Dark City: The Real Los Angeles Noir

Massive coffee table book full of interesting stories and photos. Taschen produces high quality volumes and this is no different. If you like noir and you like Los Angeles history and don’t mind spending $75 for the nearly 500 page book, you will enjoy it!

If you like archival photos of Los Angeles from the 20’s thru 50’s and crime photos (captioned) taken with the venerable Speed Graphic, you’ll love this book.

I love Taschen! This is a wonderful volume: lots of vintage photos, great design

Beautifully dark in every way, loved every page

No comment - why do I have to put in a comment?

The book is second bite of LA noir by the author, his previous title 'Sins of the city' came out as a paperback in 1999 and like this new book it was basically news photos and captions. Whether several hundred photos from newspaper files is worth this chunky book with its rather lavish production is debatable. The twenty-one page illustrated introduction leads into the seven chapters: Down these mean streets; Murder & mayhem; Glamourland; Kooks, crackpots & salvation; Headline crime; Crime & corruption.I thought it was rather unfortunate that, considering the subject matter, the pages look rather bland with large amounts of white space that could have been used for a much more flamboyant presentation. Maybe some large newspaper front pages (there are some but too small to read the copy) maybe a collage here and there, lots of police mug shots over a spread, some side-bars on colored panels. Possibly Taschen deliberately underplayed the look of the pages and relied on the nine colorful magazine inserts to add some sparkle. They are between eight and sixteen pages, printed on tabloid paper and designed to look like the real thing, some pages are ads. Apart from the intro these inserts provide the only long reads in the book, everything else are just picture captions. The 'Official Detective' July, 1958 is all about Lana Turner and a Mickey Cohen mobster, 'True Detective' May, 1933 deals with the kidnapping of twelve year old Marion Parker, 'Confidential' November (no year) has an article about Marilyn Monroe and her lovers, 'Click' August 1939 features a photo essay about the gambling ships anchored three miles off the coast.There is an Appendices in the back pages with twenty movies or books that captured the noir feel of the city and illustrated with a poster or book cover. The three page index only refers to the news photos and nothing from the magazine inserts.

Everything about this book—from design, to packaging, to razor-sharp reproductions, to typesetting, to content, etc., etc.—is exquisite. It's a superb package of entertainment that delivers awe and wonder with every flip of the page. Out of a 10-star rating, it merits a 20. It’s that good.

The LA map design slipcase, red spine, bullet hole cover, and magazine style booklets throughout, all make for a very unusual look to the book. The images are reproduced in clear detail, possibly too much detail in some cases. The images range through all kinds of misery, such as run-down warehouses where illegal liquor was stored, a car parked on a remote road with a hosepipe running to the window, to prostitutes covering their faces after arrest, to a burnt out car park, to an early porn shoot, to a pet cemetery. LA is a truly crazy city, and seemingly was even 70 or 80 years ago. Several images are too awful to really linger on, such as those of the 1947 Black Dahlia killing. A child murderer who inspired the Angelina Jolie film The Changeling, is shown, among other well-known stories that captured the imagination and sold many newspapers at the time.A well made and strangely fascinating side of Los Angeles that the tourist guidebooks never show.

This is such a great book. Taschen rarely if ever let you down. This is a heavy book with bullet holes cut into the cover! It is protected by a slipcase.It is a fascinating tome. Filled with extremely well reproduced photos from Los Angeles before and after the second World War.What I really loved about this book are the facsimile magazines from the period that intersperse the various sections.Beware, some of the crime photographs are quite gruesome, as you might expect for a book of this nature.I was very impressed with the section at the end of the book about Film Noir cinema and novels.The whole book is beautifully produced with information on every image.Impressive.

Ich hatte ein Buch erwartet, wie aus der Reihe "Portrait of a city".Diesen Anspruch kann "Dark City" leider nicht erfüllen."Dark City" reiht eine Folge von Fotos und Geschichten aus den Polizeiakten oder den Titelseiten zeitgenössischer Zeitungen auf und kommentiert diese recht kurz. Das ganze fällt etwas reißerisch aus.Eine gewisse Atmosphäre kommt dabei herüber, bleibt aber am Ende etwas fade.Es drängt sich das Gefühl auf, dass in diesem Buch Fotos und Geschichten, die bei anderen Veröffentlichungen nicht oder nur in Teilen berücksichtigt werden konnten, noch einmal verarbeitet wurden.Ich empfehlet deshalb: "L.A. - Portrait of a City" auch aus dem Taschen-Verlag oder "Looking at Los Angeles" von Marla Hamburg Kennedy