Dishonoring a dead woman

On the morning of January 15th 1947, a woman named Betty Bersinger was out walking with her three year old daughter when she stumbled upon what she at first believed to be a discarded mannequin dumped at the edge of a vacant lot in downtown Los Angeles.

It didn't take long for the horrifying realization to hit home. Terrified, Betty covered her child's eyes and hurried off to sound the alarm, leaving the bisected body of poor Elizabeth Short in the dewy grass of that early overcast morning and ushering in an auspicious beginning to the legend of The Black Dahlia, the most notorious and unsolved murder in the history of LA county.

It's not easy to pinpoint why this particular murder has become such a magnet for grim fascination over the years. Perhaps it was the brutality of the injuries inflicted on the poor, hauntingly beautiful girl. Perhaps it was the media circus that was being perpetuated by the ever-growing tabloid-style journalism rampant in the papers of the time. Perhaps it was the fact that so many people, (all disproven and disregarded), stepped forward to claim that they were Betty Short's killer. Perhaps, more than anything, it is because the murder was, (and largely is to this day), unsolved.

Whatever the reason, one thing is indisputably clear and it's the fact that nobody had seen such brutality or such a media frenzy until the incident.

Those two things combined became un unstoppable force in galvanizing the image of this beautiful girl in the minds of the public who's beauty only served to make her end more horrifying.

Though many of the details were initially kept out of the paper, it was eventually learned that Elizabeth Short had been tortured before she was killed. Cutting the woman in half was the least of the atrocities. Short's mouth had been slit from ear to ear giving her a grotesque "clown grin", both of her legs had been broken and there was head trauma. Various contusions and bruises, (as well as rope burns), showed an obvious sign of struggle and there were patches of skin removed along with all of her major organs.

There are other details which I will refrain from relaying but if you want more of the story it can be found here,....

http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/famous/dahlia/index_1.html

As well as here,.....

http://www.bethshort.com/the-murder.php

(Note: follow these links at your own discretion. The crime scene photos are bad enough but the morgue photos will haunt you till the day you die).

Because of the horrific nature of this crime, I thought the new movie, The Black Dahlia, directed by Brian DePalma and based on a novel by LA Confidential author James Ellroy, would be a movie that would posthumously honor, (as best as one could considering the subject matter), and pay tribute to this fallen star from Hyde Park, Massachusetts.

Boy was I ever wrong.

To call this movie convoluted would be an understatement. Now,...before anyone starts screaming about inaccuracies and artistic license, I know it was based on a novel about the case, okay? I know all about interpretation and suspension of disbelief and spicing things up for the movies but you don't just go and make shit up!

The story centers around a pair of semi-corrupt LA detectives, (who used to be semi-corrupt boxers), who stumble upon Elizabeth Short's body after a botched stakeout operation.

From that point on, Beth Short's murder becomes, at best, a sidebar and her presence, (both dead or alive in flashbacks but played nicely by Mia Kirshner), becomes so sporadic, you find yourself asking, "Wasn't this movie about The Black Dahlia murder?"

What you get instead is Aaaron eckhart throwing fits, a maudlin Josh Hartnett looking like a sedated Basset hound, Scarlett Johanssen filling out period sweaters and smoking, and Hilary Swank vamping so over the top that she makes Elizabeth Berkley's performance in Showgirls seem dull by comparison.

There's double-crossing double-dealing and living in sin as a sort of threesome but without sex and a bank heist that you sorta maybe might remember them referencing about twenty minutes back and there's a pimp, and maybe someone's dead sister that's referenced for some reason, a lesbian nightclub, (all the rage in 40's LA, I hear), as well as Hartnett's crazy German father who spends his screen time plugging pigeons with a BB gun from his tenement window, (arguably the best part of the film. I was bummed when he left).

At some point you expect the detectives to turn to one another and say,...

"Weren't we supposed to be doing something?"
"You mean that Black Dahlia thing?"
"RIGHT! Right! Yeah. That's it. So,......wanna go get a cuppa mud?"

When we do get to Elizabeth's story, it's purely speculative crap. There's haunting screen tests, (no evidence she ever did any), where she breaks down, and tells the camera vulnerable secret things as Hartnett does his best to frown smartly and squint as he watches them. There's lesbian stag films, (again,...no evidence), where, Betty Short, yet again, looks sad as Eckhart flails around like a bee-stung bear and smashes things in protest, and a bullshit scene as Elizabeth is murdered under the careless eye of the Hollywood sign as if DePalma wants you to know,....

'Twas Hollywood that do'd it!

All of it is topped off by a climax that attempts to tie up so many lose ends in such rapid-fire succession that it only succeeds in tying itself up in knots.

While the audience sits there scratching it's head.

I know DePalma's not huge on historical accuracy, as we can all attest to after seeing Kevin Costner throw Frank Nitti off of a building in The Untouchables, (even though Nitti went on to run Capone's operations while Al was in prison but who's askin'?), but at some point you have to give a nod to the actual facts.

Unfortunately, with all it's beautiful cinematography and haunting score, all this film succeeds in doing is painting an even more tragic and lascivious picture of this already tragic figure.

Perhaps with the passing of this film, Elizabeth Short as well as The Black Dahlia may finally rest in peace.