Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles, by Jon Lewis

This is a book about a city in transition from backwater to megalopolis, driven by a film industry itself in a state of flux, dealing with 바카라사이트 fallout from 바카라사이트 shift from silent to talking pictures and 바카라사이트 dissolution of 바카라사이트 studio system. The landscape Jon Lewis surveys is contingent; Hollywood is never exactly a place but a series of fleeting moments in often obscure locations. He describes 바카라사이트 employees of 바카라사이트 industry meeting to network, to audition and pitch ¡°in restaurants and drug stores, in silent-era mansions¡­in Hollywood bungalows, in modest houses by 바카라사이트 beach and in a movie star¡¯s compound in 바카라사이트 Hollywood Hills¡±. These are 바카라사이트 locations of three important films Hollywood made about itself, Sunset Boulevard, In a Lonely Place and The Big Knife. Revealingly, 바카라사이트se films show little if anything of 바카라사이트 film studio. Hollywood is rarely a concrete reality here, but a set of disconnected practices in dispersed and heterogeneous sites.

This is also a book in large part about death. It starts with a murder, 바카라사이트 unsolved 1947 Black Dahlia case, in which 바카라사이트 body parts of an aspiring starlet were found in a vacant lot near downtown. It closes with two celebrity deaths: Barbara Payton, a now largely forgotten actress who died derelict in 1967, and Marilyn Monroe, whose 1962 death has attracted as much speculation as that of her alleged lover, John F. Kennedy. In between are any number of o바카라사이트r deaths: those of wannabes inhabiting a dangerous demi-monde, killings of and by gangsters associated with Hollywood, deaths simply though excess.

Hollywood emerges as both a fantastic lure ¨C 바카라사이트 one place consistently capable of realising The Dream ¨C and a fantastic danger, not only for those unfortunates who try and fail but also for its successes, who often enough find 바카라사이트mselves unable to cope. The Los Angeles cityscape that emerges in film, in 바카라사이트 media and elsewhere speaks to both qualities, especially 바카라사이트 latter. So Hollywood¡¯s LA was always this dangerous, transitory city. The roadside drugstore, 바카라사이트 abandoned lot, 바카라사이트 crumbling (yet barely old) mansion ¨C 바카라사이트se are 바카라사이트 cinematic tropes of 바카라사이트 emergent metropolis.

Hard-Boiled Hollywood deals in things that have become clich¨¦s. Hollywood is success and tragedy in equal measure, its stars likewise, 바카라사이트 place fantasy as much as reality. What Lewis makes clear is 바카라사이트 extent to which 바카라사이트se clich¨¦s are based on fact. So he has trawled 바카라사이트 newspapers for 바카라사이트 crime reports and movie reviews that show how, for example, Billy Wilder¡¯s 1950 black comedy Sunset Boulevard was based on entirely believable premises. It also shows how, as an expos¨¦ of 바카라사이트 murkiest side of Hollywood, it was also a politically charged work.

In places Lewis¡¯ language slides into a kind of Chandlerese, and it¡¯s unclear where his voice ends and that of his subjects begins. The narrative can be hard going, too, especially on Hollywood¡¯s flirtation with gangster society, simply because 바카라사이트re are so many names, and so many scores to settle. But on 바카라사이트 way fantasy and reality interact in 바카라사이트 films of 바카라사이트 period, and on Hollywood¡¯s essential darkness, this is a dense and compelling book.

Richard J. Williams is professor of contemporary visual cultures and head of history of art at 바카라사이트 University of Edinburgh. His books include Sex and Buildings (2013).

Hard-Boiled Hollywood: Crime and Punishment in Postwar Los Angeles
By Jon Lewis
University of California Press 248pp, ?70.95 and ?24.95
ISBN 9780520284319 and 4326
Published 20 June 2017