James Ellroy
A pilot based on James Ellroy's novel of the same name, featuring the best bits of Ellroy's L.A. quartet that the previous movie left out. The series would follow the paths of three homicide detectives, a female reporter, and a Hollywood actress as they cross paths in 1950s Los Angeles.
Writers of crime fiction and nonfiction discuss influential movies about police officers and the criminal element.
The documentary covers the origins, history and curious stories behind the production along with a perceptive reading of the film.
Curtis Hanson and his behind-the-scenes collaborators reveal the secrets of bringing 1950s Los Angeles to life in unforgettable style.
Tom Ludlow is a disillusioned L.A. Police Officer, rarely playing by the rules and haunted by the death of his wife. When evidence implicates him in the execution of a fellow officer, he is forced to go up against the cop culture he's been a part of his entire career, ultimately leading him to question the loyalties of everyone around him.
Director Curtis Hanson and his cast and crew discuss the arduous but rewarding process of creating a modern classic.
Riffing on the topics covered in his brilliant "best selling, award winning" 1996 book My Dark Places, Ellroy takes us on a tour of his hometown both past and present in this short, entertaining film.
Film Noir burrows into the mind; it's disorienting, intriguing and enthralling. Noir brings us into a gritty underworld of lush morbidity, providing intimate peeks at its tough, scheming dames, mischievous misfits and flawed men - all caught in the wicked web of a twisted fate.
Lee Blanchard and Bucky Bleichert are former boxers-turned-cops in 1940s Los Angeles and, when an aspiring young actress turns up dead, Blanchard and Bleichert must grapple with corruption, narcissism, stag films and family madness as they pursue the killer.
A documentary featuring film historians, directors and authors discussing the making of Billy Wilder's 'Double Indemnity'.
A documentary featuring film historians, directors and authors discussing the making of Billy Wilder's 'Double Indemnity'.
In 1988, Chris Bryson was found running down a Kansas City street naked, beaten, and bloody wearing nothing but a dog collar and a leash. He told police about Bob Berdella, a local business man and how Berdella had caputed him, held him hostage, raped him, tortured him and photographed him over several days. Police later arrested Berdella and searched his home where they found several hundred polaroid photographs, a detailed torture log, envelopes of human teeth and a human skull. It was soon discovered that Berdella had murdered 6 young men in his home after drugging them and performing his sick acts of sexual torture. Some lived the horrors for only a few days, one for 6 weeks. After death Berdella would cut up the bodies with an electric chain saw and a bone knife, place the body parts in empty dog food bags for trash collection on Monday. Although he denied this, it is believed that Berdella used organs of the victims as in food dishes he would serve at his shop.
It's another night in L.A. County 187 for policeman Walter Drazin and his team, but when they find the corpses of an Asian family in a burned down club, arson and murder come to the fore. As Drazin investigates the guests of the club, the sordid truth about the city's underworld activities rears its ugly head.
As corruption grows in 1950s LA, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
A killer plays a risky game of cat and mouse with the investigating detectives. Short black and white film based on James Ellroy's serial killer novel "Killer on the Road".
A documentary about James Ellroy and his fascination with unsolved murder cases, especially those of his mother, and the similar, infamous, Black Dahlia murder.
Grady is a 50-ish English professor who hasn't had a thing published in years -- not since he wrote his award winning "Great American Novel" 7 years ago. This weekend proves even worse than he could imagine as he finds himself reeling from one misadventure to another in the company of a new wonder boy author.
Fritz Brown is an ex-LAPD, recovering alcoholic who now splits his time repossessing cars for a used car lot and staffing his one-man private detective agency. When a filthy caddie named Freddy "Fat Dog" Baker wanders into Fritz's office one day, flashing a wad of cash, Fritz is hired to follow Fat Dog's kid sister Jane, who is holed up with a Beverly Hills sugar daddy named Sol Kupferman. Kupferman is a 70 year-old bag man for the mob, and Fat Dog claims that "Solly K" is up to something evil that may harm Jane. The trail leads Fritz to an encounter with his dark past in the person of Haywood Cathcart, current head of LAPD internal affairs and the person who kicked Fritz off the police force.
Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.
Before "L.A. Confidential", there was "Shotgun Freeway" -- the groundbreaking 1995 documentary about Los Angeles coming to grips with it's own history. Against a backdrop of never-before-seen archival footage, Shotgun Freeway presents a diverse group of "Angelinos" who guide the film through their own past as well as the city's. We get crime scribe James Ellroy reliving his youth as a burglar, Actor/writer Buck Henry's tour of Hollywood fakery, Jazzman Buddy Collette's trip down Central Avenue, Historian Mike Davis' tour of LA's eventual Armageddon, and writer Joan Didion's take on LA's own ephemerality. From the Beaches to the Valley, "Shotgun Freeway" will show you a Los Angeles you never knew existed.
Welcome to Los Angeless, hipsters, baddest of the bad cities, home of James Ellory, pre-eminent crime novelist of our generation. "All LA crime lives in me," says Ellroy, in this guided tour of the city that feeds his nightmares.
