L.A. Confidential (film)
Encyclopedia
L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American film based on James Ellroy
's 1990 novel of the same title
, the third book in his L.A. Quartet
. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD
officers in the 1950s, and the intersection of police corruption
and Hollywood celebrity. The film adaptation was produced and directed by Curtis Hanson
and co-written by Hanson and Brian Helgeland
.
At the time, Australian actors Guy Pearce
and Russell Crowe
were relatively unknown in North America, and one of the film's backers, Peter Dennett, was worried about the lack of established stars in the lead roles. However, he supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kevin Spacey
, Kim Basinger
, and Danny DeVito
.
Critically acclaimed, the film holds a 99% rating at Rotten Tomatoes
with 85 out of 86 reviews positive and average rating of 8.6 out of 10, as well as an aggregated rating of 90% based on 28 reviews on Metacritic
. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two, Basinger for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
and Hanson and Helgeland for Best Screenplay - Adapted
.
and institutional racism
. The novel's title refers to the 1950s scandal magazine Confidential
, portrayed fictionally as Hush-Hush.
Sergeant Edmund Exley (Pearce), the son of a legendary LAPD Inspector, is determined to outdo his father. His intelligence, insistence on following regulations, and his cold demeanor contribute to his social isolation from other officers. He multiplies this resentment by volunteering to testify in a police brutality case (based on the real-life Bloody Christmas
incident), insisting on a promotion to Detective Lieutenant (which he receives) against the advice of Captain Dudley Smith (Cromwell). Exley's consuming ambition is fueled in part by the murder of his father by an unknown assailant.
Officer Wendell "Bud" White (Crowe), who Exley considers a "mindless thug," is a plainclothes officer violently obsessed with punishing woman-beaters. White comes to dislike Exley after his partner, Dick Stensland, is fired due to Exley's testimony in the "Bloody Christmas" scandal. White is sought out by Capt. Smith for a job intimidating out-of-town criminals trying to set up in L.A. The Nite Owl case becomes personal after Stensland is found to be one of the victims.
Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Spacey) is a slick and likable narcotics detective who works as the technical advisor on Badge of Honor, a popular Dragnet-type TV crime show. He is also connected with Sid Hudgens (DeVito), publisher of Hush-Hush magazine, receiving kickbacks for tipping Hudgens off to celebrity arrests that will attract even more readers to the magazine. When a young actor winds up dead during one of these schemes, a guilt-ridden Vincennes is determined to find who did it.
At different intervals, the three men investigate the Nite Owl killings and concurrent events which in turn begin to reveal indications of corruption all around them. Exley pursues absolute justice, all the while trying to live up to his family name. Bud White pursues Nite Owl victim Susan Lefferts, which leads him to Lynn Bracken (Basinger), a Veronica Lake
look-alike prostitute with ties to the case he and Exley are independently investigating. Meanwhile, Vincennes follows up on a pornography racket with ties to both the Nite Owl and Bracken's handler Pierce Patchett (Strathairn), operator of Fleur-de-Lis, a call-girl service that runs prostitutes altered by plastic surgery to look like movie stars. All three men's fates are intertwined. A dramatic showdown occurs with powerful and corrupt forces within the city's political leadership and the department.
had read half a dozen of James Ellroy
's books before L.A. Confidential
and was drawn to its characters, not the plot. He said, "What hooked me on them was that, as I met them, one after the other, I didn't like them - but as I continued reading, I started to care about them." Ellroy's novel also made Hanson think about L.A. and provided him with an opportunity to "set a movie at a point in time when the whole dream of Los Angeles, from that apparently golden era of the '20s and '30s, was being bulldozed." Screenwriter Brian Helgeland was originally signed to Warner Brothers to write a Viking film with director Uli Edel
and then worked on an unproduced modern-day King Arthur
story. Helgeland was a long-time fan of Ellroy's novels. When he heard that Warner Bros. had acquired the rights to Confidential in 1990, he lobbied to script the film. However, at the time, the studio was only talking to well-known screenwriters. When he finally did get a meeting, it was canceled two days before it was to occur.
Helgeland found that Hanson had been hired to direct and met with him while the filmmaker was making The River Wild
. They found that they not only shared a love for Ellroy's fiction but also agreed on how to adapt Confidential into a film. According to Helgeland, they had "to remove every scene from the book that didn't have the three main cops in it, and then to work from those scenes out." According to Hanson, he "wanted the audience to be challenged but at the same time I didn't want them to get lost". They worked on the script together for two years, with Hanson turning down jobs and Helgeland writing seven drafts for free. The two men also got Ellroy's approval of their approach. He had seen Hanson's films, The Bedroom Window and Bad Influence
and found him to be "a competent and interesting storyteller", but was not convinced that his book would be made into a film until he talked to the director. He later said, "They preserved the basic integrity of the book and its main theme...Brian and Curtis took a work of fiction that had eight plotlines, reduced those to three, and retained the dramatic force of three men working out their destiny."
Warner executive Bill Gerber showed the script to Michael Nathanson, CEO of New Regency Productions
, which had a deal with the studio. Nathanson loved it, but they had to get the approval from the owner of New Regency, Arnon Milchan. Hanson prepared a presentation that consisted of 15 vintage postcards and pictures of L.A. mounted on poster-boards and made his pitch to Milchan. The pictures consisted of orange groves, beaches, tract homes in the San Fernando Valley
, and the opening of the Hollywood Freeway
to symbolize the image of prosperity sold to the public.
Then, Hanson showed the darker side of Ellroy's novel with the cover of scandal rag, Confidential and the famous shot of Robert Mitchum
coming out of jail after his marijuana
bust. He also had photographs of jazz musicians of the time: Zoot Sims
, Gerry Mulligan
, and Chet Baker
to represent the music people listened to. Hanson emphasized that the period detail would be in the background and the characters in the foreground. Milchan was impressed with his presentation and agreed to finance it.
in Romper Stomper
and found him "repulsive and scary but captivating". The actor had read Ellroy's The Black Dahlia
but not L.A. Confidential. When he read the script, Crowe was drawn to Bud White's "self-righteous moral crusade". Crowe fit the visual preconception of Bud. Hanson put the actor on tape doing a few scenes from the script and showed it to the film's producers, who agreed to cast him as Bud. Guy Pearce
auditioned like countless other actors and Hanson felt that he "was very much what I had in mind for Ed Exley". The director purposely did not watch the actor in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
afraid that it might taint his decision. As he did with Crowe, Hanson taped Pearce and showed it to the producers, who agreed he should be cast as Exley. Pearce did not like Exley when he first read the screenplay and remarked, "I was pretty quick to judge him and dislike him for being so self-righteous ... But I liked how honest he became about himself. I knew I could grow to respect and understand him".
Milchan was against casting "two Australians" in the American period piece (Pearce wryly commented in a later interview that while both he and Crowe grew up in Australia, he is English, while Crowe is a New Zealander). Besides their national origins, both Crowe and Pearce were relative unknowns in North America and Milchan was equally worried about the lack of movie stars in the lead roles.
However, Milchan supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and Kevin Spacey. Hanson cast Crowe and Pearce because he wanted to "replicate my experience of the book. You don't like any of these characters at first, but the deeper you get into their story, the more you begin to sympathize with them. I didn't want actors audiences knew and already liked."
Hanson felt that the character of Jack Vincennes was "a movie star among cops" and thought of Spacey with his "movie star charisma", casting him specifically against type. The director was confident that the actor "could play the man behind that veneer, the man who also lost his soul", and when he gave him the script, he told him to think of Dean Martin
while in the role. Hanson cast Basinger because he felt that she "was the character to me. What beauty today could project the glamor of Hollywood's golden age?"
because it epitomized the glamorous Hollywood look; In a Lonely Place
, because it showed the ugly side of Hollywood glamor; Don Siegel
's The Lineup
and Private Hell 36
, "for their lean and efficient style"; and Kiss Me Deadly
, because it was "so rooted in the futuristic 50s: the atomic age". Hanson and the film's cinematographer Dante Spinotti
agreed that the film would be shot widescreen and watched two Cinemascope
films from the period: Douglas Sirk
's The Tarnished Angels
and Vincente Minnelli
's Some Came Running
.
Before filming took place, Hanson brought Crowe and Pearce to L.A. for two months to immerse them in the city and the time period. He also got them dialect coaches, showed them vintage police training films and had them meet real cops. Pearce found the contemporary police force had changed too much to be useful research material and disliked the police officer he rode around with because he was racist. The actor found the police films more valuable "because there was a real sort of stiffness, a woodenness about these people" that he felt Exley had as well. Crowe studied Sterling Hayden
in Stanley Kubrick
's The Killing "for that beefy manliness that came out of World War II." For six weeks, Crowe, Pearce, Hanson and Helgeland conducted rehearsals, which consisted of their discussing each scene in the script. As other actors were cast they would join in.
's score for the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, but lost to James Horner
's score for Best Picture Titanic
.
. According to Hanson, Warner did not want it shown at Cannes, because they felt that there was an "anti-studio bias ... So why go and come home a loser?" However, Hanson wanted to debut the film at a high profile, international venue like Cannes. He and other producers bypassed the studio and sent a print directly to the festival's selection committee, which loved it. Ellroy saw the film and said, "I understood in 40 minutes or so that it is a work of art on its own level. It was amazing to see the physical incarnation of the characters".
with 85 out of 86 reviews positive. Film critic Roger Ebert
gave the film four out of four stars and described it as "seductive and beautiful, cynical and twisted, and one of the best films of the year". Later, he included it as one of his "Great Movies" and described it as "film noir, and so it is, but it is more: Unusually for a crime film, it deals with the psychology of the characters ... It contains all the elements of police action, but in a sharply clipped, more economical style; the action exists not for itself but to provide an arena for the personalities". In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin
wrote, "Mr. Spacey is at his insinuating best, languid and debonair, in a much more offbeat performance than this film could have drawn from a more conventional star. And the two Australian actors, tightly wound Mr. Pearce and fiery, brawny Mr. Crowe, qualify as revelations". Desson Howe, in his review for the Washington Post, praised the cast: "Pearce makes a wonderful prude who gets progressively tougher and more jaded. New Zealand-born Crowe has a unique and sexy toughness; imagine Mickey Rourke
without the attitude. Although she's playing a stock character, Basinger exudes a sort of chaste sultriness. Spacey is always enjoyable".
In his review for the Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote, "The big star is Los Angeles itself. Like Roman Polanski
's depiction of Los Angeles in the thirties in Chinatown, the atmosphere and detailed production design are a rich gel where the strands of narrative form". USA Today
gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, praising the screenplay: "it appears as if screenwriters Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson have pulled off a miracle in keeping multiple stories straight. Have they ever. Ellroy's novel has four extra layers of plot and three times as many characters ... the writers have trimmed unwieldy muscle, not just fat, and gotten away with it". In his review for Newsweek
, David Ansen
wrote, "L.A. Confidential asks the audience to raise its level a bit, too - you actually have to pay attention to follow the double-crossing intricacies of the plot. The reward for your work is dark and dirty fun". Richard Schickel
, in his review for Time
, wrote, "It's a movie of shadows and half lights, the best approximation of the old black-and-white noir look anyone has yet managed on color stock. But it's no idle exercise in style. The film's look suggests how deep the tradition of police corruption runs".
In his review for the New York Observer
, Andrew Sarris
wrote, "Mr. Crowe strikes the deepest registers with the tortured character of Bud White, a part that has had less cut out of it from the book than either Mr. Spacey's or Mr. Pearce's ... but Mr. Crowe at moments reminded me of James Cagney
's poignant performance in Charles Vidor
's Love Me or Leave Me
(1955), and I can think of no higher praise". Kenneth Turan
, in his review for Los Angeles Times
, wrote, "The only potential audience drawback L.A. Confidential has is its reliance on unsettling bursts of violence, both bloody shootings and intense physical beatings that give the picture a palpable air of menace. Overriding that, finally, is the film's complete command of its material". In his review for The Independent
, Ryan Gilbey wrote, "In fact, it's a very well made and intelligent picture, assembled with an attention to detail, both in plot and characterisation, that you might have feared was all but extinct in mainstream American cinema". Richard Williams, in his review for The Guardian
, wrote, "L.A. Confidential gets just about everything right. The light, the architecture, the slang, the music ... A wonderful Lana Turner joke. A sense, above all, of damaged people arriving to make new lives and getting seduced by the scent of night-blooming jasmine, the perfume of corruption".
for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
and Curtis Hanson
and Brian Helgeland
for Best Screenplay - Adapted
. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Director, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score and Sound (Andy Nelson
, Anna Behlmer
and Kirk Francis). Basinger tied for the Best Supporting Actress with Gloria Stuart
from Titanic at the 4th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards
.
Time ranked L.A. Confidential the best film of 1997. The National Society of Film Critics
also ranked it the best film of the year and Curtis Hanson was voted Best Director. The New York Film Critics Circle also voted L.A. Confidential as best film of 1997 in addition to ranking Hanson as best director and he and Brian Helgeland with the best screenplay. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association
and the National Board of Review also voted L.A. Confidential as the best film of 1997. As a result, it is only the third film to sweep the "Big Four" critics awards.
It was also voted as the best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times
writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list". In 2009, the London Film Critics' Circle voted L.A. Confidential one of the best movies of the last 30 years.
A two-disc Special Edition was released on DVD
and Blu-ray
on September 23, 2008. Both sets contain the same bonus content. In addition to the features from the original DVD, included are four new featurettes, the pilot of the proposed TV series starring Kiefer Sutherland
, and film commentary by critic/historian Andrew Sarris
, James Ellroy, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Ruth Myers, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger, Brian Helgeland, Jeannine Oppewall, Dante Spinotti, and Danny DeVito. Some sets included a six-song sampler from the film's soundtrack.
James Ellroy
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a so-called "telegraphic" prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black...
's 1990 novel of the same title
L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American film based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same title, the third book in his L.A. Quartet. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD officers in the 1950s, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity...
, the third book in his L.A. Quartet
L.A. Quartet
The L.A. Quartet is a sequence of four crime fiction novels by James Ellroy. The novels, set in the late 1940s through the late 1950s in Los Angeles, are:* The Black Dahlia* The Big Nowhere* L.A. Confidential...
. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
officers in the 1950s, and the intersection of police corruption
Police corruption
Police corruption is a specific form of police misconduct designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, or career advancement for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest....
and Hollywood celebrity. The film adaptation was produced and directed by Curtis Hanson
Curtis Hanson
Curtis Lee Hanson is an American film director, film producer and screenwriter. His directing work includes The Hand That Rocks the Cradle , L.A...
and co-written by Hanson and Brian Helgeland
Brian Helgeland
Brian Thomas Helgeland is an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He is most known for writing the screenplays for L.A...
.
At the time, Australian actors Guy Pearce
Guy Pearce
Guy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
and Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
were relatively unknown in North America, and one of the film's backers, Peter Dennett, was worried about the lack of established stars in the lead roles. However, he supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
, Kim Basinger
Kim Basinger
Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for her portrayals of Domino Petachi, the Bond girl in Never Say Never Again , and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman . Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture...
, and Danny DeVito
Danny DeVito
Daniel Michael DeVito, Jr. , better known as Danny DeVito, is an American actor, comedian, director and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on the ABC and NBC television series Taxi , for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.DeVito and his wife, Rhea Perlman,...
.
Critically acclaimed, the film holds a 99% rating at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
with 85 out of 86 reviews positive and average rating of 8.6 out of 10, as well as an aggregated rating of 90% based on 28 reviews on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two, Basinger for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
and Hanson and Helgeland for Best Screenplay - Adapted
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
.
Plot
Set against the backdrop of early 1950s Los Angeles, the film revolves around three LAPD officers caught up in corruption, sex, and murder following a multiple homicide at the Nite Owl coffee shop. The story expands to encompass organized crime, political corruption, heroin, pornography, prostitution, tabloid journalismTabloid journalism
Tabloid journalism tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news...
and institutional racism
Institutional racism
Institutional racism describes any kind of system of inequality based on race. It can occur in institutions such as public government bodies, private business corporations , and universities . The term was coined by Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael in the late 1960s...
. The novel's title refers to the 1950s scandal magazine Confidential
Confidential (magazine)
Confidential was a periodical published quarterly from December 1952 to August 1953, and then bi-monthly until 1978. It was founded by Robert Harrison and is considered a pioneer in scandal, gossip, and exposé journalism. Newsweek said it featured "sin and sex with a seasoning of right wing...
, portrayed fictionally as Hush-Hush.
Sergeant Edmund Exley (Pearce), the son of a legendary LAPD Inspector, is determined to outdo his father. His intelligence, insistence on following regulations, and his cold demeanor contribute to his social isolation from other officers. He multiplies this resentment by volunteering to testify in a police brutality case (based on the real-life Bloody Christmas
Bloody Christmas
Bloody Christmas was the name given to the severe beating of seven men by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department on December 25, 1951. The attacks, which left five Latino and two White young men with broken bones and ruptured organs, was only properly investigated after lobbying from the...
incident), insisting on a promotion to Detective Lieutenant (which he receives) against the advice of Captain Dudley Smith (Cromwell). Exley's consuming ambition is fueled in part by the murder of his father by an unknown assailant.
Officer Wendell "Bud" White (Crowe), who Exley considers a "mindless thug," is a plainclothes officer violently obsessed with punishing woman-beaters. White comes to dislike Exley after his partner, Dick Stensland, is fired due to Exley's testimony in the "Bloody Christmas" scandal. White is sought out by Capt. Smith for a job intimidating out-of-town criminals trying to set up in L.A. The Nite Owl case becomes personal after Stensland is found to be one of the victims.
Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Spacey) is a slick and likable narcotics detective who works as the technical advisor on Badge of Honor, a popular Dragnet-type TV crime show. He is also connected with Sid Hudgens (DeVito), publisher of Hush-Hush magazine, receiving kickbacks for tipping Hudgens off to celebrity arrests that will attract even more readers to the magazine. When a young actor winds up dead during one of these schemes, a guilt-ridden Vincennes is determined to find who did it.
At different intervals, the three men investigate the Nite Owl killings and concurrent events which in turn begin to reveal indications of corruption all around them. Exley pursues absolute justice, all the while trying to live up to his family name. Bud White pursues Nite Owl victim Susan Lefferts, which leads him to Lynn Bracken (Basinger), a Veronica Lake
Veronica Lake
Veronica Lake was an American film actress and pin-up model. She received both popular and critical acclaim, most notably for her role in Sullivan's Travels and her femme fatale roles in film noir with Alan Ladd during the 1940s, and was well-known for her peek-a-boo hairstyle...
look-alike prostitute with ties to the case he and Exley are independently investigating. Meanwhile, Vincennes follows up on a pornography racket with ties to both the Nite Owl and Bracken's handler Pierce Patchett (Strathairn), operator of Fleur-de-Lis, a call-girl service that runs prostitutes altered by plastic surgery to look like movie stars. All three men's fates are intertwined. A dramatic showdown occurs with powerful and corrupt forces within the city's political leadership and the department.
Cast
- Kevin SpaceyKevin SpaceyKevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
as Det. Sgt.DetectiveA detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. The latter may be known as private investigators or "private eyes"...
Jack Vincennes - Russell CroweRussell CroweRussell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
as OfficerPolice officerA police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
Wendell "Bud" White - Guy PearceGuy PearceGuy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
as Det. Lt.LieutenantA lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
Edmund Jennings "Ed" Exley - James CromwellJames CromwellJames Oliver Cromwell is an American film and television actor. Some of his more notable roles are in Babe , for which he earned Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, Star Trek: First Contact , L.A...
as Capt.Police captain- France :France uses the rank of capitaine for management duties in both uniformed and plain-clothed policing. The rank comes senior to lieutenant and junior to commandant....
Dudley Liam Smith - Kim BasingerKim BasingerKimila Ann "Kim" Basinger is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for her portrayals of Domino Petachi, the Bond girl in Never Say Never Again , and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman . Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture...
as Lynn Bracken - Danny DeVitoDanny DeVitoDaniel Michael DeVito, Jr. , better known as Danny DeVito, is an American actor, comedian, director and producer. He first gained prominence for his portrayal of Louie De Palma on the ABC and NBC television series Taxi , for which he won a Golden Globe and an Emmy.DeVito and his wife, Rhea Perlman,...
as Sid Hudgens - David StrathairnDavid StrathairnDavid Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...
as Pierce Morehouse Patchett - Ron RifkinRon RifkinRon Rifkin is an American actor. He is best-known for his roles as Arvin Sloane on the spy drama Alias and as Saul Holden on the American family drama Brothers & Sisters.-Personal life:...
as District AttorneyLos Angeles County District AttorneyThe District Attorney of Los Angeles County prosecutes felony and misdemeanor crimes that occur within the jurisdiction of Los Angeles County, California....
Ellis Loew - Graham BeckelGraham BeckelGraham S. Beckel is an American character actor. He is known for his prolific guest appearances on television but has had prominent roles in several major films as well. Most recently he played Jack Fisk on Battlestar Galactica and Hal Sanders on Heroes...
as Det. Richard Alex "Dick" Stensland - Amber SmithAmber Smith-Early life:The daughter of professional American football player Russ Smith and Carol Smith, Smith started modeling by age 16. As a teenager she traveled to Paris, France, where she worked as a model throughout Europe for four years...
as Susan Lefferts - John Mahon as LAPD Police Chief Worton
- Paul GuilfoylePaul GuilfoylePaul Guilfoyle is an American television and film actor. He is currently a regular cast member of the forensic television drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation where he plays Captain Jim Brass.-Early life:...
as Meyer Harris "Mickey" CohenMickey CohenMeyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen was a gangster based in Los Angeles and part of the Jewish Mafia, and also had strong ties to the American Mafia from the 1930s through 1960s.-Early life:... - Matt McCoyMatt McCoy (actor)Matt McCoy is an American actor.McCoy was born in Ohio. Since starring as Sgt. Nick Lassard in two Police Academy films, his motion picture credits have included the Curtis Hanson films The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and L.A. Confidential , as well as the action comedy National Security ...
as Brett Chase - Paolo SegantiPaolo SegantiPaolo Seganti , is an Italian actor and model, known for playing as Damian Grimaldi in the television soap opera As the World Turns....
as Johnny StompanatoJohnny StompanatoJohn "Johnny" Stompanato , also known as "Handsome Harry", "Johnny Stomp", "John Steele", and "Oscar", was a former United States Marine who became a bodyguard/enforcer for gangster Mickey Cohen... - Simon BakerSimon BakerSimon Baker is an Australian actor. Since 2008, he has starred in the CBS television series The Mentalist.-Early life:...
as Matt Reynolds - Shawnee Free JonesShawnee Free JonesShawnee Free Jones is a film & television actress and advertising model. She is the daughter of American spiritual guru, Adi Da Samraj.-Filmography:* L.A. Confidential * Denial * American Intellectuals...
as Tammy Jordan - Darrell SandeenDarrell SandeenDarrell Sandeen was a character actor who specialized in playing menacing or offbeat people. Perhaps his best-known role was as corrupt cop "Buzz" Meeks in L.A...
as Leland "Buzz" Meeks - Marisol Padilla SánchezMarisol Padilla SánchezMarisol Padilla Sánchez is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the films L. A. Confidential and Traffic. She usually portrays Hispanic characters.-Filmography:-External links:...
as Inez Soto - Gwenda Deacon as Mrs. Lefferts
Development
Curtis HansonCurtis Hanson
Curtis Lee Hanson is an American film director, film producer and screenwriter. His directing work includes The Hand That Rocks the Cradle , L.A...
had read half a dozen of James Ellroy
James Ellroy
Lee Earle "James" Ellroy is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a so-called "telegraphic" prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, staccato sentences, and in particular for the novels The Black...
's books before L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American film based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same title, the third book in his L.A. Quartet. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD officers in the 1950s, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity...
and was drawn to its characters, not the plot. He said, "What hooked me on them was that, as I met them, one after the other, I didn't like them - but as I continued reading, I started to care about them." Ellroy's novel also made Hanson think about L.A. and provided him with an opportunity to "set a movie at a point in time when the whole dream of Los Angeles, from that apparently golden era of the '20s and '30s, was being bulldozed." Screenwriter Brian Helgeland was originally signed to Warner Brothers to write a Viking film with director Uli Edel
Uli Edel
Uli Edel is a German film director.-Work:After studying theatre science in Munich, he was accepted into Munich Film School alongside Bernd Eichinger. Uli befriended him and they started working together on their exercise movies, sharing a love for the nouvelle vague and Italian neorealism as well...
and then worked on an unproduced modern-day King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
story. Helgeland was a long-time fan of Ellroy's novels. When he heard that Warner Bros. had acquired the rights to Confidential in 1990, he lobbied to script the film. However, at the time, the studio was only talking to well-known screenwriters. When he finally did get a meeting, it was canceled two days before it was to occur.
Helgeland found that Hanson had been hired to direct and met with him while the filmmaker was making The River Wild
The River Wild
The River Wild is a 1994 thriller film directed by Curtis Hanson and starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon, David Strathairn, John C. Reilly, and Joseph Mazzello...
. They found that they not only shared a love for Ellroy's fiction but also agreed on how to adapt Confidential into a film. According to Helgeland, they had "to remove every scene from the book that didn't have the three main cops in it, and then to work from those scenes out." According to Hanson, he "wanted the audience to be challenged but at the same time I didn't want them to get lost". They worked on the script together for two years, with Hanson turning down jobs and Helgeland writing seven drafts for free. The two men also got Ellroy's approval of their approach. He had seen Hanson's films, The Bedroom Window and Bad Influence
Bad Influence (film)
Bad Influence is a 1990 American film starring Rob Lowe and James Spader. In this noirish film, Spader plays a yuppie who meets a mysterious stranger who encourages him to explore his darker side. Bad Influence was the first original screenplay for which David Koepp received a sole screenplay credit...
and found him to be "a competent and interesting storyteller", but was not convinced that his book would be made into a film until he talked to the director. He later said, "They preserved the basic integrity of the book and its main theme...Brian and Curtis took a work of fiction that had eight plotlines, reduced those to three, and retained the dramatic force of three men working out their destiny."
Warner executive Bill Gerber showed the script to Michael Nathanson, CEO of New Regency Productions
New Regency Productions
New Regency Productions is a production company founded in 1991 by Arnon Milchan and a subsidiary of Regency Enterprises.It is located on the 20th Century Fox lot, and Fox is the current distributor of Regency releases since 1998, but is a wholly independent company. Warner Bros. Pictures was the...
, which had a deal with the studio. Nathanson loved it, but they had to get the approval from the owner of New Regency, Arnon Milchan. Hanson prepared a presentation that consisted of 15 vintage postcards and pictures of L.A. mounted on poster-boards and made his pitch to Milchan. The pictures consisted of orange groves, beaches, tract homes in the San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
, and the opening of the Hollywood Freeway
Hollywood Freeway
The Hollywood Freeway is one of the principal freeways of Los Angeles, California and one of the busiest in the United States. It is the principal route over the Cahuenga Pass, the primary shortcut between the Los Angeles Basin and the San Fernando Valley...
to symbolize the image of prosperity sold to the public.
Then, Hanson showed the darker side of Ellroy's novel with the cover of scandal rag, Confidential and the famous shot of Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
coming out of jail after his marijuana
Cannabis (drug)
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among many other names, refers to any number of preparations of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or for medicinal purposes. The English term marijuana comes from the Mexican Spanish word marihuana...
bust. He also had photographs of jazz musicians of the time: Zoot Sims
Zoot Sims
John Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...
, Gerry Mulligan
Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph "Gerry" Mulligan was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though Mulligan is primarily known as one of the leading baritone saxophonists in jazz history – playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz – he was also...
, and Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
to represent the music people listened to. Hanson emphasized that the period detail would be in the background and the characters in the foreground. Milchan was impressed with his presentation and agreed to finance it.
Casting
Hanson had seen Russell CroweRussell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
in Romper Stomper
Romper Stomper
-Awards:The film was nominated for nine Australian Film Institute Awards. It won Best Achievement in Sound, Best Actor in a Lead Role and Best Original Music Score.-Box office and Reception:Romper Stomper grossed $3,165,034 at the box office in Australia,...
and found him "repulsive and scary but captivating". The actor had read Ellroy's The Black Dahlia
The Black Dahlia (novel)
The Black Dahlia is a neo-noir crime novel by American author James Ellroy, taking inspiration from the true story of the murder of Elizabeth Short. It is widely considered to be the book that elevated Ellroy out of typical genre fiction status, and with which he started to garner critical...
but not L.A. Confidential. When he read the script, Crowe was drawn to Bud White's "self-righteous moral crusade". Crowe fit the visual preconception of Bud. Hanson put the actor on tape doing a few scenes from the script and showed it to the film's producers, who agreed to cast him as Bud. Guy Pearce
Guy Pearce
Guy Edward Pearce is an English-born Australian actor and musician, known for his roles as Leonard Shelby in Christopher Nolan's Memento, Lieutenant Ed Exley in L.A...
auditioned like countless other actors and Hanson felt that he "was very much what I had in mind for Ed Exley". The director purposely did not watch the actor in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Australian comedy-drama film written and directed by Stephan Elliott. The plot is based on the journey of three drag queens who travel across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they have named...
afraid that it might taint his decision. As he did with Crowe, Hanson taped Pearce and showed it to the producers, who agreed he should be cast as Exley. Pearce did not like Exley when he first read the screenplay and remarked, "I was pretty quick to judge him and dislike him for being so self-righteous ... But I liked how honest he became about himself. I knew I could grow to respect and understand him".
Milchan was against casting "two Australians" in the American period piece (Pearce wryly commented in a later interview that while both he and Crowe grew up in Australia, he is English, while Crowe is a New Zealander). Besides their national origins, both Crowe and Pearce were relative unknowns in North America and Milchan was equally worried about the lack of movie stars in the lead roles.
However, Milchan supported Hanson's casting decisions and this gave the director the confidence to approach Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and Kevin Spacey. Hanson cast Crowe and Pearce because he wanted to "replicate my experience of the book. You don't like any of these characters at first, but the deeper you get into their story, the more you begin to sympathize with them. I didn't want actors audiences knew and already liked."
Hanson felt that the character of Jack Vincennes was "a movie star among cops" and thought of Spacey with his "movie star charisma", casting him specifically against type. The director was confident that the actor "could play the man behind that veneer, the man who also lost his soul", and when he gave him the script, he told him to think of Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
while in the role. Hanson cast Basinger because he felt that she "was the character to me. What beauty today could project the glamor of Hollywood's golden age?"
Pre-production
To give his cast and crew points and counterpoints to capture L.A. in the 1950s, he held a "mini-film festival", showing one film a week: The Bad and the BeautifulThe Bad and the Beautiful
The Bad and the Beautiful is a 1952 MGM melodramatic film that tells the story of a film producer who alienates all around him. It was directed by Vincente Minelli and stars Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame and Gilbert Roland. The film was...
because it epitomized the glamorous Hollywood look; In a Lonely Place
In a Lonely Place
In a Lonely Place is a film noir directed by Nicholas Ray, and starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, produced for Bogart's Santana Productions. The script was adapted by Edmund North from the 1947 novel In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes.Bogart stars in the film as Dixon Steele, a...
, because it showed the ugly side of Hollywood glamor; Don Siegel
Don Siegel
Donald Siegel was an influential American film director and producer. His name variously appeared in the credits of his films as both Don Siegel and Donald Siegel.-Early life:...
's The Lineup
The Lineup (film)
The Lineup is a 1958 American film version of the police procedural series that ran on CBS radio from 1950 through 1953 and on CBS television from 1954 through 1960, directed by Don Siegel...
and Private Hell 36
Private Hell 36
Private Hell 36 is a black-and-white film noir, directed by Don Siegel. It features Ida Lupino, Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, among others....
, "for their lean and efficient style"; and Kiss Me Deadly
Kiss Me Deadly
Kiss Me Deadly is a 1955 film noir drama produced and directed by Robert Aldrich starring Ralph Meeker. The screenplay was written by A.I. Bezzerides, based on the Mickey Spillane Mike Hammer mystery novel Kiss Me, Deadly. Kiss Me Deadly is often considered a classic of the noir genre. The film...
, because it was "so rooted in the futuristic 50s: the atomic age". Hanson and the film's cinematographer Dante Spinotti
Dante Spinotti
Dante Spinotti, A.S.C., A.I.C. is a cinematographer.Spinotti was born in Tolmezzo, Italy. Among the more notable films he has worked on are The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, and L.A. Confidential...
agreed that the film would be shot widescreen and watched two Cinemascope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
films from the period: Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk was a Danish-German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas in the 1950s.-Life and work:...
's The Tarnished Angels
The Tarnished Angels
The Tarnished Angels is a 1958 American drama film directed by Douglas Sirk. The screenplay by George Zuckerman is based on the 1935 novel Pylon by William Faulkner.-Plot:...
and Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...
's Some Came Running
Some Came Running
Some Came Running is a novel by James Jones, published in 1957. It is the story of a war veteran with literary aspirations who returns in 1948 to his hometown of Parkman, Indiana, after a failed writing career...
.
Before filming took place, Hanson brought Crowe and Pearce to L.A. for two months to immerse them in the city and the time period. He also got them dialect coaches, showed them vintage police training films and had them meet real cops. Pearce found the contemporary police force had changed too much to be useful research material and disliked the police officer he rode around with because he was racist. The actor found the police films more valuable "because there was a real sort of stiffness, a woodenness about these people" that he felt Exley had as well. Crowe studied Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr...
in Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's The Killing "for that beefy manliness that came out of World War II." For six weeks, Crowe, Pearce, Hanson and Helgeland conducted rehearsals, which consisted of their discussing each scene in the script. As other actors were cast they would join in.
Principal photography
Hanson did not want the film to be an exercise in nostalgia and had Spinotti shoot it like a contemporary film and use more naturalistic lighting than in a classic film noir. He told Spinotti and the film's production designer Jeannine Oppewall to pay great attention to period detail but to then "put it all in the background".Music
Jerry GoldsmithJerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
's score for the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score, but lost to James Horner
James Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
's score for Best Picture Titanic
Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
.
Reception
The film was screened at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival1997 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Isabelle Adjani *Gong Li *Mira Sorvino *Paul Auster *Tim Burton *Luc Bondy *Patrick Dupond *Mike Leigh *Nanni Moretti *Michael Ondaatje -Feature film competition:...
. According to Hanson, Warner did not want it shown at Cannes, because they felt that there was an "anti-studio bias ... So why go and come home a loser?" However, Hanson wanted to debut the film at a high profile, international venue like Cannes. He and other producers bypassed the studio and sent a print directly to the festival's selection committee, which loved it. Ellroy saw the film and said, "I understood in 40 minutes or so that it is a work of art on its own level. It was amazing to see the physical incarnation of the characters".
Box office
L.A. Confidential was released on September 19, 1997 in 769 theaters, grossing $5.2 million on its opening weekend. On October 3, it was given an expanded release in 1,625 theaters. It went on to make $64.6 million in North America and $61.6 million in the rest of the world, for a worldwide total of $126.2 million.Critical response
L.A. Confidential scored perfectly with critics, presently sporting a rare 99% "Certified Fresh" approval rating at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
with 85 out of 86 reviews positive. Film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
gave the film four out of four stars and described it as "seductive and beautiful, cynical and twisted, and one of the best films of the year". Later, he included it as one of his "Great Movies" and described it as "film noir, and so it is, but it is more: Unusually for a crime film, it deals with the psychology of the characters ... It contains all the elements of police action, but in a sharply clipped, more economical style; the action exists not for itself but to provide an arena for the personalities". In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
wrote, "Mr. Spacey is at his insinuating best, languid and debonair, in a much more offbeat performance than this film could have drawn from a more conventional star. And the two Australian actors, tightly wound Mr. Pearce and fiery, brawny Mr. Crowe, qualify as revelations". Desson Howe, in his review for the Washington Post, praised the cast: "Pearce makes a wonderful prude who gets progressively tougher and more jaded. New Zealand-born Crowe has a unique and sexy toughness; imagine Mickey Rourke
Mickey Rourke
Philip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
without the attitude. Although she's playing a stock character, Basinger exudes a sort of chaste sultriness. Spacey is always enjoyable".
In his review for the Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote, "The big star is Los Angeles itself. Like Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
's depiction of Los Angeles in the thirties in Chinatown, the atmosphere and detailed production design are a rich gel where the strands of narrative form". USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, praising the screenplay: "it appears as if screenwriters Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson have pulled off a miracle in keeping multiple stories straight. Have they ever. Ellroy's novel has four extra layers of plot and three times as many characters ... the writers have trimmed unwieldy muscle, not just fat, and gotten away with it". In his review for Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, David Ansen
David Ansen
David Ansen is a reviewer and senior editor for Newsweek, where he has been reviewing movies since 1977. He came to Newsweek after several years as the chief film critic at Boston's The Real Paper...
wrote, "L.A. Confidential asks the audience to raise its level a bit, too - you actually have to pay attention to follow the double-crossing intricacies of the plot. The reward for your work is dark and dirty fun". Richard Schickel
Richard Schickel
Richard Warren Schickel is an American author, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He is a film critic for Time magazine, having also written for Life magazine and the Los Angeles Times Book Review....
, in his review for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, wrote, "It's a movie of shadows and half lights, the best approximation of the old black-and-white noir look anyone has yet managed on color stock. But it's no idle exercise in style. The film's look suggests how deep the tradition of police corruption runs".
In his review for the New York Observer
New York Observer
The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
, Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
wrote, "Mr. Crowe strikes the deepest registers with the tortured character of Bud White, a part that has had less cut out of it from the book than either Mr. Spacey's or Mr. Pearce's ... but Mr. Crowe at moments reminded me of James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
's poignant performance in Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor was a film director.-Biography:Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I...
's Love Me or Leave Me
Love Me or Leave Me (film)
Love Me or Leave Me is a 1955 biographical film which tells the life story of Ruth Etting, a singer who rose from dancer to movie star. It stars Doris Day as Etting, James Cagney as gangster Martin "Moe the Gimp" Snyder, her first husband and manager, and Cameron Mitchell as pianist/ arranger Myrl...
(1955), and I can think of no higher praise". Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
, in his review for Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, wrote, "The only potential audience drawback L.A. Confidential has is its reliance on unsettling bursts of violence, both bloody shootings and intense physical beatings that give the picture a palpable air of menace. Overriding that, finally, is the film's complete command of its material". In his review for The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, Ryan Gilbey wrote, "In fact, it's a very well made and intelligent picture, assembled with an attention to detail, both in plot and characterisation, that you might have feared was all but extinct in mainstream American cinema". Richard Williams, in his review for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, wrote, "L.A. Confidential gets just about everything right. The light, the architecture, the slang, the music ... A wonderful Lana Turner joke. A sense, above all, of damaged people arriving to make new lives and getting seduced by the scent of night-blooming jasmine, the perfume of corruption".
Accolades
L.A. Confidential was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two, Kim BasingerKim Basinger
Kimila Ann "Kim" Basinger is an American actress and former fashion model.She is known for her portrayals of Domino Petachi, the Bond girl in Never Say Never Again , and Vicki Vale, the female lead in Batman . Basinger received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture...
for Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
and Curtis Hanson
Curtis Hanson
Curtis Lee Hanson is an American film director, film producer and screenwriter. His directing work includes The Hand That Rocks the Cradle , L.A...
and Brian Helgeland
Brian Helgeland
Brian Thomas Helgeland is an American screenwriter, film producer and director. He is most known for writing the screenplays for L.A...
for Best Screenplay - Adapted
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
. It was also nominated for Best Picture, Director, Art Direction, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score and Sound (Andy Nelson
Andy Nelson (sound engineer)
Andy Nelson is an Australian sound engineer. He won an Academy Award for Best Sound and has been nominated for fourteen more in the same category...
, Anna Behlmer
Anna Behlmer
Anna Behlmer is an American sound engineer. She has been nominated for ten Academy Awards in the category Best Sound. She has worked on over 120 films since 1987.-Selected filmography:* Braveheart * Evita * L.A...
and Kirk Francis). Basinger tied for the Best Supporting Actress with Gloria Stuart
Gloria Stuart
Gloria Frances Stuart was an American actress, activist, painter, bonsai artist and fine printer. Over a Hollywood career which spanned, with a long break in the middle, from 1932 until 2004, she appeared on stage, television, and film, for which she was best-known...
from Titanic at the 4th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards
Screen Actors Guild Awards
A Screen Actors Guild Award is an accolade given by the Screen Actors Guild to recognize outstanding performances by its members. The statuette given, a nude male figure holding both a mask of comedy and a mask of tragedy, is called "The Actor"...
.
Time ranked L.A. Confidential the best film of 1997. The National Society of Film Critics
National Society of Film Critics
The National Society of Film Critics is an American film critic organization. As of December 2007 the NSFC had approximately 60 members who wrote for a variety of weekly and daily newspapers.-History:...
also ranked it the best film of the year and Curtis Hanson was voted Best Director. The New York Film Critics Circle also voted L.A. Confidential as best film of 1997 in addition to ranking Hanson as best director and he and Brian Helgeland with the best screenplay. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
and the National Board of Review also voted L.A. Confidential as the best film of 1997. As a result, it is only the third film to sweep the "Big Four" critics awards.
It was also voted as the best film set in Los Angeles in the last 25 years by a group of Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writers and editors with two criteria: "The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list". In 2009, the London Film Critics' Circle voted L.A. Confidential one of the best movies of the last 30 years.
Home media
A DVD was released April 21, 1998. In addition to the film, it included two featurettes, an interactive map of Los Angeles, a music-only track, a theatrical trailer, and three TV spots.A two-disc Special Edition was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on September 23, 2008. Both sets contain the same bonus content. In addition to the features from the original DVD, included are four new featurettes, the pilot of the proposed TV series starring Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland
Kiefer Sutherland is an English-born Canadian actor, producer and director, best known for his portrayal of Jack Bauer on the Fox thriller drama series 24 for which he has won an Emmy Award , a Golden Globe award , two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Satellite...
, and film commentary by critic/historian Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
, James Ellroy, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Ruth Myers, David Strathairn, Kim Basinger, Brian Helgeland, Jeannine Oppewall, Dante Spinotti, and Danny DeVito. Some sets included a six-song sampler from the film's soundtrack.
External links
- Press Conference at the Toronto Film Festival
- L.A. Confidential Shooting Locations