QUESTION
What were the two stylish opentop and half-open cars actor William Holden drove in Sunset Boulevard?
Sunset Boulevard is a classic 1950 film directed and co-written by Billy Wilder. the vehicles in the film are important status symbols that drive the plot of this dark Hollywood satire.
William Holden plays out-of-work screen writer Joe Gillis. When bailiffs come to impound his car, a 1946 Plymouth convertible, he lies and tells them he has lent it to a friend.
the bailiffs spot him driving along Sunset Boulevard, causing him to make a fateful turn into the driveway of the home of norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a silent movie star. Gillis becomes ensnared in her delusion that she’s on the brink of a triumphant return.
On learning he is a writer, she asks his opinion of a script she has written for a film about Salome in which she plans to play the title role. the script is appalling, but he flatters her into hiring him as a script doctor.
Gillis becomes norma’s kept man. As a sign of his moral surrender, Gillis is coaxed out of his Plymouth and into norma’s magnificent Italian luxury car, a 1929 Isotta-Fraschini 8A — a symbol that she is still living in the world of silent movies.
Wilder leased this luxury automobile for $500 a week, had it upholstered in leopard skin to match norma’s leopard-patterned turban and scarf, had her name monogrammed on the side and had it equipped with a gold telephone, which she used to communicate with her chauffeur Max von Mayerling (erich von Stroheim).
Famously, von Stroheim couldn’t drive, so scenes had to be filmed with the IsottaFraschini being towed when he was at the wheel. the car becomes a crucial turning point in the film when the delusional norma mistakes a call from the studio to borrow her car for a film as an invitation to make her comeback movie with director Cecil B. DeMille.
Isotta-Fraschini was founded in 1900 by Cesare Isotta and brothers Vincenzo, Oreste and Antonio Fraschini. the Milanese company started out making racing cars before turning out fabulously detailed luxury vehicles for Hollywood stars in the twenties.
It-girl Clara Bow and silent screen star Rudolph Valentino owned Isotta-Fraschinis. the Sunset Boulevard car was also used in other films, including Without Reservations (1946), starring John Wayne and Claudette Colbert, and Farewell, My Lovely (1945), starring Dick Powell.
It is now displayed in the Museo nazionale dell’Automobile in turin.
Plymouth automobiles were produced by the Chrysler Corporation from 1928 and its successor Daimler-Chrysler. they were designed to compete in the lowpriced market dominated by Chevrolet and Ford. Keith Brough, Malvern, Worcs.