First of all, I personally think a musical version of sunset boulevard is a terrible idea. I think the dark, dramatic, gothic atmosphere created in the 1950 film version was important to the story. Dark and dreary, much like norma desmond's career, later in her life. Narration by song writers dick hughes and richard stapley. Director schwarz. Mark saltzman. Quite a bit of time spent on the personal and working relationship of hughes and stapley. The personal stuff had to be kept quiet at the time, of course. And this would undo stapley's acting career in the united states. But, according to dick and richard, swanson was getting jealous of their relationship. And theoretically, she didn't have the rights to make a musical from the film anyway. So everything kind of fell apart. Stapler moved back to britain, under the name richard wyler. Motorcycle racing. Then... years later, there would be two shows produced... swanson on sunset, at the cinegrill by gloria swanson. And the glenn close musical version of.... sunset boulevard, from andrew weber. A very interesting story, of a project that was years in the making, along with the people involved. One of whom was swanson, herself. Film buffs will dig watching this. An interesting piece of history that probably very few people knew about. Directed by jeffrey schwarz. They didn't seem to interview anyone outside the tight circle of friends. Glenn close, andrew weber, the newspapers giving the reviews. The copyright owners. It's interesting, but they could have dug deeper into some details.
Review of Boulevard! A Hollywood Story
