Sunset Boulevard begins by focusing on a signpost that reads, "Sunset Blvd." We watch police cars, sirens blaring, rush to one of the homes. Joe Gillis, the narrator of the story, tells us that it is about five o'clock in the morning on Sunset Boulevard. He says that he homicide squad is coming to the scene of a crime that will be on television and in the newspapers; a former movie star is involved. However, he suggests that we should get the facts, "the whole truth," before the media distorts it. The body of a young man was found floating facedown in a swimming pool; three bullets had been shot through him. The whole story, which actually began six months earlier, follows, in flashback.

Things are tough for Joe in Hollywood and he cannot seem to write a selling story. A company comes to...