In Hollywood in the early 1930s Tod Hackett (William Atherton) tries to break into the movies as a set designer, working for a college contact and producer of shlock movies Claude Estee (Richard Dysart). Living in a modest neighborhood with a beautiful actress nearby, Tod becomes smitten with Faye Greener (Karen Black) who lives with her snake-oil salesman father Harry Greener (Burgess Meredith). Life in Hollywood becomes less enchanting as Tod meets people like accountant Homer Simpson (Donald Sutherland) and cowboy actor Earle Shoop (Bo Hopkins) whose dreams are rapidly turning to ashes on the boulevard of broken dreams. Tod’s final dream turns out to be an apocalyptic hallucination about the destruction of Hollywood.