Black Dahlia to Open at Venice Film Festival
The film Black Dahlia, based on the gruesome and still unsolved 1947 murder of aspiring Hollywood actor Elizabeth Short, will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August. Based on James Ellroy's 1998 fictional work that drew upon the dark details of the case, the film stars Josh Hartnett as a detective trying to solve the murder. Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank also star.
The details of the actual murder gave it a grisly resonance that attract attention even decades afterwards. Short was last seen alive at the Biltmore hotel. The next morning her nude body, severed in two at the torso, was discovered in a vacant lot. It had been drained of blood and, aside from the separation at the torso, was badly mutilated. Whether Short was known as "the Black Dahlia" in life due to her jet black hair and black attire (a take on the Veronica Lake film, The Blue Dahlia), or whether that nickname was given to her afterwards by the press and public, is still undetermined.
The details of the actual murder gave it a grisly resonance that attract attention even decades afterwards. Short was last seen alive at the Biltmore hotel. The next morning her nude body, severed in two at the torso, was discovered in a vacant lot. It had been drained of blood and, aside from the separation at the torso, was badly mutilated. Whether Short was known as "the Black Dahlia" in life due to her jet black hair and black attire (a take on the Veronica Lake film, The Blue Dahlia), or whether that nickname was given to her afterwards by the press and public, is still undetermined.