As if Clash of the Titans and Alfred Hitchcock & The Making of Psycho weren’t enough, I’m back YET AGAIN with another script.

Undated.  Untitled.  I hate when things fall off the script truck without a good set of instructions, but with a writer like John Logan (Gladiator, The Last Samarai) and a director like Michael Mann (Heat, Miami Vice) attached, I don’t need a title to be interested.  I found some web talk that the project was slated to cost $120 mil and star Leonardo DiCaprio as the tough lead Harry Slidell.

But let’s talk about the goods…

THE STORY

Harry Slidell takes care of things in 1938 Hollywood.  He works for the studios getting their clients out of sticky situations.  Drugs.  Death.  You name it.

This story starts with a murder.  A washed-up producer is found dead and Harry comes in to clean up the scene – clearing out the more ominous drugs and making it look like a suicide.  You see the dead guy, his wife’s a starlet by the name of Ruth Ettis and she’s under contract at MGM.  Harry immediately thinks she’s guilty, but when he finally gets around to meeting her, his heart tugs him in a different direction. 

As if solving this murder case wasn’t hard enough on Harry and his team at Sunset Investigations, Benjamin (don’t call me “Bugsy”) Siegel has strolled into town to take over the turf.

Eventually, Harry learns the identity of the killer, but in Hollywood things are never simple.

THE SKINNY

In a word… goosebumps.  Vintage Hollywood, both in setting and feel.  This is the worthy love child of Chinatown (and possibly LA Confidential). 

When you read scripts, you read a lot of shit.  It’s nice when something shines.  It saddened me to see that studios might be balking at the price tag.  This could be Mann’s Oscar bid.

Harry’s a great character.  Ex-cop private investigator (a noir mainstay) and loyal.  He’s always managed to stay on the side of the angels, but this case pushes him.  The element that best illustrates Harry’s character is his constant defense of Judy Garland from the studios and her personal demons.  Before The Departed, I would’ve wondered about the casting of baby-faced Leo as a guy who could smash your face in, but not anymore.

Ruth is equally interesting -- seductive and haunted just like every femme fatale should be.  The smaller characters have just as much nuance as these leads (see also Harry’s partners tap dancing). 

Judy Garland’s presence in the script and her struggles with weight and drugs fascinated me.  This part of Hollywood wasn’t in my history books and the real-life touches and additions (from studio heads to Bugsy) give the fictional characters solid ground to walk on and make them all the more believable.

In terms of story, it’s conventional, but well-written.  Though a good 120 pages, it was the kind of read that makes you stop noticing time passing – you’re filled with the fire to see what’s happens next.

If at gun point I had to point out a flaw, my old English professor would have a field day with Logan’s use of the passive voice.

THE FINAL WORD

Someone please put this on the production schedule. 

Noir fans.  Fans of old-school Hollywood.  Cinemaphiles.  I’d tell you all to keep this on your radar if it had a title.  As it is, wait for talk of Michael Mann, John Logan or even Harry Slidell with baited breath.