Typically well worked out and detailed, Wilder and Diamond return to the former's meditation on fame in Sunset Boulevard, using the same star, an aged William Holden. Whilst the story is kind of nuts (there's no way Holden would mistake Fedora's dash up the villa stairs as the physique of a 67 year old woman) its commentary on the sickening lure of stardom is well told and timely, and the film carries a melancholy weight, no doubt aided by Rozsa's score (mixed a little too low for me).
The construction, in which the second part of the film consists of each character giving a different flashback, is a bit pedestrian, and you expect Holden's character to be the voice of reason and pass judgment on all this craziness, but it doesn't go that way.
There are of course some very smart gags both visual and spoken.
Gerry Fisher on camera, Trauner's designs.
Marthe Keller, Hildegard Knef, Jose Ferrer, Frances Sternhagen, Mario Adorf, Hans Jaray, Michael York and Henry Fonda.
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