Sunset Boulevard is the definitive film noir, and although the image of Gloria Swanson proclaiming that she's ready for her close up is by far its most famous moment, its opening scene deserves equal credit.
With a narration from William Holden setting the stage for a gruesome murder, Sunset wastes no time at all in bringing the viewer to the scene of a crime - a movie writer with a few B-pictures to his name has been shot and left to fall in the pool to a Boulevard mansion. As the police begin to make their enquiries the perspective switches to the bottom of the pool, facing upwards towards the lifeless writer and the police studying him from above.
It's a really eerie shot, one made doubly effective by Holden's cutting narration. It's pulpy, mysterious and engaging all in one, and that's what makes Sunset such a fantastic film noir.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
