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James Ellroy's 20-year-old novel about the life and death of Elizabeth Short, a star-struck young woman who became famous because of her murder, which is still unsolved, is a masterpiece of the roman noir. He tells the story through the eyes of an ex-light heavyweight boxer, Dwight 'Bucky' Bleichert, who became a Los Angeles policemen during World War II. In 1943, he met another boxer, Lee Blanchard, a heavyweight, during the Zoot Suit riots, where the pair killed four rioters, three black and one white, thereby defining the bona fides of the rookie Bleichert. They became partners in 1946. They were looking for a child molester one day in January 1947 when they were attracted to a police presence in an empty lot nearby. Lee and Bucky went over and saw the nude, bisected body of a young woman. This was their first glimpse of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short, 'The Black Dahlia', and the start of their destruction. The truth is that most of the Los Angeles police force was assigned to the Black Dahlia case at first. Once they discovered her identity, the LAPD spent many thousands of man hours trying to find who killed her. To this day, they have no murderer. In 1947, Los Angeles was a city in transition. Many GIs had been stationed or had passed though LA during the war and they liked it. Old neighborhoods were being destroyed, and new housing was being put up as fast as it could be built. There were many transients, mostly young women who came to Hollywood to become stars, but had to live by selling themselves. Elizabeth Short was one of those. Quentin Crisp once said: " As one gets older, it gets harder to do on purpose what one once did so easily by accident". This is true about film noir which was an accident of time and circumstance. Film noir is a name derived from the earlier French term for a dark novel. However, the roman noir comes from an older tradition, and is still being written, as evidenced by James Ellroy's THE BLACK DAHLIA. He uses the as yet unsolved slaughter of Elizabeth Short as the centerpiece that causes two LA policemen to self-destruct. The movie, released on September 15, stars Josh Hartnett as Bleichert and is directed by Brian di Palma, who many consider Alfred Hitchcock's heir.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, August 2006
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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