The Secret Weapon of LA Confidential: Gossip As a Theme
LA Confidential is a great "cop movie." There is a mystery, there is a conspiracy, there are Mafia guys, a surprise murder or two and a great shootout at the end.
It also takes a daring look at various aspects of Los Angeles and Hollywood circa 1953:
Ethnic:
Anglo-Americans
African-Americans
Mexican-Americans ...all entangled in the melting pot stew of a sunny modern city.
Cultural:
Movies (Lana Turner)
TV (Badge of Honor...aka Dragnet)
Prostitution (Hookers cut to look like movie stars)
...all entangled in "levels of entertainment."
But there is one more thematic concern within LA Confidential that helped the movie rise "up and above" the usual cop thriller:
The theme of : gossip.
Embodied in the character of Danny De Vito's "Sid Hudgens," the point is made that certainly as early as 1953(when the movie is set), and very much in 1997(when the movie was released)...the appetite of the masses for gossip -- politics, show biz, sexual, royalty -- was insatiable.
And now in 2024(as I post this) the years since 1997 have seen gossip skyrocket as a commodity via...this here internet. And cable TV "news."(Angry opinion.) And reality shows (on "TV," cable, and streaming.)
This early dialogue between De Vito's Sid Hudgeons and Kevin Spacey's crooked "showbiz cop"(and technical advisor to the "Badge of Honor" TV show) rather sums it all up:
Spacey: I need an extra fifty(bribe money). Two patrolmen at twenty apiece and a dime for the watch commander at Hollywood station.
DeVito: Jack! Its Christmas!
Spacey: No, its felony possession of marijuana.
DeVito: (Pause) Actually, its circulation thirty-six thousand and climbing...no telling where this is gonna go, Jackie-Boy. Radio, television. You whet the public's appetite for truth and the sky's the limit.
....and look where we are today...radio and television circa 1953 aren't the same, but they are still there plus streaming and the internet and cable and reality shows. We are rather awash in gossip.
I don't necessarily even go looking for it, but gossip bulletins seem to float across my cell phone and clutter my website pages. Right now, a fair amount about the Royal Family and the "Travis and Taylor romance" seem to be up top. But Britney Spears never really goes away. And of course -- right now -- the new fish-lips on Megan Fox.
Funnier still -- and yes, I'll read these for amusement's sake.
Some celebrity makes an outrageous statement. Headline: "The internet is in a tizzy over BLANK's statement." So one finds a little group of Twitter X posts from..nobodies...in a tizzy in deed -- "How DARE they say that!" Its an industry I tell you.
I'd be more upset about it if not for the fact that this very site allows for gossip and discussion of practically ANYTHING so..vox populi.
But ol' Sid Hudgens had it right on the money in 1953...the sky WAS the limit on gossip, or as he calls it, "the truth"(ha) or better still, "prime innuendo."
And gossip is the element that separates LA Confidential out from the other cop epics of our times.
PS. There is a gossip website called "Crazy Days and Nights" that REALL?Y goes after celebs, but seems to have stopped getting too vicious about powerful movie stars(even if not named) and gravitated to "safe" targets like rappers and reality TV stars.