ESOSOC

In 1949 Hollywood, down-on-his-luck screenwriter Joe Gillis tries to hustle up some work at Paramount Studios. He meets with a producer who shoots down his proposed script as well as a request for a loan to bring his car payments up to date. He does, however, meet Betty Schaefer, a pretty, young script editor who proposes they work together to develop one of his earlier projects. As they chat, Joe is spotted by car repossession agents and makes a quick escape.

During the car chase that ensues down Sunset Boulevard, Joe evades his pursuers by pulling into the garage of a dilapidated mansion. Beckoned inside the house, Joe encounters Norma Desmond. A one time famous star of silent films, who lives in the once luxurious Hollywood mansion on Sunset Boulevard attended to only by Max Von Mayerling. Joe Gillis, is enlisted to work on a script Norma has written with which she hopes to make a "return". Joe finds himself in servitude and a love affair, enmeshed in Norma’s fantasies of coming glory. He tries to escape but she attempts suicide and he returns. He sneaks out at night to write his own script with Betty Schaeffer a girl he eventually falls in love with. When he eventually tells Norma the truth about her own fantasies, she shoots him...