155: Most Wanted and While The City Sleeps

The Blotter Presents

Nope, that's not a typo: Best Evidence publisher Eve Batey joins me to talk about a movie that's still in "theaters," Most Wanted. Featuring Josh Hartnett's foxy 'stache and a breakout ugly performance from Jim Gaffigan, Most Wanted interrogates the role of budgetary concerns in law-enforcement corruption and/or incompetence...and we interrogate the crusading-reporter subgenre and whether it's true to life.
We do it twice, as a matter of fact, as our Cold Case topic is While The City Sleeps, a movie that references the William Heirens case but is actually about whether media's attempts to "make" a story is itself the story...or criminal. The 1956 thriller stars Vincent Price, Drew Barrymore's dad, and a realistically sodden Dana Stevens in a tale about a callow press scion using a string of murders to pit his top men (...uch) against each other for a plum job. We recommend it, and not just because it kiiiind of makes John Douglas look like an ass for claiming nobody knew how to profile properly before 1974, so hike your pants up to your pits and have a listen to The Blotter Presents, Episode 155.
SHOW NOTES

• Where to watch Most Wanted
• The Most Wanted/Target Number One Wikipedia page
• Reply All's Compstat episode
• Stephen McHattie's Zodiac credit
• Kill The Messenger
• While The City Sleeps on Amazon
• My Ripped From The Headlines review
• Eater NY on Marchi's (and the Eater's Digest podcast)
• Wikipedia's William Heirens page