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James Ellroy finds real crime-scene photographs from LAPD in 1953
Interview in the British Journal of Photography by Austin Collings
LAPD '53, is an absurdly comic and hypnotic display of magical memory that is neither history as fiction nor history as non-fiction but something altogether different and more aggressively poetic. Aided by Martin, who served on the LAPD from 1982 to 2002, he has meticulously sifted through the Los Angeles Police Museum archive and curated a selection of powerful crime-scene photographs taken throughout the City of (fallen and bloody) Angels in 1953. The themes are familiar: murder, manslaughter, suicide and home invasions. The format is less familiar.
Knopf Turns 100
Report from Alfred A. Knopf's 100th anniversary party on Thursday night at Astor Hall in the main branch of The New York Public Library.
James Ellroy calls Denver, Alamo Drafthouse home for new film series
The celebrated crime-fiction author is setting up shop in the Mile High City, and talking smack about John Elway.
Q: So why did you move to Denver from L.A.? A: Personal reasons. And guess what? It ain’t L.A. And guess what? I love it. It’s a more wholesome and altogether amenable place than L.A., and I like cold weather.
Obsessed with crime drama? From the makers of Total Film and SFX comes brand new quarterly magazine Crime Scene, celebrating the very best in crime on TV and in books and film
Brand new crime magazine bags exclusive Sherlock stuff, James Ellroy, Steven Moffat on Columbo and much more…
The issue with the Ellroy interview isn’t available online, but there are print and digital editions.
The Gutter of Babel
Perfidia will be published in Poland in September, Hungary in October, and Greece in early 2016.
Is True Detective season 2 a James Ellroy rip-off?
“The second series of HBO's acclaimed drama True Detective has met a lukewarm reception from fans since airing in June; now viewers are accusing it of borrowing some of its distinctive features from the crime writer James Ellroy.
A Reddit thread begun on July 11 points out many alleged similarities of the show to the work of Los Angeles-based author James Ellroy, specifically his four novels known as the ‘LA Quartet', the best known of which is 1990’s L.A. Confidential, which was made into a 1997 film starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe and Kim Basinger.”
See Los Angeles’ Rough Past With Crime Author James Ellroy
“It was 1953. Eisenhower was in the white house. The New York Yankees won the World Series for the fifth year consecutively. The theme music for the television series, “Dragnet,” rose to the top of the Billboard charts. It was also the year that Los Angeles had a record number of homicides—and more than twice as many suicides.”
We Talked to the Godfather of Crime Fiction, James Ellroy, About the Dark Days of the LAPD
“We called up Ellroy at the Los Angeles Police Museum where the author, who speaks with same shit-talking, machine-gun wit as his characters, was in pugnacious form. We asked him whether poring over sixty-year-old photos of mutilated corpses got his creative juices flowing, whether LA is still a ‘perv zone' and if he really thinks that the American police can go on without reform after the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and so many others.”
NOIR CITY 6—James Ellroy Intro to Dalton Trumbo Doublebill
“With arms akimbo and legs planted firmly apart, James Ellroy delivered a hardboiled (and hilarious!) introduction to Noir City’s doublebill of ‘Gun Crazy' (1950) and ‘The Prowler' (1951), both written by the infamously-blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Not only is Trumbo the uncredited screenwriter on The Prowler—screened at Noir City in a sprarkling new restoration print—but his voice can be heard as the voice of John Gilvray, the night-time radio DJ.”