The murder of Elizabeth Short, who came to be known as the Black Dahlia, has received a lot of media attention over the years even though the case remains unsolved. After seeing L.A. Confidential, I learned that James Ellroy, the man that wrote the book, also had written a book about Elizabeth Short’s murder. I wanted to see The Black Dahlia after the first time I saw the previews.

Dwight Bleichert, Bucky, and Leland Blanchard, were both former boxers who became police officers. Bucky was still a patrolman when a match was set up between him and Lee to help raise public support for a bond. After the bond passed, Bucky received a promotion and started working with Lee. The two men developed a friendship that included Kay Lake. She and Lee were involved and even living together though not married. Bucky learned that Lee was worried about the release of a criminal that had a connection to Kay.

In January of 1947, Bucky and Lee were on a stakeout that went wrong. In a nearby vacant lot, the mutilated body of a young woman, Elizabeth Short, was found. Lee became obsessed with the case, getting himself and Bucky assigned to the team working on the case and completely forgetting about the man they had been looking for before. Bucky started tracking down people that had known Elizabeth, including Madeleine Linscott, a member of a wealthy family. Madeleine was going around town wearing black dresses with flowers in her hair like Elizabeth had done. Bucky was drawn to Madeleine even while he continued working on the case and Lee spiraled more out of control.

The Black Dahlia was based on the book of the same name written by James Ellroy. I haven’t read the book so I don’t know how the story was changed for the movie. I did read one thing that said that a lot of things from the second half of the book weren’t included. Ellroy created characters for the book that he connected to the real murder of Elizabeth Short. Things were introduced in the movie about Elizabeth as Bucky and Lee worked on the case. After the movie was over, there was a disclaimer on the screen about how the movie was based on a fictional book about the real murder and that Elizabeth’s murder remained unsolved. Nothing in that statement was about the validity of things connected to Elizabeth. The movie did seem to imply a few things about Elizabeth that were less than complimentary. Later in the investigation, a porn movie was uncovered that featured Elizabeth as one of the actresses. After watching the movie, I looked up information about Elizabeth. The police never found a porn movie that she was in. They also never found evidence to support other claims from the movie. I just didn’t seem right to me that the movie turned the victim of a brutal murder into something she hadn’t been just to try to titillate viewers.

For a movie with the title The Black Dahlia, very little of it was actually about Elizabeth and her murder. I knew things related to the police officers was going to be shared, but I had thought there would be more connected to the murder and investigation. Instead it took a backseat to everything else that was going on, which was disappointing. A lot of time passed before Elizabeth’s murder occurred in the movie. Many times before that, I sat there wondering what something had to do with the murder. The trailers had made it seem like the murder investigation would play a bigger part in the movie. More time was given to all the subplots than to the actual murder investigation, and some of the subplots weren’t fully developed. I have to wonder why the real murder was even included since it received so little time. Most of the movie focused on Bucky and his unusual relationship with Kay and Lee. Since the movie spent more time with the fictional characters and changed facts about the real victim, it might have worked better if the murder had been fictional as well. It seemed like Elizabeth’s murder was included to try to gain more publicity and interest in the movie since it is a well-known unsolved murder that many people have heard of the case even if they don’t know all the details.

The movie started off showing the boxing match between Bucky and Lee and even included a flashback to a riot where both men ended up fighting military men in the street. The whole riot scene just seemed out of place even though it did help to explain a little bit about how the special boxing match between Bucky and Lee came about which lead to Bucky getting a promotion and working with Lee. After that, the fact that Bucky and Lee had boxing backgrounds didn’t play a part in the movie anymore. Lee and Bucky worked together and Bucky was pulled into the relationship that Lee had with Kay. There were things about that relationship that weren’t fully explained. Bucky spent a lot of time at the house where Lee and Kay lived. I’m almost positive that he didn’t move in with them, but I could be wrong.

Lee and Kay were worried about someone being released on parole. The reasons for that were slowly shared while still making it seem like that subplot wasn’t explored as much as was needed for it to make more sense. There wasn’t enough explanation for why Lee got so obsessed with Elizabeth’s murder and why he flipped out over certain things. Kay briefly mentioned something about Lee’s sister to Bucky as an explanation for why he was so driven to find Elizabeth’s killer. That statement wasn’t enough to explain why Lee did certain things, including completely forgetting about the criminal he and Bucky had been on the stakeout to find originally. Elizabeth’s murder was horrible and it was understandable that the police wanted to find her killer. No one else reacted like Lee did though. As the investigation slowly progressed, other characters were introduced which also added other small subplots, including another murder. It did seem a bit convenient how everything, even tiny little things that seemed to mean nothing, all connected together by the end of the movie.

Several romantic relationships were at least briefly introduced in The Black Dahlia. Kay and Lee had been together for a while in a somewhat unusual relationship. They lived together without being married, something that wasn’t common in 1947. At one point Kay made a statement that seemed to indicate that she and Lee did not share a sexual relationship. It took a very long time for there to be any explanation on how Lee and Kay got together in the first place. Even once there was one, it wasn’t very informative. Kay and Bucky were attracted to each other though there really wasn’t much chemistry between them on screen so that was harder to believe. Later in the movie, Bucky met Madeleine in the course of his investigation. The two barely knew each other when they started a sexual relationship. There were a few sex scenes between them that didn’t get too explicit. There didn’t seem to be much chemistry between them either. For a while there was more attention to Bucky’s sex life than the murder investigation. There really wasn’t much nudity in the several sex scenes. Bucky’s bare behind was shown once. Madeleine’s bare back was shown a few times. She was not shown naked from the front. Kay was shown in her underwear in one scene that had nothing to do with sex.

During his investigation, Bucky uncovered a porn movie that Elizabeth had made with another woman. Part of the movie was shown as the police officers working on the case watched it. There wasn’t much nudity in that. At one point, a sex toy was used. Elizabeth didn’t look like she was enjoying what was going on which made those scenes a bit more disturbing to watch. Something else that might bother viewers was when Elizabeth’s body was shown after her murder. When the body was first discovered in the lot, it wasn’t shown there. Shortly after that, her body was shown laid out in the autopsy room. It wasn’t pleasant to see. There really wasn’t a lot of violence throughout the movie. The violence was mostly just in a few sequences, like the boxing match or later when the other murder occurred. The violence was graphic in the few scenes that had it. Late in the movie, there was a flashback that showed a little bit of what happened to Elizabeth which was difficult to watch. The violence that was in the movie could be too graphic for some viewers. Several of the characters used profanity throughout the movie, including the word that rhymes with luck. Children should not see this movie.

Elizabeth wasn’t introduced into the movie until after her murder so she wasn’t shown alive. During the investigation, the police discovered some audition tapes featuring Elizabeth. Small bits of the tape were shown at different times in the movie, usually while Bucky was watching them. She was also shown in the porn movie and there were a few short flashbacks that were used when someone was talking about her. That was the only way Elizabeth was shown in the movie, so she wasn’t developed much at all. Mia Kirshner was very good in the limited part.

Bucky was the main character, even providing voice overs throughout the movie. He had done some boxing and was struggling to take care of his father. Bucky wanted to be a good cop and was bothered by some things he saw Lee do. Bucky didn’t think things through as much as he should have. He wasn’t a strong main character and I didn’t really care one way or the other about him. Josh Hartnett wasn’t anything special in the movie. He was much better in Lucky Number Slevin.

Entirely too much about Lee wasn’t explained in the movie. He did questionable things more than once. He became obsessed with Elizabeth’s murder and turned moody. I didn’t care about him either and really wasn’t sure why Kay stayed with him. Aaron Eckhart seemed to be overacting in some scenes. He really didn’t fit the character that well. Kay was a mysterious woman that really wasn’t important to what was going on. It seemed like there was an attempt to make her like the character Lynn from L.A. Confidential. Scarlett Johansson really didn’t have much to do in the movie other than hold a cigarette holder in almost every scene she was in.

Madeleine Linscott was the daughter of a wealthy man who picked up a lot of men before becoming involved with Bucky. A big deal was made of the fact that Madeleine was supposed to look like Elizabeth. She didn’t. She did wear black dresses and a flower in her hair like Elizabeth had done at times, but that was it. If they really wanted Madeleine to truly look like Elizabeth, different people should have been cast that did look more alike or the same woman should have played both parts. That aspect of the plot didn’t work for me. Even less was known about Madeleine than Kay. There really wasn’t anything likable about Madeleine. Hillary Swank was all right in the part, though her accent and even the tone of her voice just sounded odd to me. Emmett and Ramona Linscott, Madeleine’s parents, were briefly shown in a few scenes. Ramona was plastered and acted nutty during a dinner which did add a few laughs. I’m not sure if that was intended to happen or if Fiona Shaw just went so overboard that it became funny. I really didn’t care about the characters.

Main Cast

Aaron Eckhart - Lee
Josh Hartnett - Bucky
Scarlet Johansson - Kay
Mia Kirshner - Elizabeth
Fiona Shaw - Ramona
Hillary Swank - Madeleine

Brian De Palma - Director

The Black Dahlia wasn’t anywhere as good as I had hoped it would be. There were too many subplots that weren’t explored enough for them to really make sense. Elizabeth was the only character that I wanted to know more about. I didn’t hate the main characters, but I didn’t really care what happened to them either. I did like the movie overall even though it may seem like I hated it from this review. There were just too many problems that kept it from being as good as it could have been.



Recommended: Yes