Otto Penzler ranks, analyzes, & celebrates the 106 greatest crime films of all-time. Catch up on the series and find new installments daily here.
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L.A. Confidential (1997)
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TYPE OF FILM: Police/ Crime
STUDIO: Warner Brothers
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: David L. Wolper and Dan Kolsrud
PRODUCERS: Arnon Milchan, Curtis Hanson, and Michael Nathanson
DIRECTOR: Curtis Hanson
SCREENWRITERS: Brian Helgeland Curtis Hanson
SOURCE: L.A. Confidential, novel by James Ellroy
RUNNING TIME: 136 minutes
PRINICPAL PLAYERS:
Kevin Spacey……………………………………………………………………….Jack Vincennes
Russell Crowe……………………………………………………………………………Bud White
Guy Pearce………………………………………………………………………………..Ed Exley
James Cromwell…………………………………………………………………..…Dudley Smith
David Strathairn……………………………………………………………….……Pierce Patchett
Kim Basinger……………………………………………………………….……….Lynn Bracken
Danny De Vito…………………………………………………………………………Sid Hudgens
Ron Rifkin……………………………………………………………………..….D.A. Ellis Loew
Brett Chase…………………………………………………………………………….Matt McCoy
Paul Guilfoyle……………………………………………………………………….Mickey Cohen
Paolo Seganyi………………………………………………………….………Johnny Stompanato
Amber Smith…………………………………………………………………………Susan Lefferts
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DID YOU KNOW?
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James Ellroy, the author of the novel L.A. Confidential, believed his book was uncompressible, uncontainable, and unequivocally bereft of sympathetic characters…unsavory, unapologetically dark, untamable, and altogether untranslatable to the screen. So did almost everybody who had ever read it. The cast of characters was too large (there were nearly a hundred characters), and the complexity of their various relationships seemed impossible to simplify (there were eight intertwined plots) that there seemed to be no way to eliminate any of it without unraveling the whole. But Curtis Hanson and Brian Helgeland wrote an adaptation that impressed first Ellroy, then Warner Brothers, and ultimately the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who voted them an Oscar for their screenplay.
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THE STORY
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Bud White, a white knight for women in need of protection, stops to help a woman who is being beaten on Christmas Eve. After the rescue, he goes to a liquor store to pick up a case of booze for the precinct Christmas party and meets Lynn Bracken, a Veronica Lake look-alike. At the station house, a group of Mexicans have been arrested for beating up some cops and the entire squad brawls with them. Ed Exley, the ambitious by-the-book son of a former police hero, recently has been put in charge as watch commander and testifies that White and his partner were the major culprits in the brawl. But Dudley Smith, captain of the precinct, saves White’s job while throwing his partner to the wolves.
Exley, now promoted to lieutenant, answers a homicide call and goes to the Nite Owl Coffee shop, where he finds a bloody massacre. Two of the victims are White’s former partner and a Rita Hayworth look-alike named Sue Lefferts. Three young African-American men driving a maroon Mercury are suspects. While White is interviewing Pierce Patchett, a high-class pimp, and Bracken, who works for Patchett (as did Lefferts), Exley and Jack Vincennes, a cop working as an advisor to the TV show Badge of Honor, captures the youths, who appear to be innocent of the crime. They briefly escape, only to be caught and shot to death by several cops, including the shotgun-toting Exley.
White, unconvinced that the Nite Owl killings have been solved correctly, keeps digging and becomes obsessed with Bracken, who has fallen in love with him.
The body count mounts as the corrupt Smith attempts to kill everyone who knows that he has been trying to take over the organized crime syndicate left by now-imprisoned gangster Mickey Cohen. Patchett is killed, and so is Vincennes and Sid Hudgens, the sleazy columnist and informant for Hush-Hush magazine, who knew of Smith’s plan. In a final shootout, Smith and his cronies are killed by White and Exley—the last two men standing.
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The motion-picture version of L.A. Confidential differs in many ways from the novel, but but maintains the overall spirit of the book. Ellroy featured many historical figures, such as Mickey Cohen, Lana Turner, and Johnny Stompanato, as well as actual events, including the “Bloody Christmas” massacre, the corruption surrounding the building of the freeway system, and even the plans for a disguised Disneyland many miles away.
Kim Basinger won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as did Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson for Best Adapted Screenplay. Nominations went to L.A. Confidential for Best Picture, Curtis Hanson for Best Director, and for several other categories in the year in which Titanic swept almost everything in sight.
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BEST LINE
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Ed Exley, who throughout most of the picture has been an irritant to everybody except the top brass, has gotten in the way of Bud White, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and White attacks him. Dudley Smith tells Exley, “Best to stay away from a man when his blood is up.” “His blood is always up.” Exley responds. Smith answers, “Perhaps you should stay away from him altogether.”
