquely placed to write a ‘scandals of Hollywood Babylon’ work, which sells well. He later ghost writes Norma’s biography.

When she dies, he catalogues her writings and donates them to the UCLA Library where they form the Norma Desmond collection. By this stage Betty is also widowed, but he does not want to settle down with her. When Max finds out about this, for the first time ever he approves of something Joe has done.

There, a happy ending. And why not? If Jack Nicholson can have a happy ending in *As Good As It Gets*, why should Norma Desmond not? I mean, he’s a hideous, physically repulsive wreck with mental issues, who only gets the girl (who must be 30 years younger than him) because he provides her son with money for much needed medical attention and she is canonically grateful but not in love with him. Norma Desmond is a silver fox in leopard skin print with mental issues who provides Joe (who must be 15 years younger than her) with a living. Why should she not get a happy ending, just because Hollywood loathes older women?

And a final, unrelated comment. Check out the supporting cast of people playing themselves in this movie. Buster Keaton, one of the actual Warner Brothers (who it seems odd were real people), Cecil B DeMille, Hedda Hopper. Gold.

Highlander Rewatch

1.10 Revenge is Sweet

Synopsis: A mysterious woman named Rebecca Lord inquires about a sword that MacLeod once took from a rival immortal named Walter Reinhardt. Duncan agrees to let her test the sword, and is surprised to find that she uses the same style as Reinhardt. Having never taken Reinhardt's head, Duncan fears that the two may be working together.

Once again MacLeod is battling a rogue immortal who sees all humans as interchangeable sub-humans. Once again he wins.


The twist this week is that the villain of the week has faked his own death so as to get his ex-girlfriend to pursue challenge MacLeod. Cue much smouldering as she wears ridiculously early 90s clingy and high cut aerobics gear while demanding that he thrust his weapon at her. Does she actually caress his blade? Also, props to Tessa for just rolling her eyes at the vampy challenger and to Richie for using the proto-internet to find out her background.



4.21 Judgment Day

Synopsis: Jack Shapiro tricks Joe into coming to Paris to face a Watcher trial. Duncan tracks Joe down, complicating Joe's situation even as he tries to help. Meanwhile, Immortal Jacob Galati is hunting and killing Watchers.

One of my favourite parts of this episode is that the set designer was apparently channelling *Chitty Chitty Bang Bang*. Joe is incarcerated in a child’s bedroom in the new Watcher headquarters, complete with huge nutcracker-style toy soldiers and oversized dolls houses. This completely fits as (1) it is disorienting and (2) Joe’s behaviour throughout the episode is so petulant.

Joe doesn’t really offer a defence of his behaviour, and MacLeod’s is quite dodgy – that he approached Joe, that Horton began it all anyway, and that no doubt it would have worked out that immortals knew about Watchers anyway. The other side argue that Joe made a choice to break his oath, that it is impossible to tell what the consequences of Horton’s actions were but that it is verifiable that now many immortals know about Watchers and the rates of Watcher deaths have increased (and one inevitably happens mid-trial).

Seems pretty clear cut to me. I wouldn’t lobby for execution but cutting him out of the Watchers is an obvious next step and it is astonishing it has not happened before. Cut him out, let him not speak to his ex-friends, cut off his retirement funds, remove all the records, send him to Coventry, move the local Watcher HQ, punish him by taking away the bar and his savings. Also, there must have been leaks in the past, so whatever security measures are typical should be enacted – symbols changed, tattoos altered, passwords changed, all Watchers swapped around.