Dahlia Days of Summer

Updated after the jump

Sheigh here, wondering about reactions to Universal Pictures' Black Dahlia insert in the LA Times on Sunday. I stumbled across it while I was eating breakfast and the stark throwback to another era of crime reporting (SLAIN! TORTURED! NUDE!) didn't fuel my appetite, but the insert struck me as an inspired piece of movie marketing — smarter than the functional plastic Halloween trick-or-treat bags* the Times carries.

As a fan of Kim Cooper, Larry Harnisch and Nathan Marsak's all too brief 1947project, I enjoyed paging through the curated collection of Elizabeth Short stories. Did Uni marketers take a page from 1947project's Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour when they made up a downloadable DIY Black Dahlia Tour map and posted it on the official movie site?

The article that most disturbed me in the package was not a graphic account of how this "girl who prowled the boulevard" was tortured and murdered. Instead, a story in which Phoebe Short describes her daughter as a "quiet, unassuming schoolgirl" is all the more numbing when a reporter counters with facts that suggest otherwise.

Meanwhile, David Edelstein's brief preview of Black Dahlia in New York Magazine close to extinguished any desire I had to see the movie. "A nightmarish fantasia on the desire to punish women (is) not a manifestation of that desire," he writes, in defense of De Palma's Dressed to Kill.

That may be true, but I'm going to need a little more incentive to re-visit De Palma's obsession with brutality against women. As it is, why would I want to add to my brainpan De Palma's gruesome take on Short, when I'm already maxed out on Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, JonBenet Ramsey, and Jennifer Moore, to name a few?

*I heard last week that Disney is considering tromping through the pumpkin patch again with the LA Times, inserting goodie bags timed with the digital 3-D re-release of "Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas." We earlier took note of Par's Mi:3/LATimes newsbox marketing experiment in Cruise in my News Box.

Update 1: Scoops in Hollywood plans to introduce a Black Dahlia gelato on Sept. 15. Link.

Update 2: I've been chatting with 1947project's Kim Cooper this morning. She tells me that the Uni marketing team on "Dahlia" has been quite solicitous. Not only has Uni included '47's Crime Bus Tour postcards in movie press bags, but Uni will offer tickets to the tour as part of an online promotion for the movie. 

Cooper noted that Uni's downloadable map isn't quite as in-depth as the official 1947project tour which has "dozens of stops and travels further East." With the bus tour, you also get Scoops' Black Dahlia gelato.

 

Comments

[TBN]

I would've loved to have seen David Lynch's take on the Elizabeth Short story. It's too bad the project went awry.

Knowing Lynch, he would have likely used Short's contradictions (small town girl, underdeveloped sex organs, rotten teeth) to illuminate upon familiar themes of innocence and depravity, rather than fuel any voyeuristic pleasures.

No diss to De Palma. I'm not well-acquainted with his work, so I don't have much to judge by (though his misogynist rep is kinda discouraging). It's just that I trust Lynch and know that he'll transcend the exploitative material.

[Kim Cooper]

Actually, TBN, that spurious infantile genitalia claim (from "Severed") is one of the things we'll be debunking on the Crime Bus Tour. Beth Short seems to have had some occasional gynecological problems--we'll be passing her doc's office in Hollywood and discussing them--but at the time of her death she was a fully developed 22-year-old woman capable of normal intercourse.

[TBN]

Kim Cooper - Wow, that's interesting. So that's just an urban myth?! You learn something new everyday.

[sheigh]

So what does the Black Dahlia gelato taste like? According to Scoops owner Tai Kim, like White Licorice (an anise and lemon blend), Black Tea and Rosewater, Blackberry and Orange Blossom, Pomegranate and Poppy Seed, Blood Orange Sorbet, Black Currant with Blueberry and Anise Sorbet, Dark Chocolate and Raspberry, White Chocolate and Black Sea Salt Mousse, White Chocolate and Cranberry Syrup, Vanilla and Whiskey and Jasmine Tea and Raisin. An additional offering is Chunky Apple Rum, a flavor that was popular in the 1940s and which Elizabeth Short may have enjoyed in life.