The demon dog of American crime fiction, James Ellroy, graces the **Empire **podcast this week with his tall, wiry presence to talk about his new novel, Perfidia. It’s another rich, staccato-prosed delve into LA’s murky past – this time set in 1941 on the eve of Pearl Harbor – and is set in a film-noirish world of hard-bitten cop, femme fatales and violence crims. On that apt segue, Ellroy told us about one of his next projects, a remake of Otto Preminger’s 1944 noir Laura, that's due to take shape shortly.
Intriguingly, Ellroy is moving the story from New York to the Big Smoke. “I’m going to set it in London,” he reveals. “I’m staying here in London for a while, and I want to do a Scotland Yard movie. I’m going to set it today.” That’s a pair of firsts for the writer, although he has long spoken of his enthusiasm for London as a setting.
The remake, which is in production at 20th Century Fox, updates the story of Dana Andrews’ police ‘tec and his infatuation with Gene Tierney’s ad exec. The catch? She’s been murdered by a shotgun blast to the face.
Yup, it’s twisted stuff. Right in the Ellroy wheelhouse, in other words. “I’ve seen the film, I love the construction,” he enthuses, “the lonely hearted police detective, the dead woman with her face blown off, shotgunned in the front room of her department, the portrait of the dead woman, the policeman falls in love with the portrait – and that’s all I need. There you go. That’s a movie.”
Also on the agenda is a long-gestating TV collaboration with David Fincher, set in the LA of the ‘50s. “We have a TV show brewing, and I can tell you this: it’s called Shakedown,” he says, “and it’s a TV script I’ve already written, and Fincher has signed on.”
Watch this space for more on both as it comes in, hush-hush and on the QT.