Don't Kill the Black Dahlia Twice

It’s about time I used these pages to have a wee bleat about the forthcoming Black Dahlia movie. As James Ellroy’s classic may be my favourite ever book, naturally I welcome and look forward to a movie adaptation. And for a long time everything looked good. David Fincher was working on it, a director who would have been perfect.

The casting, with the notable exception of Scarlett Johansson, is just dreadful. Josh Hartnett and Mark Whalberg are wrong, wrong, wrong! Had I been casting I would have opted for Edward Norton with either Eric Bana or Aaron Eckhart.

I was horrified when I heard that De Palma would be directing. I do like some of his films, but he hasn’t made a good picture since Carlito’s Way in 1993. (A film I love incidentally) along with Carrie (1976), Blow Out (1981) and The Untouchables (1987) there’s not much more of his work to enjoy. And no, I’m not forgetting Scarface, much as I love Pacino, I happen to think it’s an overlong, overblown piece of nonsense.

Instead of the dark, meticulously lit, well cast thriller that Fincher would have provided we’re in for a dire sub-Hitchockian shock-flick with undoubtedly a 20 minute opening tracking shot. Can someone save this piece of literary brilliance, from becoming a straight to video piece of pish? Bonfire of the Vanities anyone?

For some information on the murder case go look at the Black Dahlia Solution or The Crime Library