"Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, a classic film noir and also a damning dissection of the Hollywood dream factory, evokes the glamour and ruin of the stars who subsist on that dream. It's also one long in-joke about the movie industry and those who made it great - and who were, in turn, destroyed by it. One of the most critcally admired films of the twentieth century, Sunset Boulevard is also famous as silent star Gloria Swanson's comeback picture.".

"Close-up on Sunset Boulevard tells the story of this extravagant work, from the writing, casting, and filming to the disastrous previews that made Paramount consider shelving it. It's about the writing team of Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett - sardonically called "the happiest couple in Hollywood" - and their raucous professional relationship.

It's about the art direction and the sets, the costumes, the props, the lights, and the cameras, and the personalities who used those tools to create a cinematic work of art.".

"Staggs goes behind the scenes to reveal: William Holden, endlessly attacked by his bitter wife and already drinking too much; Nancy Olson, the cheerful ingenue who had never heard of the great Gloria Swanson; the dark genius Erich von Stroheim; the once-famous but long-forgotten "Waxworks"; and, of course, Swanson herself, who - just like Norma Desmond - had once been "the greatest star of them all.""--BOOK JACKET.