Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (Book) (2017)

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, by David Grann

New York: Doubleday, 2017

List of main characters:

Mollie Burkhart, Osage living in Osage County, Oklahoma

Ernest Burkhart, Mollie’s husband

Anna Brown, Mollie’s sister

Rita Smith, Mollie’s sister

Bill Smith, Mollie’s brother-in-law

William K. Hale, Ernest’s uncle

Tom White, special agent assigned to the Oklahoma City field office for the Bureau of Investigation

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation, precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

This new book by David Grann is a page-turner: literally. I finished it in four days. I found myself reading ahead every time I picked it up. But before you judge me, did I mention that the book contains numerous pictures? I just couldn’t wait to put faces to the people Grann wrote about (and, yes, to find out more). Flowers of the Killer Moon reads like a novel, although it is based on a true and sad chapter of U.S. history.

(This blog post about the book Killers of the Flower Moon contains spoilers.)

Here is a partial description of the book from the author’s website (click here for complete information):

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances. . . .

Martin Scorsese might or might not (most likely would) be making a film version of Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI with Leonardo DiCaprio in the not-so-distant future. I was pleased to think that another neo-noir would likely be coming to theaters and video-streaming services in a year or so. And the book itself has so many noir characteristics: greed, betrayal, murder, violence, fear. From David Grann’s research and his writing in the third part of the book, it seems the fear spans generations.

Here are some links about the future of Killers of the Flower Moon as a film. Click on the publication title for the article:

• Osage News

• Tulsa World

• Variety

Killers of the Flower Moon is divided into three distinct parts, called chronicles, and each of the three parts focuses on a particular person. The first, “The Marked Woman,” introduces Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman who is losing her family members because of a murderer who seemingly cannot be caught. The second, “The Evidence Man,” focuses on Tom White, the special agent assigned to head the investigation into the mysterious deaths and murders on the Osage reservation.

The first two parts of the book reminded me of many films noir, but one especially came to mind: The Phenix City Story, which is based on real incidents in Phenix City, Alabama, in the 1950s. Corruption pervades everything, but the extent of the corruption is deep only because so many are complicit in it and profit from it. The combination is deadly in many films noir, and it is especially so in The Phenix City Story and in noir literature like Killers of the Flower Moon.

The third part of the book, “The Reporter,” brings readers back to the present and describes some of David Grann’s research findings that seem to have eluded the agents working the case in the late 1920s. Some of the investigators working under Tom White may have been bribed, but it seems more likely that many of them were so close to all the cases (and there were many of them) that they couldn’t put all the pieces together. And they couldn’t have known then how the fear and the threat of violence would be passed down. Even generations after the murders, interested parties don’t want secrets exposed.

I mentioned that the book has pictures, right? The photos, of both places and people, drew me in right away. The book is that much better because of their inclusion. Dividing the book into three parts that focus most closely on the principals—the people at the heart of the story—also brings readers in more easily and helps to increase the human interest aspects of an already fascinating story.

I do have two complaints about the book. A more detailed map on the endpapers would have been helpful. I kept wondering why Ralston, for example, wasn’t given a place on the map because the town is mentioned frequently. An index would also have been helpful in keeping track of all the names and places referenced throughout. The list of main characters that I provide above is abbreviated out of necessity: The author’s investigative work is detailed and exhaustive, and the entire period, the so-called Reign of Terror, introduces the reader to many, many names. When a last name cropped up that I knew had been mentioned already, however, I had no way (no index) to look it up and refresh my memory.

Please don’t let these omissions stop you from reading the book. Like I said, Killers of the Flower Moon is a page turner. I can’t imagine that other readers will be disappointed.

Gilda (1946)

February 14, 1946, release date

Directed by Charles Vidor

Screenplay by Jo Eisinger and Marion Parsonnet

Story by E. S. Ellington

Cinematography by Rudolph Maté

Music by Hugo Friedhofer

Edited by Charles Nelson

Rita Hayworth as Gilda Mundson Farrell

Glenn Ford as Johnny Farrell/narrator

George Macready as Ballin Mundson

Joseph Calleia as Det. Maurice Obregon

Steven Geray as Uncle Pio

Joe Sawyer as Casey

Gerald Mohr as Capt. Delgado

Mark Roberts as Gabe Evans

Ludwig Donath as German

Don Douglas as Thomas Langford

George J. Lewis as Huerta

Anita Ellis, singing voice of Rita Hayworth in all but the acoustic guitar version of “Put the Blame on Mame,” which Hayworth sang herself

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Gilda: Film Noir with Style

In spite of this film’s two beautiful stars, Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth, Gilda is a very dark, noir story. I suspect that if two different actors played the leading characters, categorizing the film would be even easier. I have said many times that I am not fond of categories and that many films can be placed in two or even more categories, but I think viewers can see that Gilda is a dark story about war, profiteering, and—oh, yes—tortured love.

Johnny Farrell gambles on the docks in Buenos Aires. How he ended up in Argentina is not made completely clear, but it’s obvious that the circumstances leading up to his arrival in Buenos Aires were dubious and that he is living by his wits in a foreign country. When a game of chance goes suspiciously his way and Johnny’s life is threatened, a stranger, Ballin Mundson, saves him from his attacker. Ballin eventually offers Johnny a job in his nightclub/casino, and Johnny’s fortunes improve dramatically from that point on.

But then Ballin comes home with his new wife, Gilda, and Johnny’s future suddenly takes a downward turn again. Gilda and Johnny were once in love in New York City, and they did not part amicably. The reasons for their failed romance are also not made clear, but neither one is shy about telling the other how much they hate one another. With Ballin as the link between them, and with their propensities to hurt one another, the narrative can only get darker and more complicated.

(This blog post about Gilda contains spoilers.)

During the course of the film, World War II ends and everyone celebrates, but that’s also when Nazis escape to Argentina and other countries in South America. Perhaps this was already common knowledge for moviegoers in 1946. In Gilda, two Nazis come looking for Ballin and their tungsten patents. Ballin double-crosses them, keeping the patents for himself and killing one of the Nazis in the process. Film critic Richard Schickel provides the commentary on the DVD from the Criterion Collection. He calls the tungsten subplot a MacGuffin: Something that the characters in Gilda care about but that viewers practically ignore (the term MacGuffin was coined, of course, by Alfred Hitchcock). Schickel also says that the subplot is not well developed and thus viewers can’t be expected to care much about tungsten in Gilda.

After repeat viewings of the film, I disagree that the subplot is underdeveloped. I think it’s true that viewers care more about Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth and less about tungsten (and possibly even less about Johnny Farrell and Gilda Mundson!). It’s easy to miss the details about other plot threads when two beautiful stars are headlining. But careful attention to the dialogue of supporting characters reveals that the tungsten subplot is actually quite important. Tungsten is exceedingly important to Ballin and his plans for world domination. Perhaps the narrative in Gilda is richer and more multilayered than any viewer can appreciate after only one viewing. I certainly don’t mind seeing the film again some time to find out.

Click here to read Tungsten: The Story of an Indispensable Metal, by Mildred Gwin Andrews, a general discussion of tungsten and in particular its strategic importance. Or click here to read Strategic Metals and National Defense: Tungsten in World War II (and Beyond), by Ronald H. Limbaugh. Neither link mentions anything about the film Gilda, but they will likely prove why so many viewers paid more attention to Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth in the film than they did to any mention of tungsten! What I wonder is how many viewers in 1946 knew about tungsten and Nazi war criminals. Perhaps a lot more than viewers today.

Ballin exuded more hate than either Gilda or Johnny. He tells Gilda: “Hate is a very exciting emotion. Hate is the only thing that has ever warmed me.” Gilda reacts with alarm to this proclamation: We can still assess her reaction, even though she is in shadow and Ballin is in the foreground, taking up about a third of the movie screen. Ballin is a very intimidating figure, and he appears particularly menacing when he waits up one night for Gilda and Johnny to arrive home. He interrogates them, and we can see their fear, especially Gilda’s, in the way both react to his questions. Most of the time Ballin stands closer to the camera, almost completely in black silhouette, which focuses our attention on Gilda’s and Johnny’s fear and adds to the tension. It also focuses our attention on the two stars, but it is Ballin who is again in the foreground, dominating the screen. Ballin Mundson is photographed this same way several times in Gilda, which serves to underscore his menace. Ballin Mundson’s threats should not be taken lightly, and his character alone adds a lot to the noir feel of the film.

Gilda admits to being afraid of Ballin and even tells Johnny that Ballin is insane. Gilda repeats Ballin’s words to Johnny, but for very different reasons: “Hate is a very exciting emotion. Haven’t you noticed? Very exciting. I hate you, too, Johnny. I hate you so much I think I’m going to die from it.” In contrast to Ballin, Johnny and Gilda are inching their way to the realization that they still love one another. Johnny won’t come around until Detective Obregon gives him the push he needs at the end, when he tells Johnny that Gilda did none of the things that he suspects her of doing, that is, cheat on her marriage.

How does Obregon know so much about Gilda? It’s never stated directly, but I think he’s had the principal participants at the nightclub tailed all along. Obregon isn’t hanging out at Ballin’s nightclub because he drinks and gambles; he states as much to Johnny, who can’t understand what he’s doing there. Ballin escapes Obregon’s investigation by faking his own death. The characters believe that Ballin died, but viewers are given a glimpse into his machinations and future plans. His escape implied to me that he is practiced at it: maybe because he escaped from Nazi Germany? Is he a Nazi, too? How else would he have known the two who come to Buenos Aires expecting Ballin to live up to his “gentlemen’s agreement” about the tungsten patents?

These questions are never answered in the film, and this ambiguity only adds to the many noir characteristics of Gilda. Ambiguity, hate, revenge, murder, double-crosses, Nazis in postwar Buenos Aires: Gilda is definitely a film noir that happens to have two distracting, beautiful, and talented stars. Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford appear in another film noir that is similar in theme and plot: Affair in Trinidad (1952). And once again, their star power almost overshadows the dark story. I’ll have to see that one again, too.