Sunset People (1984)

Sunset Boulevard stretches 27 miles from Los Angeles’ Chinatown all the way to the ocean – a ride made famous by Philip Marlowe in the Chandler books. Film star mansions give way to tatty motels; exclusive offices stand alongside nightclubs with aspiring comics, and amateur nude contests. Then the famous ‘strip’ and Hollywood’s legendary coffee shop, Schwabs, where (they say) a girl in a tight sweater turned into Lana Turner. Meet some of Sunset’s most colourful and improbable residents – the failed showbiz impresario who made his millions selling cookies, and the high-rise developer who let John Wayne take his cow up in the lift… the lucky ones have achieved a peculiarly Hollywood brand of success, but every day on Sunset you meet the other ones: still looking for a break, for a job, for a deal. All of them still trying to play their part in the Hollywood dream.