PETULA CLARK - Entrance, "Surrender," "With One Look" (2nd US Tour)

The obscenely bad 2nd US tour with Petula Clark hagging it up as Norma. Rushed and done on the cheap, it was the final attempt to make any money off of the show after all the major productions shut down.

This is bad, trust me. For "Sunset Boulevard" completists only. I see what Susan Schulman was going for with this; she wanted to do a surreal take on the show, making it look like a fantasy set entirely on a sound stage with simulated dollies and close-ups, etc. However, she did not have the time, money, resources or talent to pull this off. Shame. Note that by this time, the Isotta Fraschini has been reduced to a magnified cardboard cut-out and the set was just a staircase that looked like a rejected set piece from Maury Yeston's "Titanic." Lewis Cleale phones it in as Joe and Allen Fitzpatrick is horribly miscast as Max. Seriously, what's up with the beard and emaciated facial features? He looks like Skeletor with facial hair!

I also just LOVE the implication here that Norma had an affair with Rudolph Valentino; it has all the subtlety of getting run over by a mac truck.

I don't know what Petula Clark is doing with that last note, but something tells me I don't want to know...

Remember, showering ANY kind of praise on this makes Baby Jesus cry. There, I said it.