Which 1950 film features a faded silent film star living in a mansion?

Sunset Boulevard is the 1950 film about a faded silent-film star living in a decaying mansion. Gloria Swanson plays Norma Desmond, a former star who dreams of returning to the screen, while struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis, played by William Holden, becomes entangled in her fantasy.

Directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, the film blends film noir, dark comedy, and Hollywood satire. Its mansion setting reflects Norma's isolation and her inability to accept that the studio era that made her famous has passed. The story is narrated by Joe, whose opening death scene immediately gives the film its famously fatalistic tone.

The film draws power from its deliberate mix of fiction and Hollywood history. Swanson had been a major silent-film star, and several real silent-era figures appear in the movie, including director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. Erich von Stroheim, who plays Norma's butler Max, had also been an important silent-film director. Sunset Boulevard is therefore both a thriller and a meditation on fame, aging, and the entertainment industry's appetite for new faces.