![]() ![]() The author’s catty tone is amusing, and he gets in all the famous stories about this poisoned love letter to the movies, from Wilder’s instruction to the art director, “Just make it an everyday funeral for the average Hollywood monkey,” to enraged mogul Louis B. Presumably enough movie trivia nuts enjoyed this approach the first time around for Staggs to get a new contract and publish a second title with no attempt made to rein in his excesses. ![]() Staggs retains his annoying habit of including vast swaths of dubiously relevant material, from three paragraphs on why opera has no true divas anymore (inspired by a list of the Broadway divas who played Norma Desmond in the musical version) to three pages on My Fair Lady ( Sunset Boulevard ingénue Nancy Olson was married to lyricist Alan Jay Lerner). ![]() The sink would probably have been in there too if we’d ever caught a glimpse of a kitchen in Billy Wilder’s famously mordant portrait of Old Hollywood meeting and murdering New. Staggs follows up All About All About Eve (2000) with a similar, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production history of Eve’s frequent companion on revival-house double bills: Sunset Boulevard. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |