CinemaClock Ottawa

THE BLACK DAHLIA is a terrific noir-murder mystery set in 40's Hollywood. It may not be as great as that other James Ellroy movie LA CONFIDENTIAL but THE BLACK DAHLIA is a distintictive De Palma movie with great sequences and moments. De Palma uses most of his stylistic tricks from the sudden triple cuts to the split-diopter lens to the long crane tracking shots and the use of the subjective camera shot from the POV of his characters. De Palma creates such a sordid, sleazy, convoluted, Hollywood murder mystery that the pieces begin to make sense on multiple viewings. Unfortunately the film failed at the box-office. 40's period crime story's don't tend to do well. It has never been a guaranteed box-office genre. Still I see this as one of De Palma's better films and as the decades go by it will be rediscovered by a new generation of new film-lovers obsessed with film-noir.