Mexican beauty Camilla hopes to rise above her station by marrying a wealthy American. That is complicated by meeting Arturo Bandini, a first-generation Italian hoping to land a writing career and a blue-eyed blonde on his arm.
Cinematography
Dust-choked LA never looked this tragically gorgeous.
Acting
Hayek and Farrell combust then implode spectacularly.
Costume
Thrift-store glam that screams desperate 1930s dreams.
Director
Robert Towne
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Robert Towne spent 30 years trying to adapt John Fante's novel, calling it 'the best book ever written about LA.' He wrote the screenplay in the 1970s for Jack Nicholson.
Fante's book was out of print until Charles Bukowski championed it—fitting, since Bandini's failed writer energy practically invented the 'depressed LA novelist' archetype Bukowski later embodied.
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