What did you think of Sunset Boulevard (1994)? — Page 2

I am in the camp of really loving the show-and the production. I saw Glenn on Broadway and also, I think, the tour.

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If you cut the chorus, you'd have to lose more than "Let's Have Lunch" and "Every Movie;" you'd also lose "The Lady's Paying," "This Time Next Year" (the party scene), "Eternal Youth", and the crowds surrounding Norma in "As If" and the Finale.

Sounds more like a way to do a production on the cheap than a "new way" to tell the story.

Thanks for posting that clip of the 1st Natl Tour...

I actually saw the 1st Natl - in Cincinnati - with this cast. Linda Balgord (Final Grizzabella in Bway Cats), Ron Bohmer (A former Phantom), Lauren Kennedy etc.

It was completely full scale - like Bway - with all sets intact (albeit shrunk a bit from the mammoth set at the Minskoff.) It ran there for like 4 or 5 weeks because the transition times for the set were so incredibly labor intensive.

I was working "in the business" and living in Cincinnati at the time and would go on lunch breaks to the Aronoff and watch them assemble the set. It took probably 5 days to load in - a normal load in is like 1-2 days. There was no jump set, and it required lots of electronic tweaking to get all the set components synched with the computers.

By the 3rd week of the run, they were only running 1/2 houses. It just wasn't filling seats. The people that saw it loved it, but tickets were expensive and there was no "name" in it.

Originally there were many cities lined up. But after Cincy's run (August-Sept) the decision was immediately made to cut 3/4 of the cities from the tour, and close in Chicago (around the holidays - Dec/Jan I believe???) The dates for an extended run in Louisville were sacrificed for Chicago.

Also worth noting - the tour set also used those hydraulics to lift the mansion, and the theatres in which it played had to met special requirements/specs in order to adhere to structural/weight standards/needs. The permanent stage decks at the theatres were ripped out and hydraulics installed underneath into foundations. It required weeks of preventive and thorough construction work prior to the load-in and hours of repair work after the run.

I would suspect the tour probably lost $10-$15 million alone. Balgord and Bohmer went on to other ALW shows - Cats and Phantom respectively - no doubt in part due to their stints in Sunset being cut extremely short.

Updated On: 6/14/12 at 01:32 PM

I saw Betty Buckley in the role and she was fantastic. She acted and sang the role exquisitely. I'll never forget her entrance (she received a great deal of entrance applause-much deserved after seeing her performance).

I'd love to see a revival-there are so many talented actresses who could be really amazing in that role. (And so many actors for Joe.)

That's a perfect mini-analysis, Gaveston, of what makes Sunset Boulevard (the musical) total dreck. It takes truly great source material and reduces it to a limping mediocrity.

Does anyone know whatever happened to the girl who wrote the original lyrics to Norma's two hit songs? IIRC, She was a college sophomore or something and Webber fired her with an agreement purchasing the rights to those two lyrics ("With One Look" and "As If We Never Said Good-bye") without giving her credit.

Has she done anything else? I apologize for not remembering her name.

The phrase 'Lets Do Lunch' didnt exist back when the show is set, hence why its 'Lets Have Lunch'.

But Joe does sing this line: "if it didn't come up roses I'd be covering funerals back in Dayton, Ohio." I am under the impression (perhaps erroneous?) that the phrase "come up roses" didn't exist before Sondheim coined it in 1959. If the lyricists were willing to use that, they might as well have used "let's do lunch." :)

Updated On: 6/14/12 at 03:24 PM

I get why people find fault with the show, and I admit I don't listen to it much, but I loved seeing it live. I saw the Canadian production when I was 15 in Vancouver, after Show Boat (I think) it was one of the first productions in Livent's newly built Ford Theatre in Vancouver--with the Toronto cast for four or fivew months.

I'd had a crush on Rex Smith since I was a kid obsessed with Pirates of Penzance, and since we went with my theatre class we got to meet him and have a behind the scenes tour after the show (he was funny and very friendly), but really Diahann Carroll was the star. I thougth she was perfect as Norma, and as the Canadian cast album shows, she sings the role surprisingly well (better than Close certainly), and had amazing stage presence. Anita Louise Combe was a good, if not exceptional, Betty (it's a bit of a thankless role)--I believe she came from the London production, and Walter Charles was *great* as Max.

The Canadian cast album is out of print, but even though it's a highlights CD it's my favorite version to listen to--great voices, and really I don't miss any of the music cut to fit it on one CD (ALW also pumped up the orchestra to over 85 members for the recording so it is lusher than the other recordings).

All I could find in way of clips from the production was a 3 minute ad that Canadian Airlines (who sponsored it) showed... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvEOYIJHd9o

And one 20 second clip from the press reel of Carroll saying Norma's fave quote http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k1jC7wSUeM

Far from a perfect show, but it was a gorgeous production that I'm glad I got to see--and while I get the argument that the musical doesn't really *add* anything to the movie, I love the movie so much that that wasn't really an issue. I also think it's my favorite of John Napier's designs (I wish someone would release a coffee table book of his designs).

Did anyone else catch the Canadian cast? I think they only played Toronto/Vancouver.

(Of course, even compared to Livent's other major musical productions of the time like the Canadian Phantom, or Ragtime, Show Boat and Spider Woman, there seemed to be no attempt to cast at even one Canadian in a lead role in their Sunset, which is kinda interesting).

I do like Patti on the recording, and I'm not even particularly a fan. I think the changes made to the show after that recording did strengthen it (even adding Every Movies a Circus despite the song not really *saying* all that much), but Glen, as great as she probablyw as on stage, is a bit hard to listen to. ALW must have really had it in for Patti after all--the Now and Forever ALW box set has a couple of Sunset tracks credited to Glen Close which are actually Patti...

Christopher Hampton has written some great plays and screenplays, but he certainly didn't seem to make Don Black's lyrics any better (I'm not really sure how they collaborated)--in fact I think they're some of Black's worse lyrics, which says something. (And then there's that special "additional lyrical credit" to Amy Powers, whoever she is, who I believe was attached an earlier stage).

For all the flack many critics gave the design and production when it opened--too big, etc--I think the criticisms that it was too literal are unfounded. Nunn and Napier really created a lot of moments of theatrical magic like that opening view of the body in the pool, etc. I think Susan Schulman is a huge talent (I've said how perfect I found the tour of her Secret Garden), but she seemed an odd choice to direct the massively scaled down later tour...

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Woot for Canada love :P

I've liked some of Black's work. I think he's fine for his pop songs (Bond themes, etc), and I like an awful lot of Tell Me On a Sunday, though less so the revisions. But as awful as much (ok, most) of the sung dialogue is in my top guilty pleasure, Aspects of Love is, I also think the actual songs have decent lyrics--and there he was teamed up with the pretty awful Charles Hart. So we'll see--did Black and Hampton work on anything else together? I wanna say they did Dracula, but like most Wildhorn shows, I know absolutely nothing of the work.

EYou're not really missing much--Every Movie's a Circus was an ensemble number (I think one that used an existing ALW tune, which is no huge shock) that sets up early in Act I the whole Hollywood industry aspect. Otherwise the changes were more within numbers. I have no doubt Close was pretty great live, but yeah--vocally on CD... not so much.