L.A. Confidential

The genuine lowdown, a cop and a millionaire pick up Mickey Cohen’s racket once he’s arrested. The trappings are representative, blackmail and transportation are the principal domain, and there are the “hookers cut to look like movie stars”. Jack Webb wears an excrementitious crown, mutatis mutandis.

The screenplay was designed in stages for maximum clarity, the main virtue of the direction.

Jerry Goldsmith’s theme moves up to On the Waterfront throughout.

A scene in rain is out of The Big Sleep, Exley’s interrogation is a lucid moment.

The structure has a false bottom that reveals “a real big” dead rat beneath the floor in Elysian Park (“San Berdoo” in a draft).