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Article: Forget it, Jake. It's not 's Chinatown' The Black Dahlia Brian de Palma 125 MINS, 15
- Article from:
- The Independent on Sunday (London, England)
- Article date:
- September 17, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2006 The Independent on Sunday. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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One of the pithiest ideas in James Ellroy's LA quartet of Forties-
and Fifties-set crime novels is a Hollywood brothel specialising in
women who have had their faces altered by plastic surgery to resemble
screen goddesses of the time. Today, no one would be at all surprised
by such an establishment: the really outr joint would be one that
guarantees its staff 100-per-cent surgically unretouched. But the
idea of "hookalikes" in the Forties, casting a lurid reflection on
the seemingly untouchable sexuality of that era's stars, is bound to
seem sacrilegious - wherein, of course, lies its kick
One of the great pleasures of Ellroy's thrillers is precisely
their potential for perverse fantasy ...