Older special features from a previous DVD release include a short featurette on the film called “Off The Record,” Hanson shows the photos he used to make clear the look and feel of the movie he wanted to create to producers in “Photo Pitch,” and “The L.A. of L.A. Confidential” is an interactive map that presents clips from the film and the audio explains where in the city it was shot.
A Criterion Collection-worthy extra is a pilot for a planned 13-part L.A. Confidential mini-series for HBO. They passed on the project, and it was then produced in 1999/2000 for the Fox Network, who passed as well. It remained unreleased until it had aired on Trio’s Brilliant but Cancelled in 2003. The pilot starred Kiefer Sutehrland as Jack Vincennes and Eric Roberts as Pachette, which was hard to get my head around after just watching the film. It seems to be a reboot of the book, which had a lot more material available. The episode ends with a “To Be Continued…” but it wasn’t.
A third disc is contained within this two-disc set: a CD sampler of songs from the soundtrack by Johnney Mercer, Chet Baker, Betty Hutton, Kay Starr, Jackie Gleason, and Dean Martin.
L.A. Confidential is a classic film that will long be remembered and appreciated. Even if you don’t buy it, do yourself as favor and rent it. This is one film you need to see before you take, as Sid Hudgeons would say, the “night train to the big adios.”
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