Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Billy Wilder made an interesting mix of film noir, gothic horror, and drama. Its narrator is straight from Chandler's pages, but he's not telling us about criminals but weird inhabitants of an old mansion who'd be at home in some Hammer film. Those two are glued together with some love and jealousy. It's an odd mix, but it works surprisingly well.
I'm not generally a fan of narrators or stories that start from the end. In here, both work to a degree. Still, I don't fully agree with the inclusion of the opening scene. It trades some of the suspense (especially in the first half when we're still led to believe that Gillis is the bad guy of the story) for an early entrance of the ironic narrator. I think I could have lived without either.
Despite these taste mismatches, I found
Sunset Boulevard well written and entertaining. It wasn't nearly as cynical as IMDb led me to believe, though. The acting was pretty great too (I'd kinda want to say that Swanson was overacting, but then again, she was supposed to be a silent film actress caught in her role). A very positive start for these games.