Great piece, especially picking on Mr. DeMille's order to put the spot back! You also mention Mulholland Drive, which is easily my favorite film set in & about LA (my hometown). I think of it, perhaps not intentionally, as a companion piece to SB. If the latter told the story of one who achieved stardom then lost it, the former was about one of the multitudes who flock to Hollywood every year seeking fame, but never succeed. If we're to believe Betty/Diane, she has the talent, but then we see her at a party with movers & shakers, people she ought to meeting & getting to know, but what does she do? She sits & mopes & tells Coco she won a jitterbug contest & isn't that like acting? Really...?

Norma's obsession with Joe, & what he represents to her, mirrors Diane's with Camilla. And in both instants that obsession is transformed into murderous rage, & their undoing.

In MD I especially love the scene in the corral, where the Cowboy tells Adam if he does good he'll see him once, if does bad he'll see him twice. After all, Adam gives in & presumably sees the Cowboy once, at his party. But we the audience see the Cowboy twice. Is this a hint that Adam didn't do good by giving in? 'Cause we know the one time Lynch said "this is the girl" was to DeLaurentis, making Dune, over which he had little control & which turned out to be his one critical & commercial failure.

Anywhoo, back to SB, I love in particular the scene where Max tells Joe about his history with Madame, how he along with Griffith was one of the great silent-era directors, etc. Almost literally true 'cause didn't he direct Swanson's last, uncompleted silent, Queen Kelly? I always wonder how Stroheim felt about that scene & the dialogue.