Actors - L.A. Confidential

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	Actors - L.A. Confidential

L.A. Confidential is a crime novel by James Ellroy published in 1990 that was turned into a 1997 feature film which tells the story of Los Angeles police in the 1950s, and police corruption bumping up against Hollywood celebrity. The film adaptation stars Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, David Strathairn, and Ron Rifkin. It is the third entry in Ellroy's "LA Quartet" series of noir novels. Ellroy's novel is in paperback as ISBN 0446674249.

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Plot

The story is about three policemen in the 1950s who are caught up in a mixture of lies, sex, corruption and murder following a mass murder at the Nite Owl coffee shop. The story spans more than seven years and eventually stretches to encompass organized crime, political corruption, heroin, pornography, prostitution, tabloid journalism, plastic surgery and Hollywood. The novel's title refers to the infamous 1950s scandal magazine Confidential, portrayed fictionally therein as Hush-Hush.

Jack Vincennes is a slick and likable Hollywood cop who moonlights as the technical advisor of Badge of Honor, a popular Dragnet-like television show. Though a great detective, he is almost too concerned with remaining in the spotlight that he has grown more than comfortable in. Vincennes is connected with Hush-Hush magazine: he receives hefty pay offs for making certain arrests, often involving narcotics, that will attract even more readers to the magazine - and more fame to himself.

Wendell "Bud" White, the most feared man in the LAPD, is a six-foot tall muscleman. His partner was convicted and imprisoned in the "Bloody Christmas" scandal by Exley's testimony, and Bud vows revenge. He has a violent obsession with men who abuse women, counterbalanced only by his tenderness towards the victims. His temper often overpowers his thought.

Edmund Exley, the son of a legendary LAPD cop, is a brilliant detective determined to outdo his father . Ed's intelligence, his education, his glasses, his insistence on following regulations (including resisting corruption), and his cold demeanor all contribute to Ed's "not one of the boys" status among the rest of the Department, and the resentment is fed when he testifies against other cops in a police brutality case (a fictional version of the Bloody Christmas incident) early in the novel.

Film

The movie was adapted by Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson from Ellroy's novel. Hanson directed the movie.

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards
*Best Actress in a Supporting Role
(Kim Basinger)
*Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
*Nominated for
**Best Art Direction-Set Decoration
**Best Cinematography
**Best Director
**Best Film Editing
**Best Music, Original Dramatic Score,
**Best Picture
**Best Sound

Changes from novel to film

Helgeland and Hanson were forced to make major changes to the plot to pare the story down to feature-length. Those sections notably missing or shortened are:

Bud's subplot involving a serial killer who murders prostitutes
Ed's father
Inez Soto's subplot
the Dieterling (Disney) subplot
nearly all of Jack's back story and his marriage
Bud's partner loses his job and pension in the film but is not imprisoned.
In Ed's back story, the role of his brother is replaced with an anecdote about his father, whose murder by an unknown criminal Ed dubbed Rollo Tomasi inspired his police career.

References to real life

The scandal magazine Hush-Hush is a reference to gossip magazines of the 1950s, such as Confidential.
Badge of Honor is seen as a Dragnet pastiche, as both shows use actual police consultants to achieve verisimilitude.
Bloody Christmas, the brutal beating of seven Latino men in police custody on Christmas day in 1951.
The Fleur de Lis club, which features prostitutes specifically cast and operated upon to look like contemporary celebrities is probably a reference to the T&M Studio, a famous Hollywood brothel with celebrity-lookalikes. This and other such specific brothels were mentioned in several famous Hollywood memoirs, including those of Mickey Rooney
and Garson Kanin
.
Lynn Bracken (Basinger) makes herself up deliberately to look like actress Veronica Lake
. Lake's This Gun for Hire
is also shown on a TV in her apartment in one scene.
Mickey Cohen was a real-life mobster. He is arrested at the beginning of the novel/film for tax evasion and spent four years in federal prison McNeil Island for it.
Johnny Stompanato (Cohen's bodyguard) did date Lana Turner
while Cohen was behind bars, and Turner's daughter did kill Stompanato in 1958.
William H. Parker was the LAPD Chief from 1950 to 1966, succeeded by Thad F. Brown.
Ray Dieterling, Dream-a-Dreamland, and Moochie Mouse superficially correspond to Walt Disney
, Disneyland, and Mickey Mouse
.

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