SUNSET BOULEVARD (1950) is, of course, one of the greatest American films of all-time, most film buffs would comfortably place among the top two dozen. The movie starred silent film legend Gloria Swanson and gave her what many consider second only to Scarlett O'Hara as the cinema's most iconic screen heroine, Norma Desmond. It was Swanson's first film in almost a decade and arguably her first major film in twenty years, a "comeback" (sorry, Norma, the word applies) to a level that has almost never happened before or since. Without it, Miss Swanson might be just as obscure with the general public of recent decades as such contemporaries as Norma Talmadge or Corinne Griffith. Swanson received a Best Actress Oscar nomination (arguably, her loss was the most unjust in Oscar history) and made her a household name again in America. She was able to keep her fame up to her death in 1982 thanks to the film's enduring fame, Gloria's multiple television appearances for the next thirty years, and a best-selling autobiography but getting another great film role proved fairly impossible, being in her fifties in an era when no film studio would dream of producing star vehicles for a woman of that age. Dabbling in music in during her "early talkie" career, Swanson came up with the idea of doing a Broadway musical on her screen triumph in the mid 1950's back when Andrew Lloyd Weber was just a schoolboy. A gay couple in Hollywood, struggling songwriter Dickson Hughes and unsuccessful actor Richard Stapley, were trying to get a career going running stage revues and nightclub acts and had a revue they thought Swanson might be interested in. She wasn't - but the fact that "songwriters" were eager to work with her thrilled her and she immediately tried to interest them in working on her dream project.
BOULEVARD! Can't help but make comparisons between what was going on with Gloria and the men to the plot of SUNSET BOULEVARD itself; this has been overdone many times in articles, books, and documentaries when some veteran star befriends some obscure writer or wannabe producer. In this case, it's unquestionable true, down to a bizarre scene when Swanson accidentally kills a baby chick that echos the death of Norma's pet monkey but especially when Gloria develops a romantic interest in Stapley if not as possessive as Norma's to Joe Gillis certainly even more improbable.
The production never gets very far though all continue to work on it even without any legal rights to the project, audaciously to the point of Swanson performing a number from the "upcoming musical" on a television variety series. For all of Swanson's astute vision (Broadway musicals based on films was almost unheard of at that point), there are the big problems in that the songwriters are not that good nor does Swanson have the voice to project while singing on the stage. Beyond an inability to get the rights secured, there's also no major interest from potential investors. And when it's clear Stapley has no romantic interest in her or possibly becoming husband number six, Gloria interest starts to wane as well although it takes some time before she completely gives up since there are no other projects on the horizon.
Classic movie buffs will eat this up with a spoon. There are many tantalizing snippets of rare footage of Swanson (candid and televison clips) that one longs to see more than the brief clips shown. Several film historians are interviewed including Cari Beauchamp and Swanson biographer Stephen Michael Shearer and Hollywood publicist Alan Eichler (whom many may know of thanks to his archive of amazing vintage videos on youtube), as well as brief comments from beloved Robert Osborne. Gloria's granddaughter also provides invaluable insights on her grandmother.
The movie is heavily illustrated with wonderful caricature art by Maurice Vellekoop although I do feel it was a mistake to use some of it for poster art which gives the impression it's a campy story rather than a nonfiction film that's straightforward and often moving.
Richard Stapley almost proves to be as fascinating as Swanson. A British actor who briefly had an MGM contact (though hardly considered "the next Clark Gable" as the film suggests though it may have BS hype that was told to him), the studio dropped him after supporting parts in just two films in the late 1940's. Good-looking but not the stunningly handsome man the commentors suggest (I personally think Dickson was better looking), he trudged through with generally small parts on film and television making no impact. Stapley was gay but played the Hollywood game by marrying a woman though it was pointless given his very minor career. And then he met Dickson Hughes, an aspiring musician and fell in love, becoming a couple.
Not long after the ties with Swanson were cut, their gay romance also fell apart and Stapley, now in his thirties returned to England. His career actually picked up working steady in leads and having filled out a bit, he got better looking as well. But again, stardom alluded him and it pretty collapsed yet again in the early 1970's.
But this story doesn't end there and with the success of the Weber musical, the history of the first attempt becomes known and is reworked by Hughes as a musical on their project much like this film, with Hughes audaciously not informing Stapley of the production and outing him on stage in the process. To add unintended new Sunset Boulevard touch, the elderly Hughes plays himself in the project with a young hunk half his age cast as Stapley! The filmed clips from that performance look like incredibly amateur, cheap production that looks like the worst smalltown little theatre project one could imagine and what we hear of the songs is certainly not promising. This is a fascinating story that true movie fans will love and despite that it's clear only the idea was the only good thing about the project, one ends up admiring not only Swanson but Stapley and Hughes.
