SYNOPSIS

Wilder's acid-etched portrait of Hollywood must be placed at the top of any classic-movie fan's required-viewing list. From the macabre opening scene, which establishes the film's narrator as a dead man, through Swanson's final, sweeping exit, there is not a frame or line out of place. B-movie screenwriter Holden floats facedown in a pool as he begins the story of his demise. Ditching his about-to-be-repossessed car in a Hollywood mansion's driveway, Holden wanders the premises until he's mistaken for the undertaker meant to preside at a funeral for aging silent-film queen Swanson's pet monkey. When she discovers that Holden is instead a screenwriter, Swanson envelops him in a web of gifts, flattery, money, and curiosity that makes Holden the monkey's stand-in. Holden continues to feed Swanson's delusions, aided by her faithful butler-former director-former husband von Stroheim, until he can't find a way out - even when studio script reader Olson offers him her heart and help with a screenplay. Out of many resonant moments, the highlights include the weekly card game with silent-era stars Keaton, Anna O. Nilsson, and H. B. Warner; Swanson's viewings of her own performance in Queen Kelly, a disastrous silent picture actually directed by von Stroheim; and Swanson's slow march down the grand staircase, fully lost in her past, as her eloquent face portrays all the elation and fear that lead to the film's last line, "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up now."

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion)