SUNSET BOULEVARD

Roteiro por:
  Charles Brackett
  Billy Wilder
  D.M. Marshman, Jr.

Um trecho:              SEQUENCE "A"  

  A-l-4   START the picture with the actual street sign:
          SUNSET BOULEVARD, stencilled on a curbstope.
          In the gutter lie dead leaves, scraps of paper,
          burnt matches and cigarette butts.  It is early
          morning.

          Now the CAMERA leaves the sign and MOVES EAST, the
          grey asphalt of the street filling the screen.  As
          speed accelerates to around 40 m.p.h., traffic de-
          marcations, white arrows, speed-limit warnings, man-
          hole covers, etc., flash by.  SUPERIMPOSED on all
          this are the CREDIT TITLES, in the stencilled style
          of the street sign.

          Over the scene we now hear         MAN'S VOICE
          sirens.  Police squad cars    Yes, this is Sunset
          hurtle toward the camera,     Boulevard, Los Angeles,
          turn off the road into a      California.  It's about
          driveway with squealing       five o'clock in the
          brakes.  Dismounted motor-    morning.  That's the
          cycle cops stand directing    Homicide Squad, com-
          the cars in.                  plete with detectives
                                        and newspaper men.
  A-5     PATIO AND POOL OF             A murder has been re-
          MANSION                       ported from one of those
                                        great big houses in the
          The policemen and news-       ten thousand block.
          paper reporters and           You'll read all about
          photographers have            it in the late editions,
          jumped out of the cars        I'm sure.  You'll get
          and are running up to         it over your radio,
          the pool, in which a          and see it on tele-
          body is seen floating.        vision -- because an
          Photographers' bulbs          old-time star is in-
          flash in rapid suc-           volved.  one of the big-
          cession.                      gest.  But before you
                                        hear it all distorted
                                        and blown out of
                                        proportion, before those
                                        Hollywood columnists
                                        get their hands on it,
                                        maybe you'd like to
                                        hear the facts, the
                                        whole truth...

  A-6     FLASH OF THE BODY
                                          MAN'S VOICE
          Angle up through the       If so, you've come to the
          water from the bottom      right party...  You see,
          of the pool, as the        the body of a young man
          body floats face down-     was found floating in the
          ward.  It is a well-       pool of her mansion, with
          dressed young man.         two shots in his back and
                                     one in his stomach.  No-
                                     body important, really.
                                     Just a movie writer with
                                     a couple of "B" pictures
                                     to his credit.  The poor
                                     dope.  He always wanted a
                                     pool Well, in the end
                                     he got himself a pool --
          SLOW DISSOLVE TO:          only the price turned out
                                     to be a little high...
                                     Let's go back about six
  A-7     HOLLYWOOD, SEEN FROM       months and find the day
          THE HILLTOP AT IVAR        when it all started.
          & FRANKLIN STREETS

          It is a crisp sunny        I was living in an
          day.  The voice con-       apartment house above
          tinues speaking as         Franklin and Ivar.
          CAMERA PANS toward         Things were tough
          the ALTO NIDO APART-       at the moment.  I hadn't
          MENT HOUSE, an ugly        worked in a studio for
          Moorish structure ofsat    a long time.  So I
          stucco, about four         there grinding
          stories high.  CAMERA      out original stories,
          MOVES TOWARD AN OPEN       two a week.  Only I
          WINDOW on the third        seemed to have lost
          floor, where we look       my touch.  Maybe they
          in on JOE GILLIS' APART-   weren't original
          MENT.  Joe Gillis, bare-   enough.  Maybe they
          footed and wearing no-     were too original.
          thing but an old bath-     All I know is they
          robe.  is sitting on       didn't sell.
          the bed.  In front of
          him.  on a straight
          chair, is a portable
          typewriter.  Beside
          him, on the bed, is a
          dirty ashtray and a
          scattering of type
          written and pencil-
          marked pages.  Gillis
          is typing.  with a
          pencil clenched bet-
          ween his teeth.