Swanson's SUNSET BLVD Musical

"I am big. It's the pictures that got small." That's one of the famous movie lines uttered by Gloria Swanson as faded silent screen star, Norma Desmond, when she encounters a modern-day Hollywood screenwriter who's down on his luck. We can tell we're in for a dark story during the opening credits. We see the title of the Billy Wilder classic in the gutter of a Hollywood street. Rich, secluded Norma Desmond is like a man-made monster in a big creepy house. She's a predatory cat in the Hollywood jungle determined to claw her way back onto the big screen.

 Norma falls in love with the broke Hollywood screenwriter, a younger man who schemes to get money from her while working as sort of a "script doctor" on the awful screenplay she's written to be her return to the screen. Of course, tragedy will ensue. She still sees herself as able to play a young vamp. She's 50 at a time when a woman being 50 meant she was as old and sexually attractive as the pyramids. Think about how times and society have changed. Norma Desmond was 50. Today, Jennifer Lopez is 53 -- and yummy. And getting work.

If you want to see a fascinating life-imitates-art documentary that's chock full of previously uncovered classic Hollywood history, I've got a recommendation for you. You can stream it on Amazon Prime. In the 1950s, after she had been a Best Actress Oscar nominee for her brilliant performance in Billy Wilder's SUNSET BLVD., Gloria Swanson planned to go to Broadway with a musical version of SUNSET BLVD. Songs were written by a talented gay male couple on the West Coast. Like Norma Desmond in the movie, she contacted Paramount Pictures to help fuel her project. She performed one of the songs on TV. Oh...and another thing she did that echoed Norma Desmond. She fell in love with one of the young songwriters -- even though he was in a relationship with his composer partner, another man. Friction ensured. This 2021 documentary has footage of Swanson singing a song from her planned BOULEVARD on TV. We hear recordings of her singing other sings from the score. Of course, we see and hear from the two songwriters. One had been a contract player at MGM, a handsome actor who did scenes opposite June Allyson and Janet Leigh. Swanson's granddaughter is interviewed. This documentary is called BOULEVARD! A HOLLYWOOD STORY.  It's from the director of the also excellent and revealing TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL.

Yes, long before Andrew Lloyd Webber musicalized this Hollywood-on-Hollywood classic, Gloria Swanson pushed to do it. BOULEVARD! A HOLLYWOOD STORY gives us a rarely-heard story. It's revealing, bizarre and juicy.