^^^
Yes, Sunset Blvd. is one of the greats! Too bad it was up against All About Eve that year! And no Oscar for Gloria Swanson. Or Bette Davis or Anne Baxter for that matter. Or even Eleanor Parker who was excellent in the prison film Caged. What a line-up in the Best Actress category!
Just goes to show you how stupid pitting films together for awards is when some years there's a slew of great choices and then the next year there's so little, but someone gets one anyway.
I also really like the Sunset Blvd. musical. I've seen it several times and in several theatres, with Patti Lupone, Glenn Close and Petula Clark, among others. I, also, even had tickets to see it with Faye Dunaway, before that situation developed. I have several recordings, all with the above actresses and also with people like Diahann Carroll, Betty Buckley. Elaine Page and a German version mit Helen Schneider.
I'd love to see it made into a film, but you never know how those things would turn out. Plus, Andrew Lloyd Weber has always been pretty stuck on Glenn Close for the role and of each and every person I mentioned above, she is the lesser singer.
When it first came out in the early 90's I thought it would be great if it could've been Doris Day. She'd been out of the business awhile and it would kind of parallel the story of Norma Desmond, at least time-wise. But that ship's sailed. Who has any idea who'd be a good choice for a movie version of the musical now?
Some who I might posit for the choice are probably too old, though current audiences usually think Norma Desmond is ancient. In the film she is only 50. (In fact, there's a line in a song in the musical sung by Joe Gillis, that originally said, "There's nothing wrong with being 50, unless you're acting 20." And audiences would howl in laughter when it was sung. They figured out the reason was that audiences didn't think 50 was that old and they obviously thought she was much older than that. So instead of changing her age, they changed the lyric to: "There's nothing wrong with being your age, unless you're acting 20." Then people could think her age is whatever they wanted to think it was.
As an aside, when I saw a screening of the Best Picture winning film MARTY many years ago, there was a scene where Marty's mother and a neighbor lady are sitting in chairs and knitting and they have a conversation about all their troubles, mostly physical ones, and it makes them seem like they're very decrepit old ladies. Then Marty's mother says to her friend, "Well, that's what happens when you turn fifty." Again, the audience erupted in laughter. In the early 50's people's perception of being fifty was obviously different than it's become now.
Anyway, If they got a musical version underway I'd like to see one of the classic stars in it, like Shirley MacLaine or Liza Minnelli or maybe Barbra Streisand if she did not direct it herself. Maybe all of those ladies are too old now. Glenn Close just is too obvious to me and frankly, she's been doing it off and on for 25 years and the idea of her in it seems tired now. Some have suggested Meryl Streep and that idea seems too obvious. Also, though people "say" she can sing, I don't really care for her voice when she does. Cher? Not sure. She'd be great in a MAME revival. How about Ru Paul?
Let's throw out some names for Joe Gillis, too; some choices might be Jake Gyllenhaal, Matt Bomer, Channing Tatum, Harry Connick Jr., Ryan Gosling...Justin Timberlake?...Nathan Lane, heh!
Some people don't think the musical as a film wouldn't be so good, because several of Joe Gillis's songs are exposition related, in the manner of William Holden's voice-over exposition in the film. On stage, the character still sings the songs in front of the audience, though, while we witness Norma's scenes. But, in my opinion, in a film version no one says the songs have to be sung onscreen. They don't have to be. Who knows if it'll ever happen.
A few years ago they were going to produce it as one of those Theatre Live! presentations currently popular among theatre aficionados, like the recent FOLLIES production I saw. That didn't happen, either.