Inside L.A. Confidential (1997): Policing, Politics, and Power Plays

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Beyond the Big Screen Podcast with your host
Steve Guera. Thank you for listening to Beyond the Big
Screen Podcast, where we talk about great movies and stories
so great they should be movies. Find show notes, links
to subscribe and leave Apple podcast reviews by going to

(00:23):
our website Beyond the Big Screen dot com. And now
let's go Beyond the Big Screen.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Big Screen
featuring yet again author and podcaster Frank Scalise and former
police officer which will and not only police officer, but
high ranking police officials. So I think that all of
this experience will definitely play into what we're going to

(00:53):
talk about today, which is the film and book La Confidential.
Just really quickly. The book is from nineteen ninety in
the film from nineteen ninety seven. Frank, I believe I
don't remember if you brought up this book or a
book slash movie or if I did, but I think
it was a great choice for this theme that we

(01:15):
have rolling here of crime fiction and the place where
crime and fiction meet.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, almost the crime fiction that could be true crime
sort of film genre. You know, I can't remember who
brought this up to be honest with you, we were
throwing several titles back and forth, and this one it
was such a no brainer for both of us because
it's such a it's a very the film is very,

(01:46):
very much in the time that it is set. I mean,
they did a great job of giving the feel for
the nineteen fifties Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
And speaking of that film that they call it and
the book as well, neo a war crime drama. And
I'd never really heard the genre described as such, have you.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
Yeah, it's a term in the crime fiction world.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
And probably there are some officionados out there that are
gonna yell at me for getting this wrong. But if
you think of the noir as like the Postman Always
Rings Twice and and you know films like this from
the thirties and the forties, and you know the the
Bogart films and and you know Sam Spade, the Raymond

(02:29):
Chandler films, films made from the from the Chandler novels,
these are noir, you know, this is this is the uh.
And then a film genre obviously came of this as well.
Neo noir is just in my understanding anyways, just uh.
The updated version of that it's a it's you know,

(02:53):
looking at it through the lens of today, and and
sometimes set in today or or maybe the nineties or something,
you know, not necessarily set in the nineteen forties. Although this,
you know, this is in the fifties, so it's not
that far afield. I also think that, you know, in
noir novels of the past and the films of the past,

(03:14):
because of the Hayes Code and because of other social norms,
you know, the the violence was pretty toned down. The
sexuality was heavily implied, but usually was only you know,
maybe a kiss and a slightly plunging neckline, and the

(03:34):
you know, profanity was very limited as well. And in
neo noir, none of those restrictions really apply either. So
that might not be a perfect definition by any means.
Like I said, there are some friends of mine who
are really experts on this that would be groaning and
rolling their eyes right now. But you know, we're landing
in the compass direction of what we're talking about.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah, I felt like this movie in particular, and the
book it got that it walk that line just right
where it wasn't. It didn't paper over any of the grittiness,
and it didn't way overplay the grittiness either, that it
didn't go into where some of that noir and some

(04:17):
of these things can go into an almost horror direction,
where I think that this stayed true to it where
it felt almost like history. The author of the book,
James Elroy, He's written a pretty fair balance of fiction
and nonfiction books, so I think that he brings in

(04:40):
a real realistic element into the book and into the movie.

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yeah, he's written a.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
Number in this setting and around this time period. He
wrote another one called The Black Dahlia. They made it
into a movie at one point as well.

Speaker 4 (04:56):
But the book is.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
I think it's set in the forties and it's very
similar in tone to La Confidential. This is his wheelhouse,
you know, a vintage La historical La. The gritty crime
scene and the true crime of the same.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
El Roy himself, his mother, he's La Native, lives and
loves and breathes every bit of La Los Angeles, and
his mother was murdered in the nineteen fifties. Possibly they
never it's an unsolved murder to this day, and he's

(05:35):
drawn a couple of links that maybe it was related
to the Black Dahlia. But it was definitely not a
murder of a jilted lover or any of the typical
things you would think of. I'm sure as a police officer,
ninety nine percent of murders or somebody you know, over something,
it's pretty easy to track down this was from. There

(05:57):
was no links to any of the kind of the
usual suspects of a murder, and there's kind of links
that it might have been towards a serial killer type situation,
and that informs this book and movie as well.

Speaker 3 (06:11):
Yeah, and you have to think that it must have
had an incredibly you know, powerful impact on the author.
I mean, losing a parent to the homicide is traumatizing.
And you know, I don't remember how old he was
when she died, but to lose your mother at an
age where you know, probably the mother is the primary

(06:34):
parent in terms of where you're getting your nurturing from
at that age, you know, I just and then, you know,
like for any victim, you know, we make fun of
the term closure a lot these days, you know, and
it's one of those you know, overused terms that has
had some blowback and some pushback in recent years where
people going to make fun of it. But we're you know,

(06:55):
where the death of somebody at a homicide is concerned,
closure for the family is a is actually a very
real and important thing. And getting you know, who did it,
and them getting arrested and them going to trial and
hopefully being convicted.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
You know, these different.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Steps of the process provide varying degrees of closure for
these these family members. And he didn't even get to
the first step, like, he didn't even get to the
identity of the suspect. And so it says, I have
to imagine it's this giant, gaping open wound in his soul.
And I mean, I don't mean to be pretentious by
saying that or or you know, hyperbolic, but I mean

(07:36):
I think it would be. And I think it's represented
in what he's written and how he's written it that
it that it is. I think that the books and
the and the movies that were adapted from those books
make it pretty plain.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Another part of that that, especially for somebody, and I'm
sure it has to have something, it has to come
into his writing, is that when something happens to somebody
who's young, I think he was maybe in his tweens.
If I'm remembering this correctly, so not quite a teenager yet,

(08:11):
but a little bit older than just a strict child. Oftentimes,
even if there is closure of the death of a
parent or a death of somebody like that, they'll revisit
that at different developmental levels when they're a teenager, and
it'll be almost like it's completely fresh again. And you

(08:33):
can see that if you have any if you're saying
a profession where you deal with children a lot, and
you've seen that a child who's gone through some sort
of trauma or death of a parent, that they do
have these almost points where it's it's like it's completely
been revisited again when they're an early teenager, mid teenager,

(08:54):
and into adulthood, and it usually takes until you're fully
developed cognitively until they can really deal with that.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
It never goes away. I don't think I won't say
who it is, but I know someone who's lost her
mother when her mother was in her early fifties, and
so she would have been around thirty. And as as
the different stages of her life, you know, every decade

(09:27):
or so, as you enter a different kind of stage
of your life, you would look to your parents for
something different you know, you know, you look to your
parents on how to become an adult. Then you become
adult and then have kids, you look to your parents
of how to be a parent. And then you know,
you become your kids grow up and they move out,
and now you are looking to your parents for advice
on how to deal with that change of life. And

(09:48):
then maybe you know, when you hit the stage of
you know, menopause. How how did you know you're going
through menopause? Your mother is a is a confidant, in
a mentor at every stage of life because she's your mother,
and because she's you know, twenty twenty five years ahead
of the game, you know, and has that experience. And

(10:10):
I mean just before we started this podcast, I was
on the phone with my thirty year old daughter and
we still have a very strong relationship, but it's different
obviously than when she was a kid, and she's looking
for something different from me now than when she was
twenty you know.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
And so.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
As as you hit these different stages of life, the
absence of your you know, parent, I think has felt
very keenly once again, because that's one more thing that
you don't get to experience with them because they were
taken away too young, and you know, natural death is
one thing, or illness is one thing, and that's hard enough.
I think when somebody's murdered, it's like that was very purposeful.

(10:52):
Like you could say, oh, you know, my mom got
cancer and died, and I guess that was very purposeful
on the part.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
Of the universe.

Speaker 3 (10:59):
But it feels different, you know, when it's purposeful on
the part of some evil person who took her life
for very selfish reasons.

Speaker 4 (11:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Absolutely, getting into the movie, just a real quick overview.
It was the movie came out in nineteen ninety seven,
and it was a really incredible cast, and you can
go on to IMDb or Wikipedia and see the entire cast,
but if you just run through some of the top players,
Guy Pierce, Russell Crowe, James Cromwell, Kevin Spacey, Kim Basinger,

(11:32):
Danny DeVito, David Strathhan, and then some people who you
would probably recognize really easily, even if you couldn't put
your finger right on their name, Ron Rifkin, Graham beckall
an incredible cast and one of the things that really
struck me about the cast is if you put yourself,
if you're able to back into nineteen ninety seven, Russell

(11:55):
Crowe had basically just hit the scene at that point,
and if I am not mistaken, this was more or
less Guy Pierce's first big American role. So these a
couple of these people like Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe,
who are the top two people on the playbill, were
pretty much brand new to the American acting scene. And

(12:19):
they're both Australian New Zealand, so they were foreign actors
of a sort that just completely blew up in the
Hollywood scene with this movie.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, I was definitely a coming out party for them.
I can't remember if Guy Pearce was in Memento before
or after this, but if you haven't seen that movie,
that's an outstanding concept movie. But he definitely wasn't a
big name in Russell Crowe obviously had done Master and

(12:54):
Commander and hadn't done Gladiator yet, and so this was
his coming out as well. And I think it was
also a bit of a renaissance for for Kim basing
Or she'd kind of fallen out of you know, from
the mid to late eighties. She was an it girl
kind of and she'd fallen out of favor a little
bit and this was kind of her resurgence. Name wise, Yeah,

(13:16):
he was probably the biggest name. I mean, everybody knew
who James Cromwell was by his face, but probably nobody
knew his name. I would imagine, you know, he's one
of those actors and that guy's got such a just
didn aside, that guy's got such an eclectic acting career.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
It's amazing. But if you if.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
You look at I just pulled up IMDb here while
we're talking here for or Kevin Spacey and and you know,
he had had the usual Suspects already at this point,
and he'd been in Seven and a Time to Kill.
These were all pretty big movies. He's got a lot
of stuff before that, but those were his big three
before that. So you know, I'd say he was like

(13:58):
an emerging big stars at the time.

Speaker 4 (14:04):
And I think you're probably right.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Of all of them, he was probably the biggest male actor,
and then in Basinger was clearly the biggest email actor.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Now we're sort of our goals today is we're going
to get into spoilers, which if you're new to be
on the big screen, welcome, And we're going to get
into spoilers and If you've been around, you know that
we do spoilers, so I really do suggest watch the movie,
listen to this episode, then watch the movie again, and
it'll give yourself something more to think about. And we'll

(14:36):
get into some comparisons and contrasts to the book and
a really high level, because you could go into a
whole thing about that, but I think that there are
some interesting comparisons. And then we're going to really get
into something that we talk a lot about, especially with Frank,
is themes of police corruption and personal corruption, and think

(14:59):
about there's not one kind of police corruption, and we'll
get into it that each one of these characters really
had their own brand of corruption. Then we'll get into
some of their reasons for corruption, and then we'll just
as we go through, we'll bring in a lot of
discussion of the whole crime fiction genre in general. And

(15:23):
I think in your ten thousand foot view, Frank, what
did you think about corruption in this film? And we
had talked a little bit even off air, and this
theme has come up in some of your books as well,
like Silence of the Dead corruption in different eras of history,
and we're solidly in this right after World War two,

(15:46):
time period, how does corruption evolve? I guess in history.
Steve here with a quick word from our sponsors, Well,
that's a.

Speaker 3 (15:59):
Huge question, and I wish I were more of an
expert to give a better answer. I have a theory
on how police corruptions evolved and and and I'll try
to make it as brief as possible because people have
to realize. Let me say, first and foremost, as someone
who was a police officer and someone who continues to

(16:21):
work in in.

Speaker 4 (16:22):
In the.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
In the profession as a as a private consultant, I
have the utmost respect for members of the profession. I
think it's a noble profession, and I think it's a
very necessary one, and it's a job that very few
people can do and do well, and and so I
am definitely pro police. I'm also pro accountability, of course,

(16:46):
but I think that the national discussion has been a
bit skewed in its objectivity when it comes to the
majority of police officers. And certainly you can point to
one or two or even a dozen different events over
the course of a few years, not nationwide, and be

(17:09):
very correct in saying that was a bad act. At
the same time, there are hundreds of thousands of police
officers doing millions of contacts a year, and so by
and large, the profession does a really good job at
what they're being asked to do. So that's my caveat
as we go into this, because I would not want

(17:30):
to leave anybody with the impression that I'm anti police
in any way whatsoever.

Speaker 4 (17:33):
Quite the contrary.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
But I think that you have to be honest as well.
Like when we do screw up as a profession, you
have to say that was a mistake, that officer behaved badly,
or that was poorly communicated, or that's.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
A bad law.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
It should be changed, or that's a bad procedure, it
shouldn't be done, or it was poorly applied. I mean,
we have to be honest as a profession because sometimes
it's hard when everybody's criticizing you to be willing to
criticize yourself as well, because you're always on the defensive
because you know, maybe nine times out of ten the
criticism being leveled at you.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
You know it's not accurate.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
You know you know that that somebody is giving you
that criticism without the benefit of a lot of context
and knowledge, and you just have to eat it. If
you're in public service a lot of the time, and
that can be very frustrating, and so then you become
defensive and you're not willing to be quite as critical
of yourself as maybe you should be.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
And so I think it's an important first step. And
you see that in this movie.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
You know, the chief is trying to do that as
best he can in a couple of scenes. But if
you go back historically, I mean, I know you're a
big history guy, Steve, and I know US history isn't
your top topic, but I know you're pretty well versed
on different parts of US history. But the police have
been used as a tool, as a political tool for

(18:58):
a lot of the early stages of of of our existence.
I mean, they were slave catchers, they were there were
tools of the political machine in the large cities. And
so when when the ideals of the society wanted to
move the place away from that usage, you know, the

(19:19):
the vestiges of that clung to the to the profession.
And so if you go back East, the policing is
a little bit different, and it's tied in a little
bit more still to politics maybe than it is in
some places in the West, just because of the historical
uh uh, you know, repercussions and ramifications there, and so

(19:44):
that's part of it, right, is is some of the
biggest corruption we have in any profession or any place
in our country is because that's the way we've always
done it right, and people don't stop to ask why
why is bud why getting free liquor from the liquor store,
you know, and where cops are concerned, I think if
you go back to like maybe the forties or the thirties,

(20:06):
and you had the cop on the beat, which was
actually a good method of policing because that officer got
to know everybody and got to create relationships, and so
people had actually talked to him about what was going on,
and he knew what was going on, so when a
crime occurred, he probably hadn't solved as soon as he
heard it most of the time. But they also weren't

(20:26):
paid very well, and so there was a lot of Hey,
I'm gonna make sure that the cop has lunch. He
can eat at my diner once a week for free,
and that's how I'm going to.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
Help support our neighborhood officer on the beat.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
And that's all well intentioned and probably much needed type
of service or of a gift or what everyone to
call it support. And over time, you know, that kind
of thing starts to get expected, and as the officers
start making a little bit more money, particularly post World
War Two, now it's not maybe quite as necessary. And

(21:03):
yet the norm is there, the tradition is there, the
habit is there, becomes part of the culture, and we're
very very protective of our cultural norms as a people,
you know, and we don't make change it. Change is
not an easy thing. And so hey, you know, I
don't you know, own a diner. I own a liquor store.

(21:26):
So you know what, once a week I'm willing to
give the neighborhood coppa pint so he can have have
himself a shot of whiskey at night before he goes
to bed, you know, when he goes home off shift
or whatever.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
You know, that's how that that starts.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
And then you know, by the time we get to
the nineteen fifties, we've got Bud White shown up to
get a box of liquor at Christmas, you know, on
the arm. And so you know, so how does corruption occur?
Very insidiously and very slowly, and most of the time
without specific intent to be corrupt. And that's just doesn't

(22:01):
apply just to policing. It applies to, I think to
every profession. I mean, your teacher. And corruption exists in education,
and it doesn't happen because somebody goes to become a
teacher and decides that they they're you know, they're not
like a D and D character, and they're rolling up
their character. Oh my class is a teacher, but I'm
going to be corrupt, you know, And then they go
be a corrupt teacher, right, I mean it's they start

(22:23):
out as if if anything is idealistic and and and
I think that brings something into the picture that that
that plays in this film a lot, and that is
that you have police culture, which is its own thing,
but it exists within the larger culture of the city,
which of course exists within the larger culture of the
state in the country. But well, let's just keep it

(22:45):
at the city level for now. You know, La has
its own culture in that time period, and and and
the police exist within that culture. And so what's normal and.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
Okay in nineteen fifty fifty.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Four or so, I guess something like that. So what
was okay then is a lot different than what's okay now,
and what those norms were within that culture really informed
how the police would would operate. I mean, there's a
reason why the police are very different today than they

(23:24):
were in nineteen fifty and that and part of that
reason is because the larger culture of the places that
they police are different today. And so we'll get into
it some more, but I wanted to throw that out
there at the very beginning, that these.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
Events occur and these.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Ideas exist, and these methods of performing the job happen
because of what the police culture is at the time,
but that exists within the larger culture of the city,
and that's important to remember.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Yeah, I think you will and you get into some
thing in there that there's corruption, which in a in
a way is maybe more absolute. There's certain things that
would have been corrupt at any time period, and then
you have things that maybe a more gray area, a
thing that's a more moving target of unethical behavior, and

(24:23):
that certainly changes with time and changes in culture, which
also with policing, blends into a something that again is
a ven diagram of justice and legality. In this film
and book really play with all of those what's corrupt

(24:45):
what's what's unethical, what's illegal? How do you find justice
for a crime? And then what is the a proper
legal outcome. Just the one character that we could look
at is Bud White. He's one of the three main
detectives and he was played by Russell Crowe. He in

(25:09):
a Waste sort of represents Elroy in that Bud White
saw his mother murdered and he has a real problem
with men who abuse women and men who kill women.
So he'll follow somebody if they get out of prison
on parole. And he goes and beats the snot out

(25:30):
of a guy right in the movie because he had
just heard that he was beating his wife again. And
that's something. Yes, that's justice in a lot of ways,
but even back then, that was not how the legal
system was going to deal with it. But it was
also kind of okay, Like nobody had a gigantic problem
with him doing that.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
So there's a perfect example, Steve that like if you asked,
if you looked at that, officially, he'd be fired and
or arrested. Right, he assaulted that guy, but nobody had
a problem with it. That's the larger culture in action,
and that's I think I made a note to bring
that up here, and so I'm glad you did. But

(26:13):
he's so he's doing that because it's his personal thing.

Speaker 4 (26:17):
It's his thing.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
He's got a thing for for, you know, damsels in distress,
and there's a reason for it, and he takes extraordinary
action when they're being abused.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
That's his character.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Well, you know, I mean, he goes to that guy's house,
he you know, jerks his decorations down, and when the
guy comes out, he starts a fight with him and
then handcuffs him to his own porch.

Speaker 4 (26:41):
I think most people when they see that.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
Are like, hey, good for him, we need cops like that,
and everybody thinks things like that. But then, you know,
and that's why when we think, hey, it's okay if
he broke the rules a little bit or stretched the
rules a little bit, but it was for a noble cause,
it was for a good reason, and the ends just
a by the means here, Well that's okay thinking until

(27:04):
you don't agree that the end was justified or that
the means were too extreme, or he's not infallible. Well
you know, I mean, in this case, he watched the
guy smacking his wife around, but what if he just
heard a rumor, enacted on it and turned out it
was started by the guy's mistress or jealous sister, or

(27:24):
you know, somebody that he had business dealings with and
the guy wanted.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
To set him up or whatever.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
I mean, it's relying on, you know, a human human
infallibility which doesn't exist, and so he's going to make
a mistake.

Speaker 4 (27:37):
That's why we have laws, because then everybody's playing by
these same rules.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
But I think that that event ties in really nicely
to what Captain Dudley Smith asks actually pretty early on
in the movie, right after Bloody Christmas, where he asks him,
you know, would you be willing to plant corroborative evidence
on the man you knew to be guilty? Would you
be willing to be a confession out of a man

(28:02):
you knew to be guilty?

Speaker 4 (28:03):
Would you be willing?

Speaker 3 (28:04):
He starts asking these these questions, which are classic noble
cause corruption questions, the idea that somebody commits a corrupt
act and objectively corrupt act, planting evidence, changing a report,
these things. Nobody would agree that that that's not a
corrupt act, that that's wrong, but they do it for

(28:25):
quote unquote the right reasons. And so I always use
the example of you know, you you arrest a child
molester who confesses to molesting five kids, and you forget
to read him as rights, and so then halfway through
you stop and read him his rights and he shuts up,

(28:46):
and and so you're going to lose all of that
unless you write in your report that you read him
as rights from the very beginning. And who cares. It's
a technicality, it's a you know, it's a procedural error.
Doesn't change the fact of whether or not he's guilty.
It doesn't change the fact of whether or not he
confessed to that. It doesn't change what the victims went through.

(29:07):
I mean, people can get behind this pretty easily, like, yeah,
screw that guy. But that's how it starts, you know,
And then you know, once you start down that path,
the danger exists of the slippery slope concept coming into play. Now,
most officers will will never even take that first step.

Speaker 4 (29:27):
They'll just be like, they'll eat it.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
I screwed up, and I'm gonna have to live with it. Occasionally,
someone might make that first step in an extraordinary circumstance
and have to live with that. Very few proceed past that.
But when it does occur, that's how it occurs. Usually,
Usually people cops, just like teachers, don't come on and
say I'm gonna, you know, beat up my kids or

(29:50):
I'm going to have an affair with one of my
thirteen year olds or something like Mary kay Lit Durno.
I mean, people don't go to teaching to do that.
People don't become cops to kick in a drug dealer's
door and steal money from their safe and you know
or whatever. How does it get to that point in
you know, step by bitter step, it's how it happens.
And so but in the this question that these questions

(30:15):
that Dudley Smith is asking, Xley shows you that that
practice in nineteen fifty early fifties in LA, in this
fictional version that Elroy's created, the culture is such that
those are norms, those are expectations. We're not going to
talk about them, We're not going to admit to them
in the public, and I won't go in your official report.

(30:37):
But you are expected, if you're going to be a detective,
to be willing to do these things for the greater good. Well,
that's not just LAPD culture. You know that that couldn't
exist if it weren't for the larger culture as well.
So I think those questions that he asked actually and
Exley's responses, I mean, I think that's a key moment,

(30:57):
particularly early on.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
And we can talk about xly Edmon Exley. He's the
sort of he comes out of the gate as the
golden boy. He's clean cut. And the bloody Christmas episode
that you talk about where the police, the bud Smith
gets all that liquor and they have a Christmas party
in the station house and they all get drunk and

(31:23):
one circumstance leads to another and they beat up all
the prisoners in the lock up at that point, and
Ad is the one who goes and blows it all up.
And they really want almost everybody wants to just sweep
it under the rug. But the chief is a reformer chief,
and he knows that they have to do something. And

(31:44):
they have this guy who's willing to rat out all
of his brother officers, and you get the initially get
the point, Well, he's just a straight arrow, and he's
going to tell it exactly the way it is, and
he's going to be a completely quote unquote by the
book kind of guy.

Speaker 4 (32:03):
Yeah, but he's really more of a political animal.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
You you figure that out as soon as that scene's
over for sure, the way he handles it in the
chief's office, and he's he's a climber, he's looking out
for himself and and and so it's interesting you made
a note in the in the outline here and and
I think is pretty brilliant. And that's that each of
these characters, they each have their own specific corruption path

(32:28):
and flavor. And you know, so what was the noble
cause corruption that occurred for Axley? Actually, he tells us
later in the movie, he came to the job, you know,
to try to help people and to try to live
up to the to the image of his own father,
who he also lost rather young, much like Bud White
lost his mom. And somewhere along the way it became

(32:50):
more about personal and grandizement and his own career progression
and becoming an outdoing his father. And that was the
corruption in spirit. And then of course he took corrupt
acts to support that, uh and that so that was
kind of his path. Whereas White, you know, he came
on to protect women, you know, to he came on

(33:11):
to uh a punish his father by proxy repeatedly, and
that's what he's been doing. And somewhere along the line,
he he you know, realized that there's more too too
existing than than you know, repeating that cycle over and
over again. And he actually, you know, he finds some

(33:33):
true emotional connection with Ben Bracken, and uh, you know,
he has some growth there. Uh. He's also got this
anger issue that's kind of fun. You know, he's he's
he's a hot tempered guy and watching him go after
actually uh in the middle of the street, you know,
I mean, that's high drama right there. And and I've
heard stories of that kind of thing happening, uh, you know,

(33:56):
all the way up into it. I came on in
ninety three and I never saw it happen or heard
of it happening. But guys that I worked with that
were older, that came on in the seventies, you know,
reported a couple of things like that occurring, you know,
blow ups between cops on the scene, you know, well
into the nineteen eighties before you know, they got a
little more circumspect about it and took their arguments behind

(34:16):
closed doors.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
I can see that possibility really happening though with Ed Exley.
One of the things that they got into they' only
touched on it in the movie is that he was
a war hero with the World War Two was just
a few years earlier. The book, they get into it
a little bit more, and I thought that it was

(34:40):
appropriate for me to come up at this point is
he admits to at least to himself, that it was
a kind of a what we might call today a
stolen valor situation. He got all these metals for something
he reported that he had done that was quite heroic,
but that actually didn't happen. And he even goes a

(35:01):
step further he had totally staged an event. So I
think that the book is really trying to really show
his character that he will scheme to do anything. And
we're starting to see that some of these famous there's
military influencers who are on all these different they have

(35:23):
YouTube programs and stuff like that, and it's a couple
of them that's come out that they've had incidents that
weren't exactly true, and then they say, well, it was true.
But there's a lot of incentive for people to make
things up, especially if you're an uber type a person

(35:43):
who wants to further their career. Like Ed Exley, there
is a lot of incentive and I think maybe in policing,
especially at an earlier time, you get a lot of
uber type A people who won uber type. They people
get into conflict, it's going to get heated up really quickly.

(36:06):
They're not going to say, well, let's step aside for
a few minutes and I'll go into my corner and
think about it, and you go into the corner and
think about it, and then we'll come to an agreement.
They're going to have a flash point.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
They go to their corners to put to take the
gloves off and then come back to the center of
the rain and start punching.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, exactly, Steve here with a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
And you know, in the nineteen fifties, you know, the
ideal candidate for policing was you know, you know, tall, strong,
you know, prototype alpha male, you know, and many people
who were of an age to do that job had

(36:53):
a military experience, and so there was a lot of
that culture that seeped in and so you know, you know,
you can't you can't hire a particular kind of person
in droves and then be surprised when a particular culture
develops around.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
Those same people.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
And you know, and you know, let's be clear too,
I mean, if you're a civilian, and this isn't true
of every civilian, I'm making a general, you know, sweeping
generalization here, but in general, what does the public want
from their police? You know, they want someone who can
provide safety and and or impose order on a chaotic situation,

(37:34):
make them feel safe again if they feel temporarily unsafe,
and so, you know, it's particularly where the culture of
the country and of the of LA was at the
time nineteen fifty four. Let's just say, when something happens
and a police officer shows up, it's it's comforting that
that guy is six foot tall with broad shoulders and

(37:57):
a square jaw and a deep voice, and and you know,
and this kind of so, I mean, that's what people
are looking for because of the stereotype and because of
the way the culture was. Now, I still think there's
an element of that that's true today. I think we're
a little more evolved in that you could have a
five foot two female show up, and if she exudes
confidence and competence, you'll get the same feeling of safety

(38:21):
and restoration of safety. But you know, policing can be
a very primal profession at times. And by that I
mean the stuff that you have to engage in, but
I also mean what kind of emotions the people you
encounter are going through. And you know, the closer we
get to the amygdala, you know, the less evolved that

(38:44):
we are, literally, and so you know, we might want
certain things from our place that maybe when we're not
in that type of a situation, we might think otherwise,
we might think we want something different. And so you
know Bud White and it was kind of you know,

(39:08):
you wouldn't have complained if Bud White came to take
care of your situation. Actually, on the other hand, you know,
he's always looking. He's what's in it for me guy
at that stage, and he you know, what can I
do to further my own you know, career here?

Speaker 4 (39:22):
How does this situation benefit me?

Speaker 3 (39:26):
Whereas I think Bud White, he I mean he's doing
that indirectly because if he's seeking out an abuser and
and having some revenge on that person, he's he is
feeding his own psychosis, you know, his own psychological need.
But it's a little more round about because he's mostly
thinking about benefiting that victim. And if you notice when

(39:48):
he comforts or speaks to the victims, he's not a
predator about it at all, Like he's not doing it
so that he can take the place of the abuser.
He's very chivalric about it. He's very uh caretaker, ask
about it, you know, do you have a place to go?

Speaker 4 (40:08):
You know, with the one woman.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
And then when when later when they find the victim
of sexual assault tied to the bed, you know, I mean,
he undoes her, uh her bindings and covers her in
a blanket and strokes her hair and whispers to her,
you know, I mean, he's he's all about caring for
the victim. So in a way, I think you can
argue that his own psychological need to do that aside,

(40:32):
he's pretty noble in what he's trying to do, even
though he engages in some unethical behavior.

Speaker 4 (40:40):
To get there.

Speaker 2 (40:43):
Then the third person in the in this triad, maybe
there's one more we could talk about, but the third
main one is Jack Vincen's. He's the one who's played
by Kevin Spacey, and he's really if you want to
think about like typical classical what you would a masked
police corruption. That's him. He's really all he's about is

(41:04):
filling his pockets. He's the he's based on it really
loosely a couple of police officers from the LAPD who
were They were helpful in some of the early television
programs about the police, like Dragnet and those sorts of things,
and he makes money that way. He makes money by

(41:27):
arresting hopheads and drug addicts, which would have today, I'm
sure every single That's another thing we could get into.
Basically everything that Jackman sends arrested for people for in
nineteen fifties is entirely legal today, with the marijuana and
with sex work and things like that. Yeah, but he's

(41:50):
making money off of arresting famous Hollywood actors who have
been set up in many cases and then selling that
to ossip brag. So I think in a lot of
ways his is the most vanilla corruption. But then in
a way he turns into somebody who's maybe the most
moral of any of them, at least in the film.

Speaker 4 (42:14):
Yeah, he's all about ego.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
I mean, he's lying in his pockets too, but I
think a lot of what's driving him as ego, he
likes being part of the Hollywood scene, part of the
TV scene. He likes being the guy that is behind
the badge, you know, of the Badge of Honor show,
and you know, it really matters to him so much

(42:36):
so that when he's brought in to be questioned after
the bloody Christmas scandal, he says, I'm not going to testify.
That's the lever that they use to get him to
testify as they're going to take him off the show,
and he plays ball, he can be back on the
show as technical advisor. So you know, that position as
technical advisor both gives him the financial gain that he's

(42:58):
looking for. But if I think more than that, the ego,
you know, being splashed on the front of Hush Hush
magazine and all that really really feeds his ego. And
and you know, when I watched this, I watched this
just last night. Uh, the last time I watched it
was you know, for the show here. And one of

(43:20):
the lines that struck me that I didn't remember from
earlier watchings was when Exley has his moment near the
end of the movie there that they have a shootout
at the Victory Motel, and.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
There I think that's where it was.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
But either way, they're having a conversation and and actually says,
you know, tells him about Rolo Tomasi, and he tells
him about you know, why he became a cop and
how how it changed, and he asks Jack Vincen's you know,
why did you become a cop? And Kevin Spacey, I
know he's a problematic actor for sure, but just looking

(44:00):
at the artist, phenomenal actor, and he's been in some
great movies. It's hard for me not to watch them,
you know, because you have to try to separate the
art from the artist, I guess. But he did a
great job in this moment where he just kind of
tears up a little bit and just a little bit,
but it's there, and he says it with this just

(44:21):
heartbreaking tone.

Speaker 4 (44:23):
I don't remember, And.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
To me, that's even worse. That's even more heartrending than
Exley's story, because actually he knows what he wanted to
do in the first places, so he has something he
can get back to. And vincenz has lost his way
so much that he doesn't even remember, you know, why
he entered the forest to begin with, Like he's just

(44:45):
totally lost. And that was just heartbreaking, I thought, and
very well well written and well performed. I will say
this about Jack Vincenn's he's probably the most brutally honest.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
About who he is to everybody.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
He doesn't try to hide who he is to anyone,
and I guess White doesn't either, actually kind of does
to a degree, But I would vote Vincens as the
most transparent of the three.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
I think too, with Vincennes, the things that he's doing
are unethical, they're corrupt, they're even in that day, illegal,
but they're he's not really hurting anyone. These people were
people that they had broken the law at that time,

(45:35):
and he's just making more of it to enrich himself.
And I think that with each one of these characters,
you have to evaluate for yourself in each circumstance, are
they getting towards something that is at least approaching something
like justice, and which each character at each scene you're like, Okay,

(45:57):
I can see that maybe they're they're doing something that
gets us towards at least some idea that their society
is going to be a little bit better at the
end of this of this a series of events.

Speaker 3 (46:15):
Yeah, you could you could argue that he's just attaching
a writer to the main bill that's going through, right.
I mean, these these folks are breaking the law. They're
going to be arrested for it. If I happen to
make a little money on the side and get my
picture taken and somebody gets a nice news.

Speaker 4 (46:32):
Story out of it.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Yeah, it makes these people's lives a little worse, but hey,
they knew the risk when they decided to break the law.
So you know, it's not quite victimless, but it's certainly
not as blatant as you know, the stuff Captain Smith
was doing, or even Bud White directly, you know, assaulting
people without you know, probably well without legal provocation to do. So,

(46:59):
you know, I don't think you could quite call it victimless,
but certainly, you know, he's just he's just tacking on
to what's already going on. And and again that ties
into my my whole point of the larger culture at work,
you know, I Mean, I think Vincenne's is the ultimate pragmatist.
From the outset of this movie. He recognizes, Okay, there's

(47:19):
a system in place that's way too big. It's like
it's like the ocean, It's like the economy. You know, I,
as a single entity cannot affect the way the ocean
waters flow or change the economic.

Speaker 4 (47:35):
Wins.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
You know, all I can do is elect how to
earn and spend my money.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
And so he kind of.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
Sees that, and and and so he said, you know, systems, all, well,
this is the way the culture's working.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
I can't change it, but I can profit from it.

Speaker 3 (47:52):
And I'm only going to profit from things that are
already happening anyway, So hey, where's the harm? And if
I happen to get my ego a boost along the way.
In other words, his his acts are uh a direct
response to the larger culture at play. And and so
really ties into what I was talking about there. And

(48:14):
and this was, you know, interestingly enough that this is,
like you said, a reform chief. He's trying to change
the image of L A. P D. That was a
real thing that really happened. I mean, Dragonnett really was
part of the you know, part of that effort. And
and the professionalization of policing was was an effort taken
on by a number of different chiefs, but certainly it

(48:35):
was a play at LA for quite some time, and
at least on the West Coast. I will say that
that we all looked at l a p D as
the benchmark. I mean, we even wore the same uniform. Uh,
that's as the l i PD did and Spokane. You know,
we most agencies in the in the West Coast region

(48:56):
looked at l a p D as well, what are
they doing? What's best practice? And if you're going to
deviate from that, you better have a very clearly defined
reason why and be able to support that, because they
kind of are the benchmark.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
You know.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Unfortunately along the way, they've had their number of scandals
because they're a large department than when you have, you know,
eight thousand people or however many working for you, you're
unfortunately going to have some of them make very bad choices.

Speaker 4 (49:25):
Somewhere along the way.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
LA two in the nineteen forties to the nineteen fifties
it needed serious reform the police department. You're taking a
city that was basically a tiny, tiny small town, and
in the nineteen fifties to nineteen seventies, the explosive growth
that that city went through. It went from base. It

(49:49):
had to go from nothing to being a fully functioning
city and basically no time period and a lot of
things could go wrong in that and I think that
La in a lot of ways turned itself into a
really well run city, at least that in that time period.

(50:12):
Things have changed in recent years, but in as far
as the city goes and how the infrastructure went, it
really did turn itself in a lot of ways into
a model city. I mean, so many people. I don't
know how it would be from somebody in the West Coast,
but having grown up in the East Coast and in
the Rust Belt, so many family members I can think of.

(50:36):
I had met one at a family reunion not too
long ago. Her husband died in an industrial accident in
the nineteen fifties in Buffalo. She had, like, you know,
the typical fifties family of like four or sixteen kids
type of situation, and she just didn't want to be
there anymore.

Speaker 4 (50:56):
She didn't want.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
To be where her husband had died and this miserable weather.
What do you do. You pack up all your kids
into the car and you head west to California. And
she settled in La, got married again, the whole thing.
And I think it's so many people that went through
in the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties into the nineteen seventies

(51:20):
that it was the place where you could go and
make yourself a new self again. And you saw that
with the people, and people were doing it for better
or for worse. Some of the people were going to
There was way too many mafia types in New York.
So where do you go, la where it's everything is

(51:41):
wide open and the weather is nice. I think so
many people did that at that time. Yeah, I think
you made a note in the outline that is where
you went to reinvent yourself.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
It was a land of second chances and having Halldy
would be there the land and TV staring to take off,
and certainly the movies existing there for like twenty years
at that point, thirty years if in the fifties. You know,
it was a land of hope and dreams for people,

(52:14):
you know, and of course so many of those hopes
and dreams were crushed. And you know that's pretty well
shown by but Lynn Bracken's character a little bit, but
also the Matt Matt character, the Kuiny that gets murdered
after they sent him to seduce the da you know,

(52:35):
I mean even says I didn't you know when I
came out here. I didn't see myself doing this, you know,
which I have to because as quick as I'd have
to say one of my favorite, my favorite two lines
from from.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
The movie in this rewatch.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
One of them was the I don't remember moment that
I talked about before. But the other one was when
Bud White and actually go to talk to the d
A and he kind of tries to give him the
brush off, and you know when Exley's approach doesn't work,
but takes his particular skill set and applies it, and
he's you know, goes and falls him into the bathroom.

Speaker 4 (53:13):
And the DA had said, you know.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
Who cares if some guy just got killed, you know,
some gay guy just got killed. You know, I mean,
there'll be ten more kind of getting off the bus
later today. And he grabs onto him, smacks some round,
shows his face and the toilet and everything, and he goes,
let's let's you know, let's remember this truth. You know,

(53:36):
if I take you out, ten more lawyers will be
ready to take your place by tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
They just want to arrive on the bus. I thought
that was a great line.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
LA in that time period reminds it. I live in
Austin now, and when we moved to Austin and within
the probably not a decade before, it was a small
Texas town where we lived in the nineties didn't even exist,
and now it's bustling suburbs. And where we moved here

(54:10):
in twenty twenty, places that were complete farm ranch land
are bustling suburbs now within three or four years. And
I think that that explosive growth, like you have to
you can think about it in an intellectual way, but
when you actually see it, and it's really cool to

(54:30):
see and new restaurants open up and all sorts of
cool stuff, but it causes a lot of change and
consternation too, where people who had grown up in these little,
you know, what was essentially little towns of a couple
of hundred people, now they're bustling suburbs of hundreds of
thousands of people. That changes a person in their mindset

(54:56):
for the person who came there, and it sets up
a lot of conflict between people who want to see
things in different ways. And I think that that is
what was happening in La at that time, like the
Bloody Christmas where they beat up these convicts or that
they're not even convicts at that point. They're just people
who had been arrested at some point.

Speaker 4 (55:17):
At some point.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
I'm sure a lot of people were like, well, you know,
that's just how things are done. And they were primarily
Mexicans in that who were getting beaten up. And I'm
sure there was a lot of people who were like, well, yeah,
they were Mexicans and they got beat up.

Speaker 4 (55:31):
So what.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
And then you have a new crop of people who
are like, yeah, you can't do that anymore. We're not
And that kind of conflict is bound to happen when
a place just explosively grows. Steve here again with a
quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
Yeah, and we always tend to see growth outstrip the
capabilities of the infrastructure to handle it. I mean that
the infrastructures always lacking behind. I mean that's happening in
my town right now in central Oregon. The growth is
is outstripping the you know, putting a lot of pressure

(56:11):
on the existing infrastructure. And so, you know, you see
it with you know, traffic congestion and and you know
the kind of thing and police services are one of
those things that get taxed, you know, fire services, the hospitals,
I mean, all these things is as you get more people,
you know, it's taxed. And so the explosive growth of

(56:32):
la I think is I wouldn't say unique, but uncommon.
I mean it was, it happened uncommonly fast. I mean
maybe Las Vegas is another example. But you know, I
think that this movie works really well. If if one
were to go back and watch Chinatown and then watch this,
I think the two would pair together really nicely because

(56:54):
although they're set, you know, roughly a decade apart, certainly
in two separate decades forties in the fifties, I think
you you'd see kind of some progression of how how
that growth has occurred and what the what the what
the impact of that growth was, because you know, I mean,
Chinatown is all about water rights ultimately. I mean spoiler alert,

(57:14):
but that's that's what what the uh Jack Nicholson's character discovers, uh.
And and that's something that you wouldn't really think about
if you were just a small town, you know, because
you're your water needs aren't aren't nearly as large. Uh.
But you know, when you get to be a big city,
that becomes a huge issue.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
And when you're in an area that you don't have
that water. Uh, it becomes an even huger shoe. So
those two might pair, might might pair.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
Rather that says probably way off base and not out
of uh, maybe cut it out. I find that so
many of these towns, like the the leadership of the
towns are so they want to grow so rapidly, and
they'll allow for any sort of development whatsoever housing, and
like you said, they don't even I think infrastructure. They

(58:07):
figure something that will just come along, or if I
turn the two lane hot road into a four lane road,
that's going to solve everything. And they don't think about
it in a bigger picture way whatsoever, Like let's just
get the houses built, and get the Walmart put in
and the target put in and the mixed use facility,

(58:28):
and then we'll worry about what we need. You know,
we'll add hoc better roads or you know, make sure
that the water systems up or even if there's you know,
as little as the libraries ready to go and that
can support that.

Speaker 3 (58:44):
Yeah, I mean, urban planning isn't I don't know when
that became a thing, but I think probably in the
forties and fifties in LA whether they called it that
or not, somebody had to be doing it because it
was a necessity. I mean, that kind of growth. And
you know, the growth happens across the entirety of the culture. Right,

(59:04):
So while the government is growing, it's it's becoming a
larger entity, and the population is growing, well, crime is
growing too. I mean at the very beginning of the movie,
in the opening narration, they talk about Mickey Cohen, the
kind of the local mob boss, getting arrested and leaving
a power vacuum. And then we learned that these guys

(59:27):
are being taken out to the Victory Motel and kindly
asked to return home and not apply their trade there
in Los Angeles. These you know, that's because the there's
growth and expansion, and that's going to attract people of
all types. You know, you're you're entrepreneurs of all kinds,

(59:48):
including the criminal ones. And so when I first saw this,
I actually, you know, I saw it while I was
still on the job and and and had like some
wish fulfillment going on at parts of it. When when
Dudley Smith and those guys were telling these gangsters, you know,
this is the city of angels and you don't have
any wings, you know, go back to Cleveland, go back
to Jersey. You know, I was like, Wow, that's a

(01:00:10):
great way to handle crime. Of course, then I find
out the reason they're doing it, so that they can
take over, and then I was like, ah, all the
all the although air came out of my balloon. But
you know, obviously that's not something you would really do.
But you know, I mean, here, I am a working cop,
and I'm I'm emotionally sympathetic to what they're doing because
why are they doing it? Trying to make their city

(01:00:32):
a better place, right, They're trying to keep a bunch
of you know, career criminals that organize crime and from
from you know, getting a foothold in their city. And yeah,
they're taking extraordinary means to do that, but maybe the
means are justified by the end, and had that and
it would have been an interesting question within the framework

(01:00:56):
of the movie if Dudley Smith had not been you know,
if he didn't have an ulterior motive and if he
wasn't actually trying to become a crime boss himself. Essentially
that's unfortunate obviously, but if if that hadn't happened, then
then a larger question that would come out of this
movie would be how do you feel about that? You know,

(01:01:19):
a known criminal comes to town and the cops find
out about it, and they grab him and they take
him out to a secluded place and they smack crap
out of him and tell him to go home. I'll
bet you there's a lot of Los Angelinos that would say, well,
you know, I'm not a I feel about you know,
they would have equivocated, right, And again, that's that's a

(01:01:41):
form of corruption for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:01:44):
But you know, we we don't.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Live in a perfect world, and so people, all different
kinds of people have all different kinds of thresholds for
what they consider corrupt, and like you and I may
differ on certain topics if we sat down and you know,
is this too much? Is that too much? For whatever
profession you want to talk about? And it's just really
interesting to me. Again, you have the larger culture of

(01:02:10):
Los Angeles and what their needs desires are, particularly with
this quickly expanding city that you mentioned, that are dictating
to a degree the culture within the police department. Now,
how they're responding maybe isn't directly how the larger culture
instructed them to respond, but it's still a direct response.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
One of my favorite scenes was the interview scene of
the night Owl Suspects, and what I thought was interesting
about it is I would think that in the nineteen
fifties and the way it's portrayed in the movie is
that it's completely above board. Everything that's how Ed actually
wanted to run that interview was strictly by the book,

(01:02:54):
and getting back to points that you made earlier, the
book has very much changed on where to where almost
everything that he did would probably have been considered not
legal to this point or would have gotten thrown out.
I don't know if they were actually arrested at that point,
any of the suspects. I think they were just detained

(01:03:16):
at that point. I don't know remember if it was
in the book or in the movie where Dudley Smith says,
we have seventy two hours to work them over, and
that was perfectly fine. Seventy two hours. Just get them
into the interview room and sweat them out as long
as you could. It wouldn't be until much later that
where you'd have to read them or writes, or you

(01:03:37):
only have a certain amount of time for a detainment
before the clock starts ticking. I thought that that was
really interesting that how much things change between you know,
I guess it has been a long time, sixty seventy years.
A lot is going to change. But how an interview
in and I think this does really go to a

(01:03:58):
lot of your points. An interview was done completely by
the book in nineteen fifty one would be considered like
abhorrent in twenty twenty four, twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (01:04:11):
Yeah, you have to remember this is the fifties, This
was pre Miranda. I mean, the Miranda decision was in
sixty eight. And that doesn't mean that the Fifth Amendment
wasn't in play, and it doesn't mean the Sixth Amendment
wasn't in play. Obviously both of them were. But the
requirement of the police to specifically advise suspects of their

(01:04:35):
Fifth and sixth Amendment rights and obtain a knowing waiver
from them before what they said would be admissible what
certainly didn't exist in the form of the Miranda decision.
And I think it was something that was skated over
pretty frequently elsewise. And so I don't know how realistic

(01:04:56):
this is for early nineteen fifties, you know, I mean,
obviously it was forty years before my time and when
it came to placing.

Speaker 4 (01:05:05):
But it sure does play well.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
It's very dramatic, and I mean, I think it's interesting
that like forty cops are watching these interviews outside the
interview rooms. It's it's more like a game. I got
some game show booths are set up and they're the
audience or something. That's how how the blocking looks. It's
so kind of ridiculous, but very dramatic, and it plays

(01:05:28):
really well. And the whole thing with the you know,
interlinked mics and speakers and how he manipulates that to
get people to think other people are ratting on them
and stuff. It's all very well done in a dramatic sense.
And you know, maybe they did it that way to

(01:05:49):
streamline the storytelling. I don't know how accurate it is,
or maybe it was. But you know, the idea of
getting I mean, when you have three suspects X getting
you know, all you know, all you gotta do is
get one of them to to flip right and then
and then you've got this massive lever. But you don't
even have to get one of them to flip. All

(01:06:10):
you have to do is is get a piece of
information that can make one of the other two think
that the third person flipped, and then self preservation will
kick in. And you know, the psychology of lying, you know,
unless you're a sociopath or a psychopath, you know, lying

(01:06:31):
feels wrong, even in self defense. Lying your your body,
your psycho, your your psychological self views that lie as
a threat. That's why the light detector, you know, that's
why the polygraph works. That's all it's doing is measuring
your physiological response. And that response is to a threat,
and the threat is the fact that you just told
a lie. And and that's why sociopaths can as a

(01:06:54):
light light detector test, you know. You know, walking backwards,
you know it's not a problem. And so you notice,
like at times when actually gives a piece of information,
once the cat's out of the bag, so to speak,
that there's a deflation that occurs in a you know,
he told you that, and then the confession follows soon after.

(01:07:15):
You know, it doesn't usually work that quickly, but that's
not in terms of a process that's not very far off.
I mean, it just it usually takes longer, and it
takes a little more convincing, it takes a little more
chipping away. But you know, it's almost like a lot
of people they've got this wall built up and that's
the lie, and once you get a crack in that wall,

(01:07:37):
it tends to tumble rather quickly. And there's a sense
of relief sometimes that people feel when they're able to
tell the truth, even if it's a truth that is
against their own pett interest, because it's just the way
that we're wired. So, I mean, I think it's a
cool scene. It's one of the scenes that I remember,
you know, because I hadn't seen the movie in probably

(01:07:58):
ten years at least, and so when we started talking
about doing this show, that was one of the scenes
that I remember really well. And you know, I think
it plays well.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
I think you're right unseen now that we're starting to
get towards the end here, it's the part that one
of my favorite parts of any of these episodes is
when we look at the things that we really loved
and that we didn't like so much about the movie.
Let's start with you, Frank, what were some of the
things that you really loved about the movie.

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
Well, I love the sense of time and place.

Speaker 3 (01:08:27):
I thought that was really well done. You know, I
thought the acting was really good across the boards. It
really wasn't a bad actor in the place. And I've
kind of already discussed, like from an intellectual standpoint, what
appealed to me the whole culture and corruption relationship and

(01:08:48):
how each person, each of these three characters resolved their
own corruption differently or rather very much the same way.
They had different outcomes, but they all returned to their
original truths. And you know, unfortunately Jack Sin's that cost
him his life actually is an interesting one. I want

(01:09:09):
to circle back on actually's ending, so let's bookmark that.
But I thought the you know, I felt like I
was in nineteen fifty four or whatever in La and
all the characters, but a gritty version of it, you know,
and I really really like that. I liked how the

(01:09:31):
scenes were very different, like when you were at the
police station. That felt very different than at at Pierce
Patchet party. That felt very you know, different than when
they went into some of the different neighborhoods so forth.
I thought Kim Bason here was absolutely stunning. Not exactly
a revelation there, but.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
You know, I came of.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
Age in the eighties, so she was, you know, one
of those hot girls in the movies, you know, for
or me. So it's nice to see her get a
juicy role that. Yeah, there was a lot of uh,
you know, sexuality to the role. But I thought it
was an interesting character because she there's a lot of

(01:10:16):
parallel between the character and the actress herself. I mean,
Kim Basinger is a good actress. If you've seen her
throughout her career, she's she's had some good roles and
she's played them well. But she's also played on her
her looks and her sexuality and been cast that way in.

Speaker 4 (01:10:33):
A number of roles.

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
And and and that almost was a little bit of
a prison I think that kept her from getting certain
other roles maybe, And so she was in a way,
you know, she was having to be like much like
Linn Bracken was having to be uh, Vanessa Redgrave, you know,
Kim basing or the actor is having to be Kim

(01:10:56):
basing or the sex starlet you know a little bit.
And so you know, I'd have to go look on
her IMDb and see if she wasn't acting from the
late eighties to the late nineties, or if the stuff
she was doing wasn't very popular, or what was going
on there but I just remember this being a really
nice resurgence for her as an actress. And it's ironic
that the two storylines of the character and the actress

(01:11:19):
were there. There's some parallelism, some symmetry there.

Speaker 4 (01:11:24):
I think, And I like that. I like that. I
like that Bud White, you know, gets sort.

Speaker 3 (01:11:30):
Of a happy ending, and I like to think that
he the two of them kind of healed each other
a little bit and went to Arizona and lived happily
ever after the romantic and he wants that, and then
we can talk about actually after you talk about.

Speaker 2 (01:11:45):
What you like, I think, really to your point, what
I loved about it is that it did not feel
dated at all. The movie from nineteen ninety seven. That's
almost a thirty year old movie, and it didn't feel
no nineties to it at all. I think maybe the
way they filmed it looked very fresh, and they got

(01:12:07):
the costuming and all the sets down. The way they
talked felt very authentic. Not in any way did it
does it feel watching it all these years later, do
you get any sense that it's had any of those
dated elements that you would look for in an old movie.

(01:12:28):
I also loved the way and I don't even know
who the screenwriter was. It was one of the very
few books to movies that I've seen that's just so seamlessly,
and the book and the movie compliment each other so well.
If you want more of the detail of the story,

(01:12:48):
you can read the book. But you want those visuals
and you want the music, and you want that sort
of thing, you watch the movie, and they pared down
the book to just the right way. They got rid
of the right characters, or they melded some of the
characters together, and it was just so seamless. It was

(01:13:08):
it was a real masterful screenplay. I think, Yeah, I
think you make a really good point there. You know,
I read the book even longer ago.

Speaker 4 (01:13:19):
I read the book.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
Maybe when the movie came out, or maybe slightly before,
slightly aughter, and so it's been at least twenty years
since I've read the book, and I didn't get a
chance to reread it before we did this. So I
just remember it being like when you read the book
after having seen the movie. The movie feels like you're
skipping a rock over a very deep lake, but it's

(01:13:43):
the same lake. And I think, I think, to your point,
it's they captured the essence of it. But his books
are all very thick, very detailed, very epic. There, it's
epic noir for sure. Maybe instead of that should.

Speaker 4 (01:14:00):
Be the genre, as.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
Lroy Is writes, epic noir. I have to tell you
real quickly. I'll be careful here, so don't give up anybody.
So you know, there was a couple of other adaptations
of this, and one was an adaptation for television I
think in twenty eighteen that they did a pilot for it,

(01:14:25):
had Walton Goggins in the Jack the Sins role, and
the pilot was not wasn't picked up right away, and
then by the time they got through everything they needed
to get through to pick it up, everybody, you know,
everybody associated with the project.

Speaker 4 (01:14:44):
There's no way you could.

Speaker 3 (01:14:45):
Reassemble them, and so unfortunately it didn't end up going.
So a few years after that, I was at a
writer's conference and somebody who was part of that production
did a I don't know what you'd call it, a
gray screening. He did a black market screening of anyway,

(01:15:08):
ye had a copy of the of the pilot uh
and had a private screening for about forty or fifty.

Speaker 4 (01:15:18):
Of us that he invited, and uh so I got
to see it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
I got to see the the what was intended to
be the pilot for the twenty eighteen version. I got
to tell you, we missed out big time. I think
it would have been another breaking bad level of of show.
I think it would have. I mean, you know, Walton
Goggins is he's he's one of the most versatile actors.

(01:15:42):
He's been in so many different roles, and he's always good.
And I'm you know, just I mean the Shield and
Justified and just to name a couple, and and he
and there were other trying to remember any of the
other big names in it, but.

Speaker 4 (01:15:58):
They and they came out it a little differently.

Speaker 3 (01:16:00):
The Exley character was a little bit more shady if
I remember, but boy, they captured the time in the
place so well, and I just I think it would
have been a massive hit. Sorely disappointed that it never
went anywhere, but I'm it was really cool to see
this on unaired pilot, kind of a little block market
screening at a at a writer's conference, and I couldn't

(01:16:23):
talk about it for quite a while, and I still
won't tell you who responsible, but it was kind of
kind of a non disclosure, a spoken non disclosure agreement
for quite some time. But it was really cool and
we missed out. We missed out. I think it would
have been one of those would have been an, you know,
one of those shows that people would have considered prestige

(01:16:43):
TV for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
Yeah, because they really could have gone. When you have
those three point of view characters, you could have gotten
into the their storylines meld or merged together pretty quickly
into the movie because they have to. This had a
fairly long run time too, I want to say it
was at least two hours, but where you could have

(01:17:06):
really developed each one of their point of views and
then started to merge them. I think that would have
been just a wonderful show. That sort of genre based
show or movie. They come in and out of popularity,
so I could see where at just at certain times,
that's just not going to hit Steve here again with

(01:17:30):
a quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 4 (01:17:33):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
James Olroy was involved in the writing of this twenty
nineteen version, and when I look at the cast, the
only one that really jumps out at me is being
a name that people would would understand.

Speaker 4 (01:17:46):
Is this Walton Goggint. I mean it was.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
It was really good, and I mean, like I said,
it was one of those things that you wish it
would have it would have would have been picked up.

Speaker 4 (01:17:59):
I mean it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
HBO did a reimagining of Perry Mason. That's I think
a couple of seasons, and I watched the first part
of season one and I need to get back to it.
It's on my I think some other show that we
were longtime watchers of dropped a new season and moved
away to go watch that, and I haven't been back yet.

(01:18:23):
But it's very it's a very noir film, of course
with the Lawyer. It's the Coast, but it's in the
in the nineteen is it nineteen twenties, nineteen thirties, I
think is when it's set. But I mean it would
have at least been at that level I think of Acclaim,
and maybe even better the fact that it was worked
on by you know, by the author and everything. Those

(01:18:47):
kinds of productions where somebody you know, who really gets
the material, who created the material, they they tend to
be so much more layered. I mean, you look at
the Wire, you know, as Sigmon's work on the Wire,
you know, you look at shows like Sopranos, where there's
so much involvement by the original creators and so you

(01:19:09):
get all these small layered details that really make it
and even better production. I think you would have obviously
had that from al that had been picked up, so
sorely disappointed that it didn't happen, but it was pretty
super cool to get to see.

Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
It, and then you said you had something else to
add about it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
Actually, yeah, I don't know if I've completely formed this thought,
so I wanted to get your take on it, but
I think it ties in really nicely to the overall
theme that I've been pushing here, which is that all
three of these people, and I'm gonna throw Lynn Bracken
in here too because she's I think the fourth main
car Well and Dudley too. So the five main characters there,

(01:19:48):
all of them are faced with what I described. They're
faced with there's this larger overarching culture in place that's
driving events, and there are singular entity trying to exist
and thrive and and look out for themselves and accomplish
their own psychological needs within within that greater culture. And

(01:20:08):
so how do each of them respond?

Speaker 4 (01:20:10):
You know, Jack.

Speaker 3 (01:20:11):
Viscenz loses his way, but he focuses on enrichment and
ego uh through celebrity. Actually he initially tries to forward
his own career. Bud White tries to help women who
are in bad situations, and that's feeding his own psychological need.

Speaker 4 (01:20:30):
Smith.

Speaker 3 (01:20:30):
I don't know when he became corrupt in terms of
a criminal, but if it wasn't till much later, he
was taking matters into his own hands and acting extra
judiciously to handle it. And then Lynn Bracken she found what,
you know what what worked for her, right, I mean,
she had some natural talents physical and character wise that

(01:20:57):
you know, she she used, and she had an end
game in mind. She wasn't going to be doing this
open ended till I can't do it anymore. She had
a time period in mind, and she even said something about, look, yeah,
I do this for Pierce Patchet. I sleep with men
who pretend to be Lynn Redgrave and that's what I do.
And that is not something society thinks is great. Right,

(01:21:19):
So she's getting that pressure from culture large. But at
the same time she had you know, he doesn't abuse us,
he won't let us take drugs, you know, And and
she's probably getting a higher class of customers, so her
chances who are screened a little bit, so her chances
of being abused by the customer beyond the actual transaction

(01:21:41):
that's taking place.

Speaker 4 (01:21:41):
Are pretty small.

Speaker 3 (01:21:42):
So that's her her way of dealing with with with
the problem, and all of them kind of try to
return to their their their ideal that they had at
the beginning. You think about it, I mean, Sends tries
to be a real cop, tries to solve a case,

(01:22:03):
feels bad that he got this kid killed over fifty
bucks basically, you know, which, I know that was a
lot of money then, but still, I mean that'd be
saying even it's five hundred bucks today. Still, the human
life is worth way more than that, right, And he
tries to correct himself. What happens to him, He is
a spoiler alert. He gets killed, you know, Smith responds

(01:22:24):
to it by by For whatever reason, they don't really
flesh it out exactly why he decides to become a
crime boss.

Speaker 4 (01:22:31):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:22:32):
Bud White and Lynn Bracken, they turned to each other ultimately,
and they kind of solve each other's problems.

Speaker 4 (01:22:37):
They kind of they kind of they're broken. There's a line.
I can't remember where I heard.

Speaker 3 (01:22:41):
It, but there's a line that says, you know, our
broken pieces fit together kind of a relationship type of thing,
and and I think that was very true for them.
I think they definitely build each other's voids in psychologically,
and so they got a happy ending. Actually is a
different matter though in a way. I mean, well, Dudley,

(01:23:01):
he's the criminal, bad guy, so he gets killed. So
you know, yeah, fort of our main characters die here
in this analogy. But look at it actually's ending, right.

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
What happens.

Speaker 3 (01:23:14):
The story of the Victory Motel is a lie, just
like the Night Out. It parallels the night Owl in
that regard. They don't go into it, they don't show
it quite as strongly. But he's up in front of
you know, a crowd, getting another award that the chief
is awarding him for a lie, another lie. And the
whole reason he went into that scenario was to undo

(01:23:35):
the lie of the Night Out. And yet the power
of the existing culture is so overwhelming and so strong
that he eventually has to adhere to it, right, I mean,
he eventually has to try to continue to even though
maybe he doesn't want to. He ends up doing the
same thing that he did, or the Nighthou's concerned, he

(01:23:57):
makes a deal, he accepts a lie. He has stolen valor. Well,
in the second case, I don't know that he stole valor.
In either case he acted valorously, but the lie is
what is told to the public and it's not what
really occurred. And so it's interesting to me that he
ends up essentially at the same place that he was

(01:24:18):
at the beginning of the movie, if you think about it,
except he knows more. But he's still taking action to
benefit his own career. Now I like to think that
he's doing so and biding his time to when the
existing culture of LAPD and the culture that it exists
within in Los Angeles is more amenable to the changes

(01:24:40):
that need to happen. And when he says they're using me,
so for a little while, I'm using them, that's a
little bit of what I point to to this kind
of butcherss that hope, but that he's going to be,
you know, in the late fifties, early sixties, he's going
to be a chief there who's going to do a

(01:25:01):
massive reform and take it, you know, a step further.

Speaker 4 (01:25:04):
And so he's just being pragmatic.

Speaker 3 (01:25:06):
He has to do what he has to do in
order to get in a position to make the change.

Speaker 4 (01:25:11):
But I don't know just what do you?

Speaker 3 (01:25:13):
So again, I'm spitballing this while we're talking, so maybe
I'm totally out to launch.

Speaker 4 (01:25:17):
What are your thoughts?

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
I really I like the point that you're getting to
is that it's not a fairy tale ending, because they're
not fairy tales. But I think that each of them
got to be the ultimate character that they were meant
to be that actually hopefully will get to be the square, straight,

(01:25:41):
straight shooter and he won't have to do those that
those and maybe that is redemption in a way, that
those shadier things that he had to do in order
to advance his career, that he's learned something from those
of shotgunning those guys in the elevator that I think
was an elevator, that he that wasn't who he really was,

(01:26:05):
and that Lynn Bracken she was a very caring, nurturing person,
and that the the prostitution and the scummier things that
she was involved with with Pierce Patchett, that that ultimately
wasn't going to define her. The brutality of Ed White

(01:26:26):
wasn't going to define him. And even with Jack Vincenz
that he he gets killed. We needed a main character
to get killed. Unfortunately with any of them, not one
get Yeah, they had to, they had to thin him
out a little bit, but that he ultimately made the

(01:26:46):
right choice.

Speaker 4 (01:26:47):
I loved that. Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
And then just to wrap it up with Dudley, that
Dalton Dudley really was a bad guy and he got
his come up. And I loved that. Uh Rolo Mossie,
that that device that they used, and I think that
in a way you could say that it was a gimmick,
but I think that it was so perfect and it

(01:27:09):
was so well done by that space He pulled it
off so perfectly, and Dudley a smith that James cramme well,
that that scene where he says that to at Exley
and they all just did it so perfectly and it
got played so perfectly. Something that could have come off

(01:27:31):
as a pretty cheap gimmick just worked impeccably.

Speaker 4 (01:27:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
I thought it was a cool device. I thought it
was a great storytelling method. And the the smug look
on Spacey's face as he died after saying that he
envisioned exactly what was going to happen. He saw it
in his last moments, and so I like to think
that that character who was in the process of redeeming him,
redeeming himself as you put it, he got to die happy,

(01:28:01):
I guess in that last moment or so. So yeah, yeah,
was there anything that you didn't like about this movie?
I mean, I'm hard pressed to think of anything, and
so that makes me feel almost like a poor critic.

Speaker 4 (01:28:15):
But how about you.

Speaker 2 (01:28:18):
I can't think of anything after watching it again. I
just thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. I think one of
the things that they to say another thing that I loved.
I love that whole Dudley Smith's house, like I just
want that house, that craftsman's style like it. They just
nailed every single one of those details. I think the

(01:28:41):
only thing that they could have made better is that
maybe if that Walton Gogain show had come about, I
think that that would have been even a different way
to explore all of that everything that they had explored
in the movie that and in the book. I think
maybe in that middle way that we're seeing a lot
more of and that they're making these limited run television

(01:29:06):
series that they could have done even more with the
movie and with the book.

Speaker 3 (01:29:11):
Yeah, I you know, I mean, it's no secret I
think that my preference has moved from film to television
series in terms of storytelling. It's a consumer I just
like I like the slower burn. I like the much
more in depth character examination, you know. I like the

(01:29:34):
fact that a character redemptive art can take eight one
hour episodes instead of thirty four minutes of an hour
and a half long film. I just think that the
you know, and you know, you could argue that television
at times has been bloated in its episodic presentation, but anymore,

(01:29:55):
you know, six eight episodes sometimes for some of these
seasons instead of ten thirteen episodes, you know, it's not
bloated at all. It's still very streamlined storytelling. So I
tend to gravitate towards the streaming services and towards the
television series as opposed to watching movies, whereas it used

(01:30:16):
to be completely the other way around. So I would
have loved to have seen that twenty nineteen version get made. Yeah,
I can't. There's nothing glaring about this movie that I
didn't like, and it's you know, it is a complex movie.
It's one that like, I totally got it when I

(01:30:37):
watched it last night, but I had seen it, you know,
two tree times already. If you're walking into it never
having seen it, well you have to pay close attention
or or you know, if you were quizzed later on, well,
why this or why that, you'd be like, I don't know,
that's just what happened. Where As it's actually it's very
tightly plotted. I mean, everything that happens has a you know,

(01:31:01):
it has a reason, and everything has a Every outcome,
you know, had a catalyst. Every character had a plan, uh,
you know, until as Mike Tyson likes to say, they
got punched in the face and and it all ties
together really really tightly. But it feels very sprawling and

(01:31:21):
loose upon your first viewing if you're not super dialed in.
It's like trying to watch Interstellar and not paying attention.
You know, I mean, you just you you know, Yeah,
they flew in space. That's about all you get out
of it. So some cornfield was on the planet Earth.
You know, I don't remember, you know, I mean, that's
that you get out of that movie if you don't
pay close attention, and I think to a lesser degree,

(01:31:42):
it's the same with its La Confidential.

Speaker 2 (01:31:46):
You really could watch this though totally casually on Friday
night date night and half eating your popcorn and chatting
because and just enjoy the beautiful scenery, the beautiful peap
all the action. I think that that is one another
thing that is that it's layered in that way. You

(01:32:06):
can engage it in different ways. You can have an
hour and thirty four podcast our and thirty four minute
podcast discussion and we're barely scratching the surface. Or you
can just enjoy the the just enormous acting and the
enormous scenery, and you know, do you just get? And

(01:32:26):
that's why I think that this one in particular is
a great one. It absolutely lends itself to multiple watches
because you can come into it in so many different
ways and enjoy it in so many different ways.

Speaker 4 (01:32:40):
Yeah, I totally agree.

Speaker 3 (01:32:41):
When we decided to talk about this one, I was
pretty excited for no other reason that it meant I.

Speaker 4 (01:32:46):
Was going to be rewatching.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
Yeah, And so if people out there, if you have
any other movies that you'd like for us to discuss.
We talk a lot about cop movies and police procedurals.
But I think there's another movie that in a way
reminds me of this is Unforgiven, which it would seem
like an odd comparison, but they came out roughly at
about the same time, and I think Unforgiven is another

(01:33:08):
one that you can enjoy it at multiple different levels,
and it's a movie even its completely you can watch
it today and it does not feel dated at all.
And maybe that was a thing that they were doing
really well in that time period, but you really could
watch that movie going on thirty years later and not

(01:33:32):
feel like you're watching a thirty year old movie.

Speaker 4 (01:33:36):
Yeah, I think you're hitting a red on the head.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
I mean, it is easier with a period piece to
avoid looking dated because you're making the movie look dated
in the period that it's occurring, and so it holds
up a little bit in that regard.

Speaker 4 (01:33:49):
But I mean, if you look back at the.

Speaker 3 (01:33:51):
Nineteen fifties westerns versus late nineteen sixties westerns, there's a
huge difference between the two, and you can tell which
one you're watching within thirty seconds. But yeah, this movie
Unforgiven is another good example. It really holds up in
terms of yeah, there is a movie that took place
in the late eighteen hundreds, but I'm not exactly sure
when they made this movie. It could have been nineteen eighty,

(01:34:12):
it could have been twenty fifteen.

Speaker 4 (01:34:15):
All right, everybody, thank you again. Thank you so much. Frank.

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
You'll be seeing more of Frank in the future. And
if you're enjoying these episodes, go back and listen to
some of the old ones. Recommend it to a friend,
and we will definitely talk to you next time.

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