Boulevard! A Hollywood Story mixes humour, emotion and entertainment into a well-researched documentary about a unique slice of Hollywood history. Boulevard! A Hollywood Story is awaiting a UK release date.
Following his previous works (Tab Hunter Confidential, I Am Divine, and The Fabulous Allan Carr), Jeffrey Schwarz’s latest documentary examines another forgotten slice of LGBTQ+-related history from Hollywood’s Golden Age. He focuses on Gloria Swanson’s desire to turn her groundbreaking comeback role, Norma Desmond, into a musical, while also uncovering the hidden life and relationship of composer Dickson Hughes and actor-turned-lyricist Richard Stapley, both of whom were attached to the project.
Billy Wilder’s 1950 satiric film noir, Sunset Boulevard, is often ranked among the greatest films ever made. It concerns struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) and faded silent-film star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), who is delusionally pursuing a triumphant return to the screen. The film deals with an obsessive and one-sided love between an older woman and a younger man while dissecting Hollywood’s hypocritical stance on female ageing. Opening in London in 1993, Sunset Boulevard went on to become a well-known and critically acclaimed musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
However, Schwarz’s documentary unveils the untold story of the first-ever attempt to bring Wilder’s classic movie to the stage. Gloria Swanson began envisioning a stage adaptation of Sunset Boulevard, inspired by the film’s critical acclaim and her portrayal of Desmond. For those familiar with Wilder’s film and Swanson’s career, the similarities between her and Norma Desmond are creepily apparent. Yet Schwarz takes it further, showing how Swanson’s personal life also seemed to mirror Norma’s.
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Swanson hired Richard Stapley and Dickson Hughes for the project, who had been working as lyricists and composers, mainly so they could live together without revealing they were a couple. But like Norma falls for Joe in Wilder’s film, Swanson finds herself developing feelings for Stapley, which further complicates a project that would eventually fail to see the light of day.
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Boulevard! A Hollywood Story draws on a wealth of archival material to build its narrative. The film uses original clips of Swanson singing songs that had never been heard before, as well as several archived interviews with Stapley and Hughes, along with letters and notes. In addition, there is a wide variety of interviews with friends, family, and film historians who provide context and insight. Meanwhile, Maurice Vellekoop’s striking pop art animation provides visual material to fill gaps in the archival footage.
The first half of Schwarz’s documentary hazily jumps between Swanson’s life, Stapley and Hughes’ relationship, and the musical’s early development. Given the film’s relatively short runtime of 85 minutes, it dwells on Stapley’s later British career and fame (under the pseudonym Richard Wyler) for a while, which feels unnecessary given the core focus. Yet, it clearly defines its two main themes apart from a few tonal shifts.
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The first theme is the hypocritical way classic Hollywood defined its ageing stars, and the eerie similarities between Swanson’s and Norma Desmond’s lives—it feels like the documentary crew has struck gold with the fascinating material they uncover. Meanwhile, the second theme explores gay life in 1950s Hollywood. Here, animation provides an emotional link to Stapley and Hughes’s story. However, I can’t help but feel that this needed more exploration and depth.
In the final third of the film, we look at the afterlife of the failed production of Boulevard! A Hollywood Story that Hughes would eventually revitalise as a cabaret called Swanson on Sunset in the 1990s. Not only did he use the music from the trio’s original collaboration, but he also incorporated the story of the unsuccessful making of the 1950s musical, creating an especially meta stage play.
Boulevard! A Hollywood Story mixes humour, emotion and entertainment into a well-researched documentary about a unique slice of Hollywood history. For fans of Sunset Boulevard, the documentary is essential viewing, as the film’s plot turns from fiction to reality before our eyes while also addressing an otherwise lost and forgotten piece of LGBTQ+ history.
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