Author search: Wilder, Billy, 1906-2002, Subject search term: Wilder, Billy, 1906-2002.
American Film History by 
Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge by
The director and cowriter of some of the world's most iconic films--including Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment--Billy Wilder earned acclaim as American cinema's greatest social satirist. Though an influential fixture in Hollywood, Wilder always saw himself as an outsider. His worldview was shaped by his background in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and work as a journalist in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power, and his perspective as a Jewish refugee from Nazism lent his films a sense of the peril that could engulf any society. In this critical study, Joseph McBride offers new ways to understand Wilder's work, stretching from his days as a reporter and screenwriter in Europe to his distinguished as well as forgotten films as a Hollywood writer and his celebrated work as a writer-director. In contrast to the widespread view of Wilder as a hardened cynic, McBride reveals him to be a disappointed romantic. Wilder's experiences as an exile led him to mask his sensitivity beneath a veneer of wisecracking that made him a celebrated caustic wit. Amid the satirical barbs and exposure of social hypocrisies, Wilder's films are marked by intense compassion and a profound understanding of the human condition. Mixing biographical insight with in-depth analysis of films from throughout Wilder's career as a screenwriter and director of comedy and drama, and drawing on McBride's interviews with the director and his collaborators, this book casts new light on the full range of Wilder's rich, complex, and distinctive vision.
Close up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream by
Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, a classic film noir and also a damning dissection of the Hollywood dream factory, evokes the glamour and ruin of the stars who subsist on that dream. It's also one long in-joke about the movie industry and those who made it great-and who were, in turn, destroyed by it. One of the most critically admired films of the twentieth century, Sunset Boulevard is also famous as silent star Gloria Swanson's comeback picture. Close-Up On Sunset Boulevard tells the story of this extravagant work, from the writing, casting and filming to the disastrous previews that made Paramount consider shelving it. It's about the writing team of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett-sardonically called "the happiest couple in Hollywood"-and their raucous professional relationship. It's about the art direction and the sets, the costumes, the props, the lights and the cameras, and the personalities who used those tools to create a cinematic work of art. Staggs goes behind the scenes to reveal: William Holden, endlessly attacked by his bitter wife and already drinking too much; Nancy Olson, the cheerful ingenue who had never heard of the great Gloria Swanson; the dark genius Erich von Stroheim; the once famous but long-forgotten "Waxworks"; and of course Swanson herself, who-just like Norma Desmond-had once been "the greatest star of them all." But the story of Sunset Boulevard doesn't end with the movie's success and acclaim at its release in l950. There's much more, and Staggs layers this stylish book with fascinating detail, following the actors and Wilder into their post- Sunset careers and revealing Gloria Swanson's never-ending struggle to free herself from the clutches of Norma Desmond. Close-Up On Sunset Boulevard also chronicles the making of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical production of Sunset Boulevard and the explosive diva controversies that dogged it. The book ends with a shocking example of Hollywood life imitating Hollywood art. By the last page of this rich narrative, readers will conclude: We are those "wonderful people out there in the dark."
Conversations with Wilder by
In Conversations with Wilder, Hollywood's legendary and famously elusive director Billy Wilder agrees for the first time to talk extensively about his life and work. Here, in an extraordinary book with more than 650 black-and-white photographs -- including film posters, stills, grabs, and never-before-seen pictures from Wilder's own collection -- the ninety-three-year-old icon talks to Cameron Crowe, one of today's best-known writer-directors, about thirty years at the very heart of Hollywood, and about screenwriting and camera work, set design and stars, his peers and their movies, the studio system and films today. In his distinct voice we hear Wilder's inside view on his collaborations with such stars as Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, and Greta Garbo (he was a writer at MGM during the making of "Ninotchka." Here are Wilder's sharp and funny behind-the-scenes stories about the making of "A Foreign Affair, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Love in the Afternoon, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment," and "Ace in the Hole," among many others. Wilder is ever mysterious, but Crowe gets him to speak candidly on Stanwyck: "She knew the script, everybody's lines, never a fault, never a mistake"; on Cary Grant: "I had Cary Grant in mind for four of my pictures . . . slipped through my net every time"; on the "Lubitsch Touch" "It was the elegant use of the super-joke." Wilder also remembers his early years in Vienna, working as a journalist in Berlin, rooming with Peter Lorre at the Chateau Marmont -- always with the same dry wit, tough-minded romanticism, and elegance that are the hallmarks of Wilder's films. This book is a classic of Hollywood history and lore.
A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder's American Films by
With six Academy Awards, four entries on the American Film Institute's list of 100 greatest American movies, and more titles on the National Historic Register of classic films deemed worthy of preservation than any other director, Billy Wilder counts as one of the most accomplished filmmakers ever to work in Hollywood. Yet how American is Billy Wilder, the Jewish #65533;migr#65533; from Central Europe? This book underscores this complex issue, unpacking underlying contradictions where previous commentators routinely smoothed them out. Wilder emerges as an artist with roots in sensationalist journalism and the world of entertainment as well as with an awareness of literary culture and the avant-garde, features that lead to productive and often highly original confrontations between high and low.
It's the Pictures That Got Small: Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood's Golden Age by
"Brackett's diaries read like a funnier, better-paced version of Barton Fink." --Newsweek Screenwriter Charles Brackett is best remembered as the writing partner of director Billy Wilder, who once referred to the pair as "the happiest couple in Hollywood," collaborating on such classics as The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard. He was also a perceptive chronicler of the entertainment industry, and in this annotated collection of writings from dozens of Brackett's unpublished diaries, film historian Anthony Slide clarifies Brackett's critical contribution to Wilder's films and enriches our knowledge of Wilder's achievements in writing, direction, and style. Brackett's diaries re-create the initial meetings of the talent responsible for Ninotchka, Hold Back the Dawn, Ball of Fire, The Major and the Minor, Five Graves to Cairo, The Lost Weekend, and Sunset Boulevard, recounting the breakthroughs and the breakdowns that ultimately forced these collaborators to part ways. In addition to a portrait of Wilder, this is rare view of a producer who was a president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Screen Writers Guild, a New Yorker drama critic, and a member of the Algonquin Round Table. With insight into the dealings of Paramount, Universal, MGM, and RKO, and legendary figures such as Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Edna Ferber, and Dorothy Parker, this book reveals the political and creative intrigue at the heart of Hollywood's most significant films. "A fascinating look at Hollywood in its classic period, and a unique and indispensable must-have for any movie buff." --Chicago Tribune "This feels as close as we can get to being in the presence of Wilder's genius, and he emerges as the cruelest as well as the wittiest of men." --The Guardian "Not only rare insight into their often-stormy partnership but also an insider's view of Hollywood during that era." --Los Angeles Times "Very entertaining." --Library Journal
Literary Readings of Billy Wilder by
Billy Wilder, hailed by most as a great filmmaker, often considered himself primarily as a writer. Yet to this day no publisher had thought fit to release literary interpretations of his work. Such an endeavor was clearly missing. The idea of this book is to offer academic but non hermetic readings of nine of his most significant films, informed by literary criticism, Gender Studies, semiotics, Film Studies, and the OC artistic sensibilityOCO of its contributors. Literary Readings of Billy Wilder..."
On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder by
The life of screenwriter and director Billy Wilder is examined here, from his frustrations with anti-Semitism in his native Austria to his eventual Hollywood triumph as the recipient of six Academy Awards. Reprint. PW.
Sunset Boulevard by
Sunset Boulevard (1950) is one of the most famous films in the history of Hollywood, and perhaps no film better represents Hollywood's vision of itself. Billy Wilder collaborated on the screenplay with the very able Charles Brackett, and with D. M. Marshman Jr., who later joined the team. Together they created a film both allusive and literate, with Hollywood's worst excesses and neuroses laid out for all to see. After viewing Sunset Boulevard Louis B. Mayer exclaimed: "We should throw this Wilder out of town!" The New York Times, however, gave the movie a rave review, praising "that rare blend of pungent writing, expert acting, masterly direction, and unobtrusively artistic photography." The film was nominated for Best Picture, and Wilder won an Academy Award for Best Story and Best Screenplay. This facsimile edition of Sunset Boulevard makes it possible to get as much pleasure from reading the highly intelligent screenplay as from seeing the film. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction provides an intriguing array of background details about Wilder, the film's casting and production, and the lives of those connected to what has become a classic.
Sunset Boulevard by