These two films reached the theatres in 2006. They share some of the distinct impressions that make up films devoted to life in Los Angeles and in particular those centered on that part of the city encompassed in Hollywood. Both dealt with some of the peculiarities of life in L.A. Though only one of these, The Black Dahlia, was a genuine crime, some of the events depicted in Hollywoodland also include criminal activities including a possible murder. I'll deal with both of these films relative to the events they depicted and the aspects that were literally fiction as opposed to the real world and in particular in its more sordid moments.
Hollywoodland
Hollywoodland deals with the death of television star George Reeves who portrayed Superman in the TV series of that name. Reeves reached the height of his film career earlier with an important film role in Gone With the Wind portraying the Tarleton Twin who married Scarlett O'Hara and who was killed early in the Civil War. After that supposed breakthrough role Reeves' career stagnated. Eventually, he got the Superman part, one he didn't really like and one he held until his untimely death from a gunshot wound, supposedly self-inflicted, but with enough controversy to invite a skeptical conclusion, i.e., the old conspiracy theory.
Hollywoodland covers this story with interest, but adds some special embellishments and details some of the unusual aspects to the story. These settle on the role of Toni Mannix in life. Ms. Mannix was the wife of one of the real strongmen in the MGM organization. In some respect he was considered an enforcer of studio policy. Ms. Mannix had met Eddie Mannix in Hawaii back in the middle thirties. She was a woman with a stage background most notably as a Ziegfeld chorine, under her maiden name of Toni Laneir. She was also known as the girl with the million dollar legs and had an uncredited role in The Great Ziegfeld film.
The three important roles portraying real people were performed by Ben Affleck as Reeves, Diane Lane as Toni Mannix and Bob Hoskins as Eddie Mannix. Each of them does a credible job at making the person they are portraying come to life. In particular, Land and Hoskins are really believable, and Affleck, though not as dynamic as the other two, did perform in one of his best if not his top performance.
The relationship between the three is quite remarkable. Toni and George met at a party where George in a continuing attempt to secure another top role manages to insert himself in a publicity picture take of Rita Hayworth at a nightclub party. Toni notes this and comments to him later about it without identifying herself. This chance encounter results in a long term affair with Toni providing Reeves with a house to live in and many other expensive gifts. She obviously was very much in love with the TV personality. Television back in the 50's was not nearly as big a career move as it would be today. At that time someone doing TV was obviously not strong enough to do films. Reeves resented this and was increasingly discouraged with his comic strip hero role. Eddie Mannix for reasons not explained in the film doesn't seem to mind Toni's interest in Reeves and in fact is involved with someone else as well. It's not an easy relationship to understand.
There is one other lead player in Hollywoodland, a man named Louis Simo played by Adrian Brody. For some reason Simo just doesn't come across. Perhaps it's became Brody is playing a fictional person in a film where most of the others are real. Simo is convinced that Reeves' death was a murder and spends most of the movie trying to prove it. This results in some beatings handed out by people under the order of Eddie Mannix. At the end he's still not convinced that it was a suicide, but is frustrated in his attempt to prove it.
The film, though not great, does tell an interesting story in an entertaining way. The photography is well done and the staging for the times, it represents, the late 1950s, is well done. There are enough good performances to make it an entertaining viewing.
The Black Dahlia
The story of Elizabeth Short, the real life Black Dahlia, has been addressed previously in film. What has been depicted is the ugliness of the crime, the finding of a young woman's body following her horrific murder. This was most notable in the film True Confessions (1982), where the depiction of the corpse and where she was found were covered. Actually this film, that starred Robert Duval as a Los Angeles Police Department detective and Robert DeNiro as his brother, who was a high official in the Los Angeles Catholic Diocese, is an entirely different story. The real story is about corruption in the Diocese and its discovery and the resulting punishment dealt to DeNiro. The film covers the relationship of the two brothers and DeNiro's role in the Diocese corruption case and Duval's involvement in that event with the Dahlia type murder being incidental.
Oddly enough in The Black Dahlia a similar bit of fiction is offered to supplement the murder. Here Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett play a couple of detectives (Lee Blanchard and Bucky Buckhost) in the LAPD who though working on other cases are eventually put on the Black Dahlia case. Eckhart has a girl friend in Scarlett Johannsen (Kay in the film) who he seemingly shares with Hartnett. It's not really one of Johannsen's better performances. Hilary Swank also plays a heavy in the film a young woman named Madeleine Lincott. Like Toni Mannix, she's very wealthy. Though her performance is okay, the role itself seems rather unreal. She apparently is a switch hitter with sexual interest in the Black Dahlia but also gets involved with Hartnett. That is about the sum of who is in the film except for Mia Kirshner who plays the 'Dahlia' to a certain extent in the way the girl lived her life as a drifter. It's a sad performance.
This film has the Black Dahlia performing in a stag film, i.e. porno production, something the real Elizabeth Short never accomplished. Though she was interested in breaking into the film business she didn't have the intestinal fortitude to work at gaining any recognition.
Some of the story is really completely unrelated to reality. James Elroy wrote the book the film is based on. It is far less successful than LA Confidential the really big film that just failed to win the Academy Award for best picture. Both the latter film and Mr. Elroy's Get Shorty really caught the mood of L.A. The Black Dahlia only marginally catches those nuances since the story itself is not as clever as Elroy's other two efforts. Elroy was particularly interested in the story, since his own mother was murdered in a somewhat similar fashion. It was a crime, somewhat like that of the Dahlia, and similarly, has never been solved.
Still, the film is not a waste of time. It is well shot and does a good job of depicting Southern California at the time, 1946. It certainly can be enjoyed, but it is not really a very close to the rendition of the Black Dahlia reality.
There is one other film that resonates with the Black Dahlia. That's the Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix film called the Blue Dahlia. It s a film noir from 1942 and is generally considered the source for the Black Dahlia name. Actually, the Blue Dahlia was a nightclub supposedly located on Sunset Strip. The film also involved murder.
I have a separate article that discusses the Black Dahlia murder in some detail, but also relates some aspects of the crime that were of particular interest to me. This article can be found in "Reflections on the Black Dahlia" on the Fairview Collaborative Website in their "Observations" section under the secondary listing called "Reflections."
Dick Gardner, Classic Films
Read the 25th Anniversary Edition of Classic Films No. 17, March 1983
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