Sunset Boulevard

"I am big! It's the pictures that got small!" The blackest of Hollywood's self-portraits is an old, dark house of a ghost story inhabited by the living shadows of its discarded stars. Gloria Swanson is magnificent as Norma Desmond, the former silent-movie queen living in her memories while plotting a fantasy of a comeback, and she understands both the monstrous and pathetic dimensions of her demented diva. William Holden is the failed screenwriter with a mercenary streak who plays the gigolo to hide from creditors. Director/co-writer Billy Wilder makes his scabrous and acidic expose of Hollywood's living graveyards both ghoulish and tragic, thanks largely to the quiet devotion of Erich von Stroheim's performance as her butler and, once upon a time, her director. It was a biting in-joke for Tinseltown historians at the time, as von Stroheim's directorial career was destroyed by "Queen Kelly," in which he directed Gloria Swanson. Wilder even fit some of that footage into the "home movie" scene.

"Sunset Boulevard" is the first in Paramount's "Centennial Collection" of special-edition classics. In addition to the commentary and featurettes of the previous DVD release, this two-disc set includes a collection of well-made production documentaries, appreciations (including one by novelist Joseph Wambaugh) and actor profiles. Also debuting in the collection this week are two romantic comedies with Audrey Hepburn: William Wyler's "Roman Holiday" with Gregory Peck, and Billy Wilder's "Sabrina" with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, both with new supplements.