When it comes to crime thrillers, it's difficult to find a modern filmmaker with a more impressive resume than director Brian De Palma. The man behind "The Untouchables" and "Scarface" now offers "The Black Dahlia", opening today in Bangkok.

Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank star in this film version of James Ellroy's celebrated novel, which delved into the 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short and became a story of obsession, lust and even love. 

The brutal murder of a fledgling Hollywood starlet shocked America 60 years ago and remains unsolved today.

In De Palma's screen version, two ex-boxer policemen, played by Eckhart and Hartnett, investigate the slaying of ambitious B-list actress Betty Ann Short (Mia Kirshner), also known as "The Black Dahlia".

While one cop's preoccupation with the case threatens his relationship with his girlfriend (Johansson), his partner is attracted to the daughter of a prominent city family (Swank) who just happens to have an unsavoury connection to the murder victim.

"This was an unusual movie because the financing kept falling through," De Palma says of the challenge of re-creating 1940s Los Angeles. "The key locations changed many times until we finally got enough financing to make the movie in Bulgaria."

Reconstructing Ellroy's book was tricky too, he says, because "all he had was the Dahlia in her 8x10 and then this grotesquely carved body. So everyone talks about her in all kinds of not too positive ways. They all have sort of bad stories about her, so I thought that we had to show the audience her so that they cared about her."

KD Lang is the star of an extravagant floorshow in the film - one of the scenes not lifted from Ellroy's book.

"I figured that there would be some really trendy club in Hollywood, some gay-movie-star-type club that wouldn't be like a low-down dive, but would be some really hip place," De Palma explains, suggesting he's visited such places "with my lesbian friends who like pretty girls too".

"I thought, 'Why not have a lesbian chorus line of these drop-dead-beautiful girls making out with each other?'"

There's been talk about the "chemistry" on set between Hartnett and Johansson, but De Palma claims he was unaware of anything special.

"I never realised anything was going on until Scarlett came to visit the set after her shooting was done. I was, like, 'Why would anyone come back to visit Bulgaria to visit the set?' That was the only time that I knew anything. But I thought that the way that Hilary and he were going at it, with Josh, was like, 'Whoa!' I think the way that Hilary and Josh kiss each other is so erotic!"

De Palma con firms that he's signed to direct "The Untouchables: Capone Rising", a prequel to his 1987 hit.

"It's basically about the rise of Al Capone and his relationship with the Sean Connery character before Elliot Ness. We came up with a very good script."

De Palma has an actor in mind to play Capone. "We're thinking of maybe getting Nicolas Cage to play Al Capone and we've got to find a young Sean Connery."

Special to The Nation