What did you think of Sunset Boulevard (1994)? — Page 5

Some Like It Hot actually has a lot to adapt. Sugar notwithstanding. A better Wilder film to adapt that SB would have been Fedora.

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There's also the whole question of how to adapt your source material. Today, it's generally more a process of slavish adherence to the existing story, with the lazy addition of redundant numbers (i.e. Shrek, Legally Blonde, 9 to 5, The Color Purple, etc.).

But, to return to the previously mentioned R&H, Oklahoma is more than just Green Grow the Lilacs with tunes (Peter Filichia, I believe, once did a good analysis of that adaptation).

To me, the best adaptations bring something new to the work - a new way to view the story, additional dimension to characters, even additional characters that help support the main story line.

Sunset Blvd does none of this; instead, it waters down the great movie to a flavorless, generic mush.

Updated On: 6/20/12 at 09:40 AM

I still really need to read Green Grow the Lilacs, if just to somehow understand what Sondheim meant about his comment about it being a gay Cowboy play (and he seemed to mean gay in the modern sense).

Google Books will let you read parts of it...
Lilacs on Google Books

Sorry, should have said "Ute Lemper" is a natural choice to play the Marlene Dietrich part. How the heck do you edit posts?

So I saw a production of this show tonight at Tulane and it was so good. I really enjoyed the songs for the most part even though some could've been cut. The Norma Desmond character songs were my favorite, while some of the ensemble songs felt a little superfluous. But I really liked it for the most part, especially the end.

It was so great to see songs that I knew (With One Look, As If We Never Said Goodbye, Sunset Boulevard) in context and to find new favorites (Salome, New Ways To Dream, The Perfect Year). Norma was so over the top, I loved it. Most laughed during the final scene but I couldn't, it was so sad to me. I'd definitely go see it again.