The difference between L.A. Confidential the book and L.A. Confidential the movie
Firstly, apologies for my four-month absence, but I have been doing some editing for a friend and it sucked up a fair bit of blogging time. On the plus side, I now know how to edit a doctorate and I now know a lot more than before about the architecture of nations that have been colonised by the Portugese than I did before.On-topic, it would probably be quicker for me to tell you what is the same about the book and the movie: "The first third. Kinda."
An abandoned auto court in the San Berdoo foothills; Buzz Meeks checked in with ninety-four thousand dollars, eighteen points of high-grade heroin, a 10-gauge pump, a .38 special, a .45 automatic, and a switchblade he'd bought off a pachuco at the border - right before he spotted the car parked across the line: Mickey Cohen goons in an LAPD unmarked, Tijuana cops standing by to bootjack a piece of his goodies, dump his body in the San Ysidro River.
If you're a fan of the stylish, brilliantly cast neo-noir film do not waste a minute getting this book. You might think with the quality crime oozing from shelves these days there is no point reading a crime novel from 1990 that is set in the 1950s but you're dead wrong. This is hands down one of the best crime novels I've ever read (and dude, I have read a boatload).
And it is way, way, way different from the film. I finished this book, with lots of "oh my Gods" and goosebumps, wondering how the hell they were going to fit a plot like that into the movie (which I'd seen long enough ago not to remember the plot too well) so of course I immediately forced StuMo to watch it with me, though he did not take a lot of forcing because it's pretty rare to get me to sit still for two and a half hours these days.
So the answer to how to fit a plot like that into the movie was, of course, not to. You think you know the story of L.A. Confidential? What you know is basically a subplot of the grand, horrible, confronting, sordid, brain-teasing, almost impossibly complex story that spans decades. You'll just about need to keep a notebook next to you. By comparison, it makes the characters in the movie look two-dimensional and the plot like child's play, safe and tame. And this from a person who loved the movie.
On reading, you'll not only be rewarded by not only a BONUS NEW ENDING and eye-popping violence but the inimitable, sometimes virtually incomprehensible but always awesome L.A.P.D lingo that plunges you headfirst into a time and a place that is long gone (and full of hinky hopheads) but forever exhilarating.
Bonus fact: this is part of James Ellroy's L.A. Quartet, which also comprises The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere and White Jazz. I've only read The Black Dahlia, which was also dark and strong, but it didn't knock my socks off like this did. The others I'll get to, but next up for me is Ellroy's My Dark Places: an L.A. Crime Memoir.