Yeah, I have to say that the connection there, if there is one, is not obvious to me.The other derivation thst keeps coming up is via the Yiddish word for Sexton although I'm not really reading a good explanation of why it should be slang for a PI.
I've got about 60 pages left of L.A. Confidential and I'm surprised at how much they chopped the plot about for the film; expected it to be a bit different, but it's so much more tangled in the book and the timeline's completely different. They also merged Dudley and Preston for the film, cut out the whole Atherton case and a bunch of other things. Both good though.still - LA Quartet is a masterpiece
I'm still sad that the film cut out the Disney conspiracy stuff
Freddy Otash was the man in the know and the man to know in '50s L.A. He was a rogue cop, a sleazoid private eye, a shakedown artist, a pimp--and, most notably, the head strong-arm goon for Confidential magazine.
Confidential presaged the idiot internet--and delivered the dirt, the dish, the insidious ink, and the scurrilous skank. It mauled misanthropic movie stars, sex-soiled socialites, and putzo politicians. Mattress Jack Kennedy, James Dean, Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson--Frantic Freddy outed them all. He was the Tattle Tyrant who held Hollywood hostage, and now he's here to CONFESS.
"I'm consumed with candor and wracked with recollection. I'm revitalized and resurgent. My meshugenah march down memory lane begins NOW."
In Freddy's viciously entertaining voice, Widespread Panic torches 1950s Hollywood to the ground. It's a blazing revelation of coruscating corruption, pervasive paranoia, and of sin and redemption with nothing in between.
I thought he did that with L.A. Confidential first then consciously developed it into a style from White Jazz onward. He's already got the rat-a-tat thing going in the former.White Jazz is revolutionary
the publisher originally told him it was too long, so Ellroy chopped out all the unnecessary words resulting in a masterpiece of terseness
He got to the 60s then retreated back into the 50s.Ellroy is rubbish now and there is a specific reason for it, an act of cowardice which truncated his career, specifically the refusal to write up the Reagan era.
exactly. impossible to respect that.He got to the 60s then retreated back into the 50s.
we've been through this before haven't we? sounds like a myth to me. the ellroy style is too distinctive to have happened by accident. is my opinion. having said that who's that bloke who wrote could you please be quiet please. raymond carver. hisWhite Jazz is revolutionary
the publisher originally told him it was too long, so Ellroy chopped out all the unnecessary words resulting in a masterpiece of terseness