Billy Wilder Collection

Just about the only thing these three films have in common, besides starring William Holden and beginning with the letter S, is director Billy Wilder. He was a director equally at home with chilling psychological breakdowns and sunny romantic comedies, and had a rare aptitude for coaxing just the right tone from his lead actors to color the mood of his films. Sunset Boulevard is the best of his career, a twisted, claustrophobic descent into the madness of obsolete movie queen Norma Desmond, superbly portrayed by Gloria Swanson, whose final close-up is one of the iconic images of screen dementia. Holden’s cynical screenwriter was a fine foil for Swanson’s shrill petulance and unnerving stare. But of his three performances here, we’ll take him in the prisoner-of-war thriller Stalag 17 . The actor won his only Oscar as the disillusioned sergeant whose facility at fleecing his fellow POWs backfires when someone in the camp is suspected of being a German spy—and he must find out who before his bunkmates happily string him up for the crime. Wilder had a nice touch for comic romance too, but we’d point you toward The Apartment , not Sabrina . No movie with Audrey Hepburn’s elfin innocence can be all bad, but she’s got zero chemistry with dour and much older Humphrey Bogart.