The opening chapter introduces three of the main characters, all British expatriates who now live in Los Angeles. Waugh quickly reveals Sir Francis Hinsley as a Hollywood has-been. Once a chief scriptwriter at Megalopolitan Pictures, he “had descended to the Publicity Department” (6). He now lives in a neglected district that was once “the center of fashion” (6). His swimming pool, where screen beauties once bathed, is now empty, cracked, and full of weeds. However, Sir Francis retains his obsession with reputation and his sense of English blueblood superiority.

Sir Ambrose Abercrombie, a pretentious British actor, drops by Sir Francis’s house. He’s dressed in “dark gray flannels, an Eton Rambler tie, an I Zingari ribbon on his boater hat” (5). He once hung around Sir Francis a lot while playing various roles in Hollywood but lately is “known to speak slightingly” of Sir Francis. Sir Ambrose asks Sir Francis how things are at the studio. Sir Francis tells him that they’re making only “healthy films this year to please the League of Decency” (7). He then tells Sir Ambrose how the studio dyed the hair of a female actress vermilion and pulled her teeth out so that she could play an Irish girl.