March 17, 2023
Birch Bay, Washington
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Top of the mornin’ to all.
I AM THE NIGHT– A Review in Daylight
I have deliberately avoided watching the miniseries I Am The Night for the past four years, knowing a “fictional version” about my family and the Black Dahlia investigation would only get my blood up after spending twenty years compiling and presenting—”just the facts.”
This weekend (March 11-12, 2023), I decided it was time to get over my reluctance to view the series, so I have just finished binging the six episodes.
Here are my thoughts/review of the series. I present them as objectively as possible, considering it is not just “close to home” but goes inside the walls and presents a “real life interpretation” of both my father (Dr. George Hill Hodel) and my mother, Dorothy Jean Hodel (name changed to Corinna Hodel in the series.)
The Good
Though 95% fictional, the series makes it clear that Dr. George Hill Hodel was the prime suspect in the original Elizabeth Short, “Black Dahlia” murder, and further, that he committed the crime. That he was a powerful mover/shaker in 1940s Los Angeles and had connections, influence, and control over local L.A. politicians and law enforcement.
The series presents a brief but reasonably accurate summary of the 1949 Incest Trial, where my father was charged with sexually molesting my half-sister, Tamar, then, age 14. That Tamar, in the trial, is painted with a “pathological liar” brush which included a defense rebuttal to the seated jury that she also, in addition to the sexual allegations, made the outlandish claim “that her father killed the Black Dahlia.” (Which in the series was presented with actual laughter coming from the jurors.) What happened in real life was that Tamar was told by the LAPD officers taking her to and from Juvenile Hall that “they suspected that George Hodel killed the Black Dahlia” and let her know that they were actively investigating him. This Tamar told an unknown person, and it got back to defense attorney Neeb, who used it to ridicule and support his claim that “Tamar was a pathological liar.”
Also included in the series was George Hodel’s connections to the L.A. Abortion Ring and his being protected by corrupt LAPD officers who looked the other way and allowed him to operate freely. (pun intended.)
Overall, the series provided extended exposure and reached out to a broader audience with the basic fact that Dr. George Hill Hodel was a psychopath that committed the 1947 Black Dahlia murder and was a major force of Evil.
The Bad
From a production standpoint, on a scale of 10, I would rate the overall series as a 5.
I found the biggest problem was—Dialogue. The script was poorly written and totally out of sync with the Sixties. The conversations between the characters came off as stilted and phony. Consequently, it turned some excellent actors into bad ones. Caca in, caca out. Not their fault.
Ditto on the police procedures. The LAPD of the 1930s and 1940s was pulled out of the past, and the screenwriters had them operating in the mid-1960s. Again, totally out of sync. By the Sixties, Chief William H. Parker had mostly cleaned up the Department, and none of the on-screen brutality would have been tolerated. “The New Breed” of policemen was in full swing, but without batons. (I know, I was there.) The police corruptions and brutalities, as shown in the series, were long gone. It was as if the screenwriters were trying to steal from Polanski’s Chinatown of the 1930s and time warp it and its characters into the 1960s.
The Ugly
Mostly this has to do with fact vs. fiction. As I indicated, the series was about 95% total fiction.
Fact– My niece, Fauna, Tamar’s daughter, never met my father, Dr. George Hill Hodel, in life and was never followed by him or any of his confederates. He fled L.A. in 1950 to Hawaii, then on to Asia and Manila, P.I.
Fact- Fauna was never inside the walls of the Sowden/Franklin home which was sold by George Hodel prior to her birth and no longer the Hodel residence.
Fact- My mother never had contact with Fauna Hodel’s family, never interacted with Fauna’s adopted mother and only met Fauna on one brief occasion (I was present with my two brothers) when Fauna came to L.A. in search of her mother, Tamar, in the Seventies.)
Fact- Fauna was NOT the child of George Hodel and Tamar, as represented in the series. (That fiction is right out of Chinatown, “she’s my sister, she’s, my daughter.”) Tamar was already pregnant when she came to George Hodel, and the father was Joe Barrett, a 25-year-old tenant living at the Sowden/Franklin House. Tamar’s pregnancy was attempted to be aborted by our father who gave her Ergot, (documented in police/court files) that failed and he secured a Beverly Hills doctor (Dr. Francis Ballard) who performed the abortion and was arrested and charged along with George Hodel in 1949.
Fauna’s father was a Male, White, Italian who liquored up Tamar when she was sixteen, home from Juvenile Hall after the trial, and living in San Francisco with her mother, Dorothy Barbe. He had sex with her, resulting in the pregnancy and Fauna’s birth on August 1, 1951. The producers of I Am The Night knowing that DNA confirmed the truth, refused to release the information and deliberately misrepresented the truth as it conflicted with their about-to-be-released production—which falsely purported that Dr. George Hill Hodel was her father.
The Actors
These are just some general observations regarding the main actors in their roles in I AM THE NIGHT.
I am a big fan of Chris Pine and consider him a highly gifted actor. His role as a has-been reporter with PTSD and a taste for cocaine and searching for the truth of who killed the Black Dahlia was totally over-the-top. Again, not his fault. Terrible dialogue and his scripted scenes went from bad to worse.
She is a great actor, but the dialogue pulled her way down from her usually outstanding abilities. Again, I thought her performance was the best of show, but again it fell back on the writing. As they say, “you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shi*.”
I am unfamiliar with actor May’s prior roles but believe me; I knew George Hodel, and Mr. May’s performance was no George Hodel. The actor’s performance as GHH was a total bust. The real Dr. Hodel possessed abundant charm and wit and could fit himself into any social situation. He was loved by all. Charismatic and the life of the party. He was the last person you would suspect was a psychopath. Sadly, Mr. May’s performance as GHH on a scale of 10 was—a 3.
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Dorothy “Dorero” Hodel
I wanted to like Ms. Nielsen’s role as my mother, but again, she was way off the mark. Like the rest, it was not her fault, but whoever was responsible for backgrounding and researching Dorothy Hodel didn’t do their homework. Mother was intelligent extremely literate but soft and unaffected. Men loved her for her sensuousness, coupled with her vulnerability. Ms. Nielsen played her as just the opposite, hard, bitter, and affected. She would have been perfect for the role if she had been so informed.
In the past I have referenced the completed, but never released film, “Pretty Hattie’s Baby-The True Story of Fauna Hodel” which was produced and completed in 1990, with no mention of “The Black Dahlia” because Fauna Hodel would not become aware of any Black Dahlia linkage to our family and the name HODEL until my investigation and book, Black Dahlia Avenger, published some thirteen years later in 2003.
In making IATN, Fauna, a credited producer, would cut and paste from the detailed Hodel biographies and my father’s crime signatures as presented in BDA I, (2003) BDA II (2014), and BDA III (2018) and create a whole fictional “Black Dahlia Scenario” for the miniseries in 2019.
In closing this “review” let me just say STAY TUNED.
We will be presenting, the non-fiction, Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius For Murder (I, II, and III, (now in production) which will adapt my books and investigation to film.
The post A Daytime Review of the 2019 Hodel Docuseries, “I Am The Night” appeared first on Steve Hodel.