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Movies

NBachers

(18,830 posts) Tue Aug 5, 2025, 05:08 AM Aug 5

I went to see Sunset Boulevard at a limited engagement theatre showing last night. It's way better on screen.

All the familiar scenes are there, but there's a lot more to catch visually, in the dialog, and in the plot line. Plenty of inside references, and very Paramount-oriented.

And there was one scene, for only a few seconds, where young Betty Shaefer and her roommate were driving at night to Norma Desmond's mansion. I said, "Wait, that's Betty and Rita in "Mulholland Drive." It may have just been a quick little quirk of my own, but it felt real.

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I went to see Sunset Boulevard at a limited engagement theatre showing last night. It's way better on screen. (Original Post) NBachers Aug 5 OP

Hell yea! no_hypocrisy Aug 5 #1

One of my favorite movies, I used to live in that neighborhood in the 70s. IVar Avenue. Walleye Aug 5 #2

Was there a house there? viva la Aug 5 #4

I never saw the house, but the Alto Nido hotel was still part of the landscape Walleye Aug 5 #6

I love those courtyard apartment houses in those postwar films viva la Aug 5 #7

I was just watching this video viva la Aug 5 #3

Thanks, I'll look that video up. Apparently there's a book about it, too. NBachers Aug 5 #5

no_hypocrisy

(52,733 posts)

1. Hell yea!

Reply to NBachers (Original post)

Tue Aug 5, 2025, 05:18 AM

Aug 5

I went to see Sunset Boulevard on Broadway 20+ years ago.

It was so bad that I laughed (literally) all through the production. It was as close to Springtime For Hitler as you could get. I mean tears from my eyes, gasping for air, that kind of laughing from Act I to taking the bows. When the cast came for their Curtain Calls, there were those in seats around us who actually gave a standing ovation, which propelled me into greater hysterical laughter.

If the production had been meant as a satire, I could have understood the experience. But they were playing it straight.

Awful, but yet, one of the best times I've had in the theater.

No, Glenn Close was not performing that night.