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THE BLACK DAHLIA – Mark Isham
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The enduring mystery of the ‘black dahlia’ murder case has intrigued and confounded Hollywood since 1947. It involves the grisly death of an aspiring young actress named Elizabeth Short, who was found dead – literally chopped in half at the waist and dismembered – in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles, 8 miles south of downtown Hollywood. The shocking brutality of her killing made her much more of a media figure in death than she ever was in life, who dubbed her “The Black Dahlia”, a pun on the title of the Alan Ladd film The Blue Dahlia, which had recently been released. Despite the efforts of hundreds of police, and the enormous media coverage, Short’s killer has still never been found, although the suspects at the time included such high profile names as publisher Norman Chandler, folk singer Woody Guthrie, gangster Bugsy Siegel, and even Orson Welles. This fascinating history is the basis of director Brian De Palma’s latest film, based on the novel by James Ellroy, which hypothesises one possible version events. The all-star cast includes Josh Hartnett, Aaron Eckhart, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, and Mia Kirshner as Short. Read more…
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