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"The Black Dahlia" Premiere Brings Hard-Boiled Cinema Back to L.A.
2006-09-07
Will Scarlett Johansson and Josh Hartnett be the next Bogart and Bacall? That was the question on everyone's mind in the packed Academy theater in Beverly Hills last night, as that high-profile couple joined director Brian De Palma, novelist James Ellroy, and composer Mark Isham at the premiere of their new film noir flick "The Black Dahlia." The couple met on the set - in Bulgaria, not downtown L.A., where the Forties-era film takes place - and have been a couple ever since; although that was hard to tell at the premiere after party, where they went to opposite sides of the crowded lobby and barely acknowledged each other's presence. Scarlett, with a beehive hairdo to match her black-and-white Chanel cocktail dress, teetering Sergio Rossi heels, and extravagantly vampy eye makeup, looked more like an early Sixties fashionista than a Forties femme fatale, while Josh's conservative charcoal grey Dior suit and skinny black tie evoked more of the Fifties Rat Pack than his character's Forties LAPD detective style, but both sang the praises of the look and feel of the film. "I'm obsessed with the genre," Hartnett revealed. "I think it's a beautiful genre and I hope this marks a resurgence of the noir mentality." And he hopes to have the kind of success that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall did with the classic noir film "To Have and Have Not," their first on-screen collaboration, which led to their eventual real-life marriage and collaboration on other great noir films including "The Big Sleep" and "Key Largo." "There's a certain dark, wry wit about the whole thing," the actor explained. "I think our film really captures the classic film noir feeling." "The Black Dahlia" also stars Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart, neither of whom made the premiere, but many familiar faces did. Some of the film's other stars - Rachel Miner, Gregg Henry, Pepe Serna, and Mike Starr - roamed the after party, as did recent Emmy winner Julia Louis-Dreyfuss and her husband Brad Hall, Sanaa Lathan, Izabella Miko, Arielle Kebbel, and Mia St. John. And did Hartnett and Johansson succeed in setting off the sizzle that Bogart and Bacall did so well more than fifty years ago? You can judge that for yourself when "The Black Dahlia" opens Friday, September 15.
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