2006 - THE BLACK DAHLIA, extremely disappointing film from Brian De Palms

Considering the expensive look of this film, the impressive photography and the involvement of Brian De Palma, this film is a major disappointment.

The film is based on the true murder of a woman called Elizabeth Short in 1947 Los Angeles a still unsolved crime.  The author of the novel James Ellroy took the factual aspects and wove them into a fictional narrative of a couple of LA PD homicide cops who attempt to solve the crime. The director Brian De Palma was clearly trying to make a 1940's crime thriller along the lines of Double Indemnity, The Big Sleep or Out of the Past, but something seemed to go completely wrong the pacing and storytelling is all off.

The screenplay is a convoluted mess extremely difficult to follow.  The casting is completely wrong.  Scarlett Johansson, Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart may look like 1940's characters but they seem completely unable to get a handle on their characters, the writing certainly doesn't help them.  Even De Palma who is a technically brilliant filmmaker good at mixing eroticism with violence seems constrained.  The film has a few standout scenes but for the most part it's just a matter of setting up the shots and letting the confused story roll out.  Hate to harp on the screenplay but it does seem to be the major issue with this film.  It's hard to believe an experienced filmmaker like DePalma didn't recognize the problems with the story.

 

Apparently the original cut of the film was three hours which according to the author James Ellroy played very well.  However the studio financing the film insisted that it be reduced to a running time of two hours.  It's hard to know the truth since I doubt anyone will ever see the original three hour version of this film.  

 

The Black Dahlia kind of represents the end of the line for Brian De Palma.  He makes a couple of indifferent films in Europe after this, but this film puts him what film critics like to call "directors jail."

The film was written by Josh Friedman, the running time is 120 minutes.