History YMMV / SunsetBoulevard

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: While the film holds up very well from a technical point of view, it can sometimes be lost on modern viewers just how scandalous it was when it got released. The metatextual story showing a once great Silent Era star as a deranged recluse hit so close to home that Creator/MaryPickford couldn't show her face afterwards, and Louis B Mayer called the director a disgrace for portraying the industry this way. Mainstream audiences were certainly not used to such scathing HorribleHollywood depictions as today. The sexual tension between Norma and Joe was also very risqué for the time - particularly the pool scene where she ogles him in a swimsuit.

* ToughActToFollow: Most productions of Sunset today have one big problem, John Napier's iconic set for Norma's house in the original productions has become as iconic as the actresses, so after the disastrous first US Tour, a new production with an easier set by Derek McLane failed to impress and since then most big productions attempt to stay far away from the original as possible.

* OlderThanTheyThink: The current London production has Creator/NicoleScherzinger ending the show covered in blood, however, it was first done in a German Productionhttps://youtu.be/1CHvtW3V3js?si=AIDcHiSrWQLDEdGO&t=577.

** Also Creator/DiahannCarroll in the Toronto production did something different with her Norma in the Final Scene. Just as she finishes the last reprise of With One Look, Norma starts to return to reality and lets out a blood curdling shriek as she tears at her headdress in aghast of what she has done. Just terrifying.

** Norma Desmond's idea for her comeback vehicle – a Biblical epic about Salome – is regarded as laughably ridiculous by Creator/CecilBDeMille and the other Hollywood types. However, not only was an actual mind-bogglingly awful ''{{Film/Salome|1953}}'' film (starring Creator/RitaHayworth) produced in 1953, but numerous filmmakers throughout the rest of the '50s (including [=DeMille=] himself) would turn to Biblical epics as a way of competing with the television audience, and some of these efforts turned out to be every bit as schlocky as Norma's. Furthermore, [=DeMille=]'s current production when Norma pitches her script is ''Film/{{Samson and Delilah|1949}}'', which was a critical and commercial success. Norma's script was bad, and she was out of touch with contemporary styles, but her selection of genre was appropriate, even slightly progressive.

** Modern day viewers tend to like Norma's butler Max, [[spoiler:who's also her first husband and a former director.]] They tend to feel bad for everything he's had to deal with during the movie's course and love his UndyingLoyalty to her. Plus there's a clever reference as how Max used to be a director. His actor, Creator/ErichVonStroheim, was actually a real world director as well.

** Norma Desmond's idea for her comeback vehicle - a Biblical epic about Salome - is regarded as laughably ridiculous by Creator/CecilBDeMille and the other Hollywood types. However, not only was an actual mind-bogglingly awful ''{{Film/Salome|1953}}'' film (starring Creator/RitaHayworth) produced in 1953, but numerous filmmakers throughout the rest of the '50s (including [=DeMille=] himself) would turn to Biblical epics as a way of competing with the television audience, and some of these efforts turned out to be every bit as schlocky as Norma's. Furthermore, [=DeMille=]'s current production when Norma pitches her script is ''Film/{{Samson and Delilah|1949}}'', which was a critical and commercial success. Norma's script was bad, and she was out of touch with contemporary styles, but her selection of genre was appropriate, even slightly progressive.

* RetroactiveRecognition: Betty's actress Nancy Olson would be best known as [[TheDanza ...Nancy]] in ''{{Film/Pollyanna}}''.
** Most would recognize Artie Green as Sgt. Joe Friday from Series/{{Dragnet}}.