Gloria Swanson

The Trespasser (1929)

A picture that was originally filmed to be silent, and then recreated just at the beginning of the sound era–the very cusp. On the edge of believability, too … the heroine turns down piles of money in the name of honor, gives up a child she loves in the name of love, and yet everything turns out happily. I liked it a lot.

One of her co-stars in it is named William Holden, but it’s a completely different guy than the WH who will star with her in a much more famous film decades later.

Indiscreet (1931)

Gloria, as Jeri, falls in love with the author of the novel she’s holding.

"I guess if everyone told the truth, nobody would marry anybody."

Ships were still how you got back and forth to Europe. That seems much better to me.

More than two decades later, she makes the movie she’s best remembered for.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Doesn’t appear to be available free, and I didn’t watch it recently, but I’ve had the opportunity before. Basically the director Billy Wilder was looking for a genuine silent-era star to play a silent-era star, and he found Gloria. A must-see, perhaps needless to say. And it loops us all the way back to … Noir.

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