Highbrow Lowbrow: James Ellroy on Film
December 17, 2022
The latest episode of Highbrow Lowbrow focuses on big-screen adaptations of James Ellroy’s novels. My pick is the most famous Ellroy adaptation of them all – LA Confidential. Dan’s choice is Cop. Adapted from Ellroy’s novel Blood on the Moon, it has the distinction of being the first attempt to adapt Ellroy’s work to celluloid.
For this special Ellroy-themed episode, I talk a little about my biography of Ellroy Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy published by Bloomsbury in February 2023. You can listen to the full episode here.
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The Venetian Vase 
Great podcast. Any possibility of further research into the TV and movie scripts by Ellroy down the road? Recently read the original script of Street Kings (as The Night Watchman) and it was completely different (and far superior) from the final movie apart from a couple character names.
Hi Dan, very possibly! That sounds like a great idea. Ellroy is a great screenwriter but a writer has no power in Hollywood. Everything he writes is subject to change by forces completely out of his control. That said, an overview of his work as a screenwriter is probably overdue. Glad you liked the podcast!
Yes it has been challenging to find original Ellroy screenplays that haven’t been grossly altered by subsequent writers. And the number of TV and film scripts that never even made it to the screen almost equal his published books. Essentially he has had a whole second career of which we know very little!