This chronicle of Hollywood losers consumed by ambition but possessing no talent gets lavish coverage from British director John Schlesinger. Karen Black stars as a would-be starlet, the daughter of drunken vaudevillian Burgess Meredith, who takes Donald Sutherland for a ride and almost snares sketch artist William Atherton as well. Adapted from Nathanael West's famous novel about the early days of Tinseltown, the film sprawls too indulgently but remains enormously watchable throughout, with a bloody climactic riot summing up the futility of those involved.

Hollywood, 1930s. Tod Hackett, a young painter who tries to make his way as an art director in the lurid world of film industry, gets infatuated with his neighbor Faye Greener, an aspiring actress who prefers the life that Homer Simpson, a lone accountant, can offer her.