![]() ![]() Norah agrees and returns home, where she confesses to worldwise roommate Crystal, who is sympathetic. Casey asks to meet her friend at the diner the next day. The two later go to a diner, where Norah tells her supposed amnesiac friend's account of the murder. She tells him she is speaking for a friend, and Casey reveals that he is willing to pay for top legal representation if that friend agrees to surrender. After one botched attempt, he meets her in his office. He receives many bogus phone calls from local women, but recognizes Norah's as genuine. Seeking to capitalize on the case's publicity, Casey pens a cat's paw entitled "Letter to an Unknown Murderess", calling for her to turn herself in to him rather than the police, promising a fairer shake. She is harried by a passing patrolman for burning after hours, but left off with a warning. Frightened, Norah wraps hers in a newspaper and sneaks out in the wee hours to burn it in an outdoor incinerator. ![]() That night Sally reads aloud the newspaper report that the suspect had been wearing a black dress. He learns from the restaurant waiter that the mystery woman was a blonde, and from its blind female flower seller ( Celia Lovsky) that she had a "quiet voice". ![]() It revives a vague flashback of wielding a fire poker and shattering a mirror.Įvoking the macabre specter of the Black Dahlia slaying, popular Los Angeles Chronicle columnist Casey Mayo ( Richard Conte) dubs the presumed killer the "Blue Gardenia murderess". When Norah learns why, she is startled and immediately seeks the nearest newspaper account of the slaying. Police arrive at the telephone office to question women who had posed for Harry's girlie drawings. Meanwhile, police at the crime scene question Harry's maid ( Almira Sessions), who admits to cleaning the poker and placing the shoes in the closet, ruining the crime scene. The next morning Norah is awakened by Crystal and discovers she has a complete blackout of what happened the previous night. Semi-conscious, she flees the scene, leaving her black suede pumps behind. Persisting, he awakens her, she resists, then strikes him with a fire poker, shattering a mirror. He puts on all his moves, but Norah passes out on his couch. Harry whisks her to his apartment to "show her his art", and plays the same Cole record on his phonograph. Pianist Nat King Cole croons in the background, highlighting his popular song "Blue Gardenia". Immediately he plies her with strong tropical cocktails, one after the next till she is completely but happily soused. When she arrives at the Blue Gardenia South Seas-themed restaurant Harry is surprised to see Norah rather than Crystal. At the candlelit dinner table she opens the latest letter from him only to receive a Dear Jane letter revealing his plans to marry a nurse he met in Tokyo.ĭevastated, Norah accepts a date over the telephone with a womanizing calendar girl artist Harry Prebble ( Raymond Burr) that had been sizing up prospects earlier that day at the telephone office. On her birthday that night she decides to celebrate by dining alone at home with the picture of her fiancé, a soldier serving in the Korean War. switchboard operator along with her roommates, Crystal Carpenter ( Ann Sothern) and Sally Ellis ( Jeff Donnell). Norah Larkin ( Anne Baxter) is a single woman who works as an L.A. The director of cinematography for The Blue Gardenia was RKO regular Nicholas Musuraca, then working at Warner Brothers. The song " Blue Gardenia" was written by Bob Russell and Lester Lee and arranged by Nelson Riddle. Īn independent production distributed by Warner Bros., The Blue Gardenia – a cynical take on press coverage of a sensational murder case (the Black Dahlia) – was the first installment of Lang's "newspaper noir" film trio, being followed in 1956 by both While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. Directed by Fritz Lang from a screenplay by Charles Hoffman, it is based on the novella The Gardenia by Vera Caspary. ![]() The Blue Gardenia is a 1953 American film noir starring Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, and Ann Sothern. ![]()
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