Film: The Black Dahlia
Rating: -5

Now, living on Franklin Avenue, I have heard the stories of the Black Dahlia and driven past the house hundreds of times; so when I heard that Brian De Palma was directing a film about the murder, I was more then excited!

The story of the Black Dahlia murder is incredible. In early 1947, Elizabeth Ann Short (a.k.a. Betty) realized that, like thousands of others, she wouldn’t become a movie star and she would never amount to a supermodel. She had decided to go back to Massachusetts to live with her family. On January 15th of that year, her 22-year-old body was discovered severed at the waist in a vacant lot at 39th and Norton in South Los Angeles.

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This was no ordinary murder, not only was the corpse found in two distinct pieces, apparently cut with a butcher knife, it was also drained of blood, mutilated, and there was evidence of postmortem sex acts. The press showed up in record time and the case became a media sensation. This surge of publicity put pressure on the LAPD to solve the murder quickly.

It has been an unsolvable mystery for almost 60 years. So one would think that Brian De Palma and screenplay writer Josh Friedman would have a lot of material to work from. Josh Friedman used the novel by James Ellroy as the basis of the script, who also wrote L.A. Confidential. Now with that being said, I have to say that this film was one of the WORST films I have ever seen in my life, EVER! This is one of the worst scripts written and produced with big named actors attached. I saw the “film” with friends at the Los Feliz Three. It was sold out and everyone seemed excited to see it. The movie starts, and from the first shot I knew this movie was going to suck giant black man member (play the song Gigantic by The Pixies). Everyone in the film was over acting due to:

1) The writing: There are some “classic” lines in here. For example, at one point someone says, “Do you get the picture?” And Josh Hartnett’s character’s response is, “Technicolor.” That is just a taste of the “Film Noir” this movie tries to create.

2) The directing: For some reason, Mr. De Palma feels that noir includes very dramatic delivery of lines which leads to over acting. He makes Josh Hartnett say things with such emphasis on this “cool, gumshoe behavior” or makes his female actors have this “toughness” about themselves and it’s annoying. It’s like an exaggerated version of noir films.

3) The Novel: Mr. Ellroy writes these novels with idea of taking real life occurrences and writes in fictional characters with a fictional ending. With the Black Dahlia story, he really butchered it.

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I honestly feel that this movie has made a mockery out of a poor woman’s murder. When I saw this film, it was so ridicules that people were actually laughing at serious parts because of the writing and/or directing. It is honestly a laughing stock of film noir style movies and should be canned because of the complete lack of respect they have for this poor woman’s death.

I will be the first to say I want to start a petition demanding that Universal Pictures buy back every single ticket sold to the American public. This movie is truly that awful.

The Black Dahlia Petition:

The signing of this petition is for the full refund by Universal Pictures for your ticket purchased for the film The Black Dahlia.

1) Loren.