Synopsis

The year is 1947 and two ex-pugilist cops, Lee Blanchard and Bucky Bleichert, are called to investigate the homicide of ambitious silver-screen B-lister Betty Ann Short a.k.a 'The Black Dahlia'. What they discover is an attack so grisly, a mutilation so horrific that orders are given not to release images of the killing to the public. The murder has a profound effect on the two men, in particular Blanchard, who's growing preoccupation with the sensational murder threatens his relationship with close friend Kay Lake. During the ongoing investigation his partner Bleichert comes across the enigmatic Madeleine Linscott. The daughter of Emmet Linscott, Madaline comes from one of the city’s most prominent families. She also bears a striking resemblance to the dead girl. Bleichert is intrigued. It isn't long before Bleichert is sexually involved with his number one suspect. Is he in too deep? Can she be trusted?

What The Critics Say

"Meticulously mounted with bravura filmmaking that serves well the darkly intriguing, fact-based noir crime yarn, this is one of De Palma's most technically accomplished films, one likely to catapult Josh Hartnett into the front rank of lead men." Emanuel Levy EMANUELLEVY.COM "The Black Dahlia is no L.A Confidential but it's still an engagingly stylish detective thriller with strong performances." Matthew Turner VIEWLONDON "De Palma has finally made a movie in which his bravura filmmaking aesthetic complements an intriguing story rather than smokescreens a mediocre one." John Thomason ORLANDO WEEKLY "Hillary Swank gives a Lauren Bacall edge to her femme fatale." Lori Hoffman ATLANTIC CITY WEEKLY "It’s a sleek, intriguing period thriller, but it’s not in the same class as "LA Confidential". There are some wonderful shots in this film. Wonderful things. 3 1/2 STARS." David Stratton ABC AT THE MOVIES

"It's a wonderfully shot film that demands its actors show old-movie-star mettle. Taken from the novel by James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential), The Black Dahlia is so meticulously envisioned, from graininess to sets to lighting to mood, that it seems like a Raymond Chandler film. Add the many black-and-white audition reels of wannabe-actress/ murder victim Elizabeth Short (Mia Kirshner) and you have a cinematic anachronism." Jim Slotek JAM! MOVIES "Delves into a visceral place, slashing through logic and proceeding from a purely physical, lascivious standpoint." Jeffrey M. Anderson COMBUSTIBLE CELLULOID "Despite some weaknesses, The Black Dahlia remains curiously fascinating." Jeff Shannon SEATTLE TIMES "De Palma has the perfect recipe for a madcap rollercoaster ride that never allows the viewer time to sit still and take stock." Richard Mowe BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE "De Palma's bliss in depicting the bruise-n-babes era roars at the senses like a 3-D effect, pushing Dahlia to wonderful heights of production detail." Brian Orndorf FILMJERK.COM

Elizabeth Short - The Black Dahlia For nearly 60 years, one story has captivated the horrified imagination of a city and inspired scores of newspaper, book and screenplay writers to ponder the dark, diabolical impulses of humanity. This cautionary tale has served as warning to wide-eyed starlets who come west to chase their dreams of Tinseltown. And it all began with an unremarkable girl hungry for stardom. In life, she was called Elizabeth 'Betty' Short, a 22-year-old aspiring actress from the East Coast who wore a delicate flower in her raven hair and became many things to many people: dear friend, beloved sister, estranged daughter, frequent girlfriend and accused prostitute. At the age of 19, she headed west to California, bouncing from her father’s home in Vallejo to the city of Santa Barbara before heading south to L.A. During her time in the city, her tale briefly reads like that of many an ingénue. She auditioned for a number of screen tests, lived for a time at the Chancellor Arms Apartments and was rumored to have frequented hotspots like the Pig & Whistle on Hollywood Blvd, the Formosa Café on Santa Monica Blvd. and the Biltmore Hotel on Grand Ave. Indeed, it was at this very hotel, on January 9th 1947, that Betty was allegedly meeting a gentleman friend. It was the last time she would be seen alive. On January 15, 1947, she was discovered brutally splayed in a vacant lot near Leimert Park in downtown Los Angeles. Naked, cut in half at the waist, her organs were removed and blood drained from her small body in an attack so grisly that most images were kept from the public. Her killer had bludgeoned her, sodomized her and had slit her mouth from ear to ear in a sickening, clownish grin. False accusations and confessions still abound, and Betty’s remains one of the most gruesome, unsolved homicides in the City of Angels’ history. In death, she would become newly christened and forever remembered as The Black Dahlia. Her story would become a story of Hollywood legend. The brutal murder of Elizabeth 'Betty' Short would occupy one young boy's imagination for a lifetime. The Inside Story Betty entered the mind of novelist James Ellroy when he was just a child. Ellroy was only eleven years old when he received Jack Webb's crime anthology, "The Badge" from his father. The L.A. native was entranced by Webb’s 10-page summary of Elizabeth Short’s demise. His mother, Jean Hilliker, had been strangled only months before in a brutal (and to this day unsolved) crime, and the young Ellroy's inability to openly grieve her death would be transferred into an obsession with the Dahlia. Ellroy, like many others before and since, would chase the story of this iconic Hollywood girl for years. He recalls, "I bike-tripped to the Central Library. I scanned the Dahlia case on microfilm and gorged myself on vanished L.A. I time-tripped '59 to '47 L.A. I made L.A.-now and L.A.-then. I began to live in the dual L.A. that I’ve lived in ever since. It was a long journey to 1987 and the publication of "The Black Dahlia" which was his seventh novel. The journey to film would take nearly two more decades. Screenwriter Josh Friedman was originally given the task of condensing Ellroy's three hundred pager "The Black Dahlia" into a filmable screenplay for director David Fincher in 1997. "David and I worked on it off-and-on it for several years," Friedman notes. "I would write a draft, and we would talk about it; then we'd work on other projects." When Fincher left the project, acclaimed director Brian De Palmer came on-board. Friedman recalls when "Brian De Palma came on, and it was like a locomotive." At the urging of Brian De Palmer and producer and Art Linson "we made some significant changes to the script, and we were off." So how did he see his source material for the screenplay? "I tend to not think of it as a genre book, but simply as historical fiction," he explained. "I went with the way Ellroy told the compelling story…he has such a unique way of interweaving. I very much kept to the structure and the attitude of his characters engendered in the book." De palmer must have been very impressed. "James creates a whole noir world, and the way he tells his stories are very complex," the director adds. "His language is so lush. Josh was a very good barometer of what you could and couldn’t do with his work. He lived and breathed Ellroy’s complex, dark material for a decade, forcing the material into Ellroy-ese, never taking the simple route. Art and I worked with him for close to a year before the script was ready to go." And was there anything in particular he loved. "In the material, everybody lies. In any sensitive dramatic scenes where you think someone’s revealing something, they’re usually revealing the opposite of what they said before. Everybody’s a compromised character, and you watch Bucky descend into this hell and get caught up in it." De Palmer certainly has, with "The Black Dahlia", created yet another stylized film. "There are few directors left who understand what films noir even are," Linson reflects. "Brian has the perfect grasp of this material. His sequences play to the great visual style needed for Dahlia." Now they faced the 'big' challenge. Finding the right cast. "Great actors will create something that will completely surprise you," says De Palma. The cast of "The Black Dahlia" certainly do! Josh Hartnett, recently seen in another highly entertaining film "The Wrong Man" was cast as Officer Bucky Bleichert. "Josh is becoming a man," offers Linson. "To see him grow up from the young kid in "Virgin Suicides" to becoming this detective with a very complex life; in love with two women and haunted by a murder; is fantastic." And what was it that attracted Harnett to the role. He says "because it wasn't a morality tale after all. The characters have certain flaws that they’ll follow to the end, and no one deviates from those." Harnett is to be applauded for the effort he put into this role, including spending four hours a day for seven months training as a boxer for the fight scene at the start of the film. Playing opposite Harnett as Sgt Leland 'Lee' Blanchard is Aaron Eckhart, whom De Palma describes as a "young Kirk Douglas". Why did Eckhart choose such a physically challenges role? He says "because Blanchard is a fast-talking, hard-drinking, quick-witted, no-bull kind of guy; which is very fun to play as an actor." On his screen partners 'big' performance as Blanchard, Harnett offers, "He doesn’t hesitate to go over the top in a performance. He's a big personality who has this onscreen presence that makes you believe he could bring down anyone in his path." But the guys weren't the only ones to gain praise from the director. De Palma says, "the girls are just magical, so mysterious. There’s always something unsaid." Those who see "The Black Dahlia" will agree, Johansson, Swank and Kirshner are brilliant. "When I read Josh’s script, I just connected with the type of passion you find in Kay. She is this painfully lonesome, woefully romantic woman who just wants to be kept safe from harm. She never knew she’d find in Bucky the opposite of what she sees in her boyfriend, Lee," says Scarlett Johansson. Canadian actress Mia Kirshner plays Elizabeth Short recalls, "as a kid in Toronto, I used to go to the library and pull out books of old movies and look at pictures of Vivien Leigh and Hedy Lamarr. My Dad and I would watch old movies on Saturday night, and I grew up very much having a reverence for noir." Kirshner originally read for the role of the duplicitous Madeleine Linscott. De Palma was so taken with the actor’s performance that he and Friedman enhanced the scenes with the Dahlia and cast Kirshner in it. "She's really quite stunning," he commented. "I really tried to find the essence of Elizabeth. After reading as much as I could about her, I saw a very soft, romantic, intelligent woman," says Krishner. Two Time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank had just finished her role in "Million Dollar Baby" when she signed on to play Madeleine Linscott. I'm glad that De Palmer echoes my thoughts "that she is a definate spider woman." A Black Widow in fact. "I think Hilary’s a classic spider woman," De Palmer notes, "she can play a character who is extremely vulnerable and extremely evil at the flip of a switch." "Madeleine was so different from anything that I’ve ever done," Swank explains. "She comes from high class, affluent background, slumming along and doing whatever she wants. A spoiled, Daddy’s little girl. But behind all of that, she’s a very troubled person who is actually searching for love." About The Author "The Black Dahlia" is based on the novel by James Ellroy who was born Lee Earle Ellroy on the 4th of March 1948, in Los Angeles. In 1958, his mother, Geneva, whom Ellroy has stated he lusted after, was murdered in El Monte, where she and Ellroy moved three years after her divorce from his father, Armand. The unsolved killing, and a birthday present from his father a few months later, The Badge by Jack Webb (a book about the Los Angeles Police Department), were pivotal moments in his life as related in his autobiography "My Dark Places". When it comes to adaptations of his novels into movies, it is reported Ellroy was disappointed by the film "Cop" (starring James Woods) as an adaptation of one of his novels. He was then astonished by Curtis Hanson's depiction of his brilliant novel "L.A. Confidential" which starred Australian actors Guy Pearce and Academy Award winner Russell Crowe. On a making of piece on the "L.A. Confidential" DVD, he says that Hanson and Brian Helgeland, the film's screenwriters, "brilliantly adapted" his book, and that he was "flabberghasted" by what was done with it. Prior to viewing the completed film of "The Black Dahlia" (based on his book of the same name) he had praised it as a brilliantly depicted film after watching hours of unedited footage of the film. Ultimately, nearly an hour of the three-hour film, which linked events and facts together, was cut from the final version. His L.A. Quartet novels: "The Black Dahlia", "The Big Nowhere", "L.A. Confidential" and "White Jazz", are international bestsellers. "American Tabloid" was Time magazine’s Novel of the Year for 1995; his memoir, "My Dark Places", was a New York Times Notable Book and a Time Best Book of the Year for 1996; his novel "The Cold Six Thousand" was a New York Times Notable Book and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year for 2001. Ellroy, a strict vegetarian who opposes the death penaltyand favors gun control, still lives in Los Angeles. The Verdict "There's no doubt there will be moments when you're watching "The Black Dahlia", you'll feel a tinge of 'deja vu' as some scenes are definately reminiscent of "L.A Confidential". Whether Brian De Palma was paying homage to author James Ellroy who wrote "L.A Confidential" and "The Black Dahlia" we may never know, but it works well. It's a big cast and they all perform exceedingly well. The storyline is a fascinating one that is juxaposed with little subplots that add to the richness of this tale based on the real life death of twenty two year old Elizabeth Short who was last seen alive on the evening of January 9th 1947, in the lobby of the Biltmore Hotel at 5th Street and Olive in downtown Los Angeles. Her brutal murder has remained unsolved to this very day. Two time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank turns in a first class performance playing wanna be lesbian and rich girl Madeleine Linscott. De Palma camps it up a little in the last act as the 'fictional' murderer is revealed. Some may find "The Black Dahlia" a little hard to follow, but if you like a storyline that begs you keep your wits about you, this is very entertaining fare. Worth the ticket price to see a cast featuring three beautiful and competent actresses; Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank and Mia Kirshner co-starring with Josh Harnett and Aaron Eckhart, who not only look good on the screen, but perform exceptionally well together. 4 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "THE BLACK DAHLIA" stars .......
ShoWest 2002 Male Star of Tomorrow Award winner Josh Hartnett ["Black Hawk Down", "40 Days & 40 Nights", "Sin City" and "The Wrong Man"]; BAFTA Award winner Scarlett Johansson ["A Good Woman", "Match Point", "The Island" and "The Prestige"]; Aaron Eckhart ["The Core", "The Missing", "Paycheck" and "Thank You for Smoking"]; Two Time Academy Award ® winner; Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and the Broadcast Film Critics Awards winner Hilary Swank ["The Gift""Insomnia", "The Core" and "Million Dollar Baby"]; Four Time Laurence Olivier Award; Three Time London Critics Awards and Two Time London Evening Standard Award winner Fiona Shaw ["The Man Who Shot Christmas", "The Butcher Boy", "My Left Foot", "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"]; John Kavanagh ["Braveheart", "The Butcher Boy" and "Last Days in Dublin"]; and Mia Kirshner ["Cadillac Girls", "The L Word", "Exotica", "Murder in the First" and "Not Another Teen Movie"] as Elizabeth Shaw.
"THE BLACK DAHLIA" was .......
directed by 1975 Avoriaz Film Festival Grand Prize Winner Brian De Palma ["Dressed To Kill", "The Untouchables", "Mission: Impossible", "Snake Eyes" and "Femme Fatale"]; screenplay by Josh Friedman ["Chain Reaction" and "War Of The Worlds"]; adapted from the novel by James Ellroy ["Dark Blue", "Brown's Requiem" and "L.A. Confidential"]; cinematography by Academy Award ® winner Vilmos Zsigmond [The Two Jakes", "The Crossing Guard", "Life As A House" and "Melinda and Melinda"]; original music by Emmy Award winner Mark Isham ["The Cooler", "Crash", "In Her Shoes" and "Eight Below"]; production design by Academy Award ® winner Dante Ferretti ["The Age Of Innocence", "Gangs Of New York", "Cold Mountain" and "The Aviator"] and Academy Award ®, BAFTA & EMMY Award winner costume design by Jenny Beavan ["The Remains of the Day", "Anna and the King", "Gosford Park" and "Casanova"]. Run Time 120 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2006 - Universal Pictures - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2006 - Impact Internet Services & The Movie Pages - All Rights Reserved