Book Review: ‘Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream’

Close-up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream

By: Sam Staggs

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

Publication Year: 2003

Genre(s): Film history, Making of Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood history, Classic cinema

🎬 Book Review: Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard by Sam Staggs
Even if you’ve never seen the film, the drama behind it is worth the read.

I’ve never watched Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder’s darkly satirical tragedy about the shadows lurking behind Hollywood’s golden glow. But that didn’t stop me from being riveted by Sam Staggs’ Close-Up on Sunset Boulevard: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream. It’s a deep dive into the making of a film that sounds almost surreal—a faded silent film star, a dead monkey, and a screenwriter-turned-gigolo who ends up face down in a swimming pool.

Staggs doesn’t just chronicle the production of the 1949 classic; he excavates the personalities behind it. From Wilder’s long collaboration with screenwriter Charles Brackett to the eccentricities of the cast—Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, William Holden, Nancy Olson—he paints a vivid portrait of the era’s creative chaos. Even the supporting players get their moment in the spotlight, including a surprising revelation about Jack Webb (yes, Dragnet’s buttoned-up Sgt. Joe Friday) and his off-screen proclivities.

The book also traces the film’s journey from screen to stage. Swanson’s decades-long, ultimately unsuccessful campaign to buy the rights from Paramount is a saga in itself. And the labyrinthine tale of how Andrew Lloyd Webber finally brought Norma Desmond and company to the musical stage is as dramatic as anything Wilder could have scripted.

Staggs knows his Hollywood history—he also penned All About All About Eve—and his passion is evident. That said, his prose occasionally stumbles. His critique of Wilder’s Stalag 17 as a “misbegotten” satire of World War II is fair game, but his terminology isn’t: a Stalag was a POW camp governed by the Geneva Convention, not a concentration camp run by the SS. It’s a small but significant distinction.

Still, whether or not I ever watch Sunset Boulevard or its musical incarnation, I’m glad I read this behind-the-scenes chronicle. It’s a compelling look at one of Hollywood’s most haunting landmarks—and the strange, brilliant minds who brought it to life.