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[[File:la-c-2_9362.jpg|frame]]
There is a mass murder at The Nite Owl restaurant, including a former LAPD officer. Detectives Bud White, Edmund Exley, and Jack Vincennes all get caught up in the case, which turns out be part of the power struggle in organized crime after [[Real Life]] mobster Mickey Cohen is convicted.
The book by James Ellroy was later adapted into a film starring [[Russell Crowe]], Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, and Kim Basinger. It greatly condensed the plot and time frames of the book, but was widely praised for keeping almost all of the drama and noir feel. The movie was named to the [[National Film Registry]] in 2015.
----
{{tropelist}}
* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: The movie takes an insanely complex book and boils it down to the absolute bare essence of the story, which is still plenty complicated on its own. The writers actually wrote every plot point on index cards and laid them all on a table, so that whenever they took something out, they could try to rearrange everything else until it all made sense again.
* [[Affably Evil]]:
* [[Alliterative Name]]: Ed Exley, Pierce Patchett and Wendell "Bud" White.
* [[Ambition Is Evil]]: Averted with Exley in the movie. The books zig-zag the trope all over the place, though.
* [[Anyone Can Die]]: And they do, oh how they do. Specifically,
* [[Arc Words]]: "Rollo Tomasi", in the movie.
* [[The Atoner]]: Jack Vincennes in both the book and the movie.
** In the movie, Jack genuinely tries to help Matt Reynolds. He feels guilty for going along with Sid's desire for headlines, and ruining Matt's life in the process.
** In the book, Jack
* [[The Bad Guys Are Cops]]:
* [[Berserk Button]]: Do ''not'' mistreat women around [[Wife
* [[Broken Pedestal]]: In the book, Exley has a case of hero worship/one-sided rivalry with his father, a legendary LAPD detective turned construction magnate. A big chunk of the story is Ed learning his father was not the paragon of virtue he thought him to be.
* [[The Cavalry Arrives Late]]: In the climactic showdown at the Victory Motel,
* [[Celebrity Impersonator]]: Played straight with the various whores in Pierce Patchett's stable.
** Also subverted as noted below under [[Reality Is Unrealistic]], when
* [[Color Coded for Your Convenience]]: Lynn's wardrobe reflects a lot about her character. She is a [[
* [[Composite Character]]: Matt Reynolds is a combination of Tammy Reynolds and Rock Rockwell (the kids Jack busts for smoking pot in the beginning) and Billy Dieterling (tragic young gay actor, whose life is ruined by one of the main detectives - Jack in the movie, Ed in the book).
* [[Conversation Casualty]]:
* [[Crazy Jealous Guy]]: Bud towards the end of the film, due to
* [[Da Chief]]: Dudley Smith. He's one of the rare
* [[Death
* [[Defective Detective]]: Jack Vincennes. ''In spades''.
* [[Determinator]]: Bud White. It rubs off on Exley by the end of the book.
* [[Die Laughing]]:
* [[Dies Wide Open]]:
** Subverted with
* [[Dirty Cop]]: Every variation imaginable is in here somewhere.
* [[Distinguishing Mark]]: A mother cannot initially identify her daughter at the morgue due to the girl's extensive plastic surgery. The coroner prompts her with Detective Lieutenant Exley and Officer Bud White hanging on her every word:
{{quote|
'''Mrs. Lefferts''': She has a birthmark on her hip. It's her. My baby!
** The scene won the [https://web.archive.org/web/20131008053013/http://www.skinema.com/Skinnies1998.html 1998 Skinny Award] for "Best birthmark used to further the plot".
* [[Doorstopper]]
* [[Dumb Muscle]]: Bud, or at least what Exley initially thinks of him.
** More importantly, what
* [[Embarrassing First Name]]: Wendell "Bud" White. Although Edmund isn't so much better.
* [[Everyone Is a Suspect]]
* [[Evil Power Vacuum]]: Essentially the whole plot revolves around {{spoiler|the police captain}} trying to take over Mickey Cohen's operation. Lampshaded in the opening narration.
* [[False Roulette]]: Played straight during the interrogation of the Nite Owl suspects, when Bud realizes the suspects have kidnapped and raped a woman who's still being held hostage. However
▲* [[False Roulette]]: Played straight during the interrogation of the Nite Owl suspects, when Bud realizes the suspects have kidnapped and raped a woman who's still being held hostage. However, in the film we never actually see if Bud takes the last round out of his .38.
* [[Film Noir]]
* [[Final Speech]]
* [[Flat What]]: An excellent example from Kevin Spacey when Exley asks Vincennes "Do you make the Negroes for the Nite Owl killings?".
* [[Fleur
* [[Foreshadowing]]
* [[Framing the Guilty Party]]
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* [[Girl Friday]]: Inez to Preston Exley and Ray Dieterling in the book.
* [[The Glasses Come Off]]: Played straight in the movie with Ed. He subverts it in the book by never taking his glasses off because he knows he looks softer and more merciful without them. Lynn [[Lampshade Hanging|mentions it]], too.
* [[Good Cop, Bad Cop]]: Invoked, [[Crowning Moment of Funny|hilariously]], in the movie.
* [[A Good Name for a Rock Band]]: [http://www.rollotomasi.com/ Rollo Tomasi] certainly thought so.
* [[Groin Attack]]: "What do I get if I give you your balls back?"
* [[Have You Told Anyone Else?]]: A slightly subtler variant - "What does Exley make of all this?"
* [[Heroic BSOD]]: Bud when he hits Lynn. Ed, in the book, when he finds out
* [[Hidden Depths]]: The three main cops - Bud, Jack and Ed - in different ways. Also Lynn, who just wants to get out of the hooker life and move back to Arizona to open a dress shop.
* [[High-Class Call Girl]]: Lynn and the other girls at Fleur de Lis.
* [[High Altitude Interrogation]]: How Bud gets his answers from Ellis Loew in the movie.
* [[
* [[Horrible Hollywood]]
* [[Ho Yay]]
{{quote|
{{quote|
* [[Important Haircut]]: Lynn in the end cuts her hair to show her rejection of her former life.
* [[I Never Said It Was Poison]]: "Vincennes mentioned a suspect he was hunting down. Rollo Tomasi?"
* [[Ironic Echo]]: Inez Soto's
** "Rollo Tomasi" in the movie.
** "Would you be willing to shoot a hardened criminal in the back"?
** As Smith
* [[Karma Houdini]]: Both Dudley and Art De Spain in the book.
** Though in the sequel ''White Jazz'', {{spoiler|Dudley suffers a horrific beating and loses an eye, as well as getting brain damage that ends his career. He's still never brought to justice, though, and he lives for quite a long time afterwards surrounded by a loving and oblivious family
* [[The Killer Becomes the Killed]]
* [[Knight in Sour Armor]]: Ed becomes this by the end of the book.
* [[Living Lie Detector]]: Ed, in the book more than the movie.
* [[Loads and Loads of Characters]]: The already complicated movie contains maybe 20% of the book's story.
* [[Lolicon]]: Blink and you'll miss her, but one of the lookalike whores at Pierce Patchett's mansion is made up as little [[Shirley Temple]].
* [[Love Triangle]]: Bud, Lynn, and Ed. Of course, this is [[James Ellroy]] we're talking about. It's not as if this is his first love triangle featuring two cops and a hooker (i.e. ''The Black Dahlia'').
** The book gives us a [[Love Dodecahedron]] between Ed, Bud, Lynn, and Inez Soto. Ed is seeing Inez but sleeping with Lynn, while Bud is seeing Lynn but sleeping with Inez, not to mention the ever-present [[Ho Yay]]
* [[The Man Behind the Man]]:
* [[Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot]]: The real reason for The Nite Owl murders. {{spoiler|Officer Dick Stensland had stolen heroin the chief was using for his new racket
* [[Mistaken Confession]]: The Nite Owl suspects. They think the cops are about to bust them for kidnapping and raping Inez Soto, instead of committing the murders at the Nite Owl.▼
* [[Missing White Woman Syndrome]]: Inez Soto lampshades it in both the book and the movie.
▲* [[Mistaken Confession]]: The Nite Owl suspects. They think the cops are about to bust them for kidnapping and raping Inez Soto, instead of committing the murders at the Nite Owl.
* [[My God, What Have I Done?]]: When Bud
** Also Vincennes when he realizes {{spoiler|he helped set up a young unemployed actor to be murdered}}.
* [[No
* [[Odd Couple]]: White and Exley, as well as Vincennes and Exley, in different ways.
* [[Oh Crap]]: A very well-done one from Guy Pearce in the movie, when Ed realizes the truth about
** Ed has another, fairly epic "oh crap" facial expression when Bud shows him the pictures of
** And again, when
* [[Paparazzi]]: [[Two Words: Obvious Trope|Two Words]] - Sid Hudgens.
* [[Parental Substitute]]: Dudley Smith serves as this for Exley and White in the film, in different ways. Bud sees him as more of a traditional father-figure, where Ed admires his police career. The ending reveals how expendable they really are to him.
* [[Perp Sweating]]: A [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for Ed in both the book and the movie, with his interrogation of the three Nite Owl suspects.
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* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]
* [[Pretty in Mink]]: Lana Turner is wearing a white fox wrap in her scene in the movie.
* [[Pyrrhic Victory]]: Ed Exley.
{{quote|
* [[Rabid Cop]]: Pretty much everyone, except for Ed (and even he hits it at the end of the movie).
* [[Reality Is Unrealistic]]
{{quote|
{{spoiler|'''Vincennes''': She is Lana Turner
{{spoiler|'''Exley''': (turns to Vincennes) What
{{spoiler|'''Vincennes''': She ''is'' Lana Turner
{{spoiler|(Lana throws a drink in Exley's face)}}
* [[Reckless Gun Usage]]: In the film, Exley sees the Nite Owl suspects pile into an elevator and quickly jams his shotgun through the doors and fires, without first checking to see if there was anyone else in there with them.
** Bud White's [[False Roulette]], when no one's actually sure how many rounds are in the gun.
* [[Red Oni, Blue Oni]]: Bud White (Red) and Ed Exley (Blue) are pretty much textbook examples. In the movie, Jack becomes somewhat of a Red to Ed's Blue.
* [[Retirony]]: Buzz Meeks in the book.
* [[The Reveal]]: The fact that the person responsible for not only the Nite Owl, but the gang killings of Mickey Cohen's lieutenants is
* [[Revealing Coverup]]
* [[Saying Too Much]]
* [[Slashed Throat]]: "The proof had his throat cut."
* [[Smith Will Suffice]]:
{{quote|
'''Patchett:''' No, Mr. White, Pierce Moorehouse Patchett.
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: To ''[[Chinatown]]''. Even though they both have a completely different cast and crew, both are set in Los Angeles, both were made 40 years after the time period in which they are set, and both feature themes of betrayal, corruption of public institutions and officials, and "neo-noir" values. Oh, and both have scores by [[Jerry Goldsmith]].
▲* [[Treachery Cover Up]]
* [[Turn in Your Badge]]: Bud in both the movie and the book, though the movie gives us the traditional scene.
* [[Twerp Sweating]]: Exley and White's [[High Altitude Interrogation]] of Ellis Loew in the movie is really an excuse to dangle a thoroughly unpleasant man out a very high window, not for information they mostly already know.
* [[Two Guys and
* [[Vigilante Execution]]: In the movie, but not the book,
* [[Villain
* [[Wife
* [["Well Done, Son" Guy]]: In the book, Exley would just about bend over backwards to win his father's approval.
* [[Wham! Line]]: From the book -
** {{spoiler|"Rollo Tomasi"}}.
* [[
* [[Woman in White]]: Lynn in most subsequent appearances, especially in the iconic scene where she
* [[Working the Same Case]]: All of the detectives, but most notably Exley, Vincennes, and White.
* [[Yiddish
* [[You Talkin' to Me?]]
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Films of the 1990s]]
[[Category:The Fifties]]
[[Category:
[[Category:
[[Category:National Film Registry]]
[[Category:Films Based on Novels]]
[[Category:Film]]
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