Customer Reviews

Blue Gardenia, the

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Warner Bros. Pictures and Image Entertainment presents "THE BLUE GARDENIA" (1953) (90 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- After learning that her boyfriend, a GI in Korea, has found someone else, Norah Larkin impulsively agrees to meet womanizer Harry Prebble for dinner --- Norah allows herself to get drunk and accept Prebble's invitation to his apartment --- When he tries to force himself on her, she hits him with a poker --- Unfortunately, Prebble is found dead the next morning, and Norah, not even remembering how she got home, thinks that she killed him --- Meanwhile, newspaperman Casey Mayo, looking for an angle, invites the "Blue Gardenia Murderess" to turn herself in to him.

Excellent noir from Fritz Lang, with a stand-out performance from Raymond Burr.

Under the production staff of:
Fritz Lang [Director]
Charles Hoffman [Screenwriter]
Vera Caspary [Story]
Alex Gottlieb [Producer]
Raoul Kraushaar [Original Film Score]
Nicholas Musuraca [Cinematographer]
Edward Mann [Film Editor]

BIOS:
1. Fritz Lang [Friedrich Christian Anton Lang] [Director]
Date of Birth: 5 December 1890 - Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]
Date of Death: 2 August 1976 - Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California

2. Anne Baxter
Date of Birth: 7 May 1923 - Michigan City, Indiana
Date of Death: 12 December 1985 - New York City, New York

3. Richard Conte [aka: Richard Nicholas Peter Conte]
Date of Birth: 24 March 1910 - Jersey City, New Jersey
Date of Death: 15 April 1975 - Los Angeles, California

4. Ann Sothern [aka: Harriette Arlene Lake]
Date of Birth: 22 January 1909 - Valley City, North Dakota
Date of Death: 15 March 2001 - Ketchum, Idaho

5. Raymond Burr [aka: Raymond William Stacy Burr]
Date of Birth: 21 May 1917 - New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Date of Death: 12 September 1993 - Sonoma, California

the cast includes:
Anne Baxter ... Norah Larkin
Richard Conte ... Casey Mayo
Ann Sothern ... Crystal Carpenter
Raymond Burr ... Harry Prebble
Jeff Donnell ... Sally Ellis
Richard Erdman ... Al
George Reeves ... Police Capt. Sam Haynes
Ruth Storey ... Rose Miller
Ray Walker ... Homer
Nat 'King' Cole ... Himself

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 Stars
Performance: 4 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 4 Stars
Overall: 4 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 90 min on DVD ~ Image Entertainment ~ (04/11/2000)

The acting by both Anne Baxter and Raymond Burr is exceptional and elevates this to one of my favorite film noirs. Baxter is the young innocent Norah Larkin who is crushed when she receives a 'Dear Jane' letter from her boyfriend in Korea. Devastated and alone, she is easy prey for the slimey Harry Prebble portrayed by Raymond Burr in his pre-Perry Mason period. After a drunken night, Norah can't remember anything except that she was fighting off advances from Prebble. The newspapers are filled with the story of his murder and the mysterious blonde who left a blue gardenia behind. Viewers watch Norah slip deeper and deeper into paraonia as she frantically tries to conceal her involvement yet remember the details of her ill-fated night. Adding to the outstanding cast are Ann Sothern and Jeff Donnell as her roommates and Richard Conte as the newspaper reporter who makes an open appeal for the Blue Gardenia killer to come forward and trust him. As the police web (led by TV's Superman George Reeves) tightens around her, Norah turns to the reporter to help her, but....suffice it to say the happy-ever-after ending is a little too quick and easy. However, this is definitely worth watching and as an added plus you will be treated to the melodic voice of Nat "King" Cole singing the title song throughout the movie.

Having seen and enjoyed most of Fritz Lang's movies from his Berlin period, I bought this highly recommended DVD sight unseen. It was a great disappointment. Where to begin? The story is weak and predictable; the dialogue is very cliched; the acting--excepting Raymond Burr's wonderful performance as a sleazy artist--is unconvincing. Don't expect what the DVD label tells you--this is no "noir thriller" and it doesn't do anything to expose McCarthyism, despite Lang's pretentious comments. One nice touch: there is a brief 5 minute scene with Nat King Cole singing "Blue Gardenia" in what was becoming a new trend in early 1950's America: a Chinese restaurant. As a period piece, this film has some merit, but don't expect a well crafted noir film like the "Maltese Falcon", "Sunset Boulevard", or even "M" or "Dr Mabuse".

My mother and I ordered this video to see if it beared any resemblance to "The Blue Dahlia" with Alan Ladd. It turned out to be nothing like it, but we love it just tje same. I highly reccomend it to anyone who enjoys classic film noir.

"I was really mad," director Fritz Lang conceded relative to his work on "The Blue Gardenia." Lang, one of the numerous talented German emigrees escaping Hitler's Germany, a group also consisting of Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak and Max Reinhardt, had been offered the position of the head of filmmaking for the Third Reich's Propaganda Ministry by none other than Joseph Goebbels. Lang, who loathed what the Third Reich stood for, believed the offer was no more than a trap and his days were numbered if he stayed in Berlin. That same night he made his escape to Paris, after which he came to America and found a position in Hollywood making films.

Thoroughly fed up with thought control and the imprisonment of ideas, and all too subsequently people as well, Lang was furious over the Cold War response to the new challenge of the Soviet Union, that of McCarthyism and its sorry influence over the film industry with the blacklist period highlighted by the imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten for refusing to name names to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The term that civil libertarians of the period used was "guilt by association" and, in his creative anger, this was the story thrust of "The Blue Gardenia." Charles Hoffman's screenplay focused tightly on the tragic experience of one lovely and vulnerable young woman, Anne Baxter, who, as a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, becomes the subject of a city wide media blitz and corresponding woman hunt which blankets Los Angeles and leaves her terrified and appropriately paranoiac.

Baxter's journey into hell begins one evening after opening a letter from the man she loves in her apartment on her birthday. Her roommates Ann Sothern and Jeff Donnell are both gone and Baxter milks the occasion for romance, pouring herself a champagne toast and playing soft music as she reads what she believes will be a romantic letter from the man she hopes to marry, who is serving in the military in Korea during that conflict. They have been sweethearts since high school in Bakersfield, where they grew up some 100 miles from L.A. Instead of receiving a romantic letter she tearfully reads about him finding love with the nurse he met when he was hospitalized from a war injury, the woman he now intends to marry.

Caught in a vulnerable state, Baxter then receives a call from wolfish artist Raymond Burr, who was attempting to reach her roommate Sothern. Burr has an office near the main switchboard room of the telephone company, where Baxter and her roommates work as operators. Feeling crushed, she agrees to meet Burr and have dinner with him at The Blue Gardenia, a Hollywood restaurant-nightclub, where she listens to Nat "King" Cole's romantic rendering of the film's title song. Burr gets her drunk on exotic Polynesian drinks, then drives her to his apartment.

When Burr lives up to his reputation by coming on fast, Baxter resists. She then passes out, waking up and finding her highly romantic host lying on the rug. She quickly exits, walking home barefoot in the rain.

Richard Conte, a shrewd, ambitious newspaper columnist, surfaces on the scene next. When Burr, whose reputation definitely preceded him, is found dead in his apartment, the opportunity surfaces for regular headlines and the sale of an endless stream of newspapers. Since Baxter had been seen with Burr at nightclub, where she was provided with a free blue gardenia as befitting the establishment's custom, Conte uses the catchy name in his stories as the woman hunt heats up.

Unable to remember what happened in her conflict with Burr, a frightened Baxter burns her potentially incriminating dress which she wore that night in the trash. A police officer happens by but she barely gets away with her deed. Another time the former husband of Ann Sothern, a practical joker, causes her to hang up the telephone in fright when he calls and asks, "Is this the Blue Gardenia?"

Eventually Baxter, who is presumed guilty in the rush to judgment media style, reminiscent of McCarthy Era guilt by association, takes advantage of an offer by Conte sent via his column to meet him in private. He offers to be helpful and see that she receives fair treatment by the police. Instead the wily lieutenant heading the case's task force, played by George Reeves of the "Superman" television series, apprehends Baxter at the fast food restaurant near the newspaper where she has gone to meet Conte. Baxter believes she has been deceived by a reporter for whom she was developing a rapid romantic crush. Conte insists that Reeves is the culprit and he never deceived her.

Eventually the wily Conte cracks the case, feeling guilty over launching the Blue Gardenia frenzy. A nifty twist at film's end reveals the identity of the actual killer after bulldog reporter Conte follows up successfully on a clue.

Fritz Lang proved once more in "The Blue Gardenia" how skilled he was at putting over a film on a small budget. The action is maintained while the major point he was seeking to make was put across to the audience without reducing the film to preachiness.

Fritz lang's The Blue Gardenia has to be one of the most loathing and emotionally violent takes on human kind that you have to not only love it but look at yourself differently when its over! Baxter has one hell of a night after being taken advantage of by a imposing and mountain-esque Raymond Burr she fids her self not only accused of murder but accused of being a threat to society as a whole! Lang paints a gritty tale never does the film seem bright or on the point of letting Baxter see the light - even her catty roomates are vile in their delivery of compassion for her distressed life. But for as the film as a whole the movie is built on Raymond Burr. His performance is genius and so is Baxter but Burr an dhis husky voice and shadowing figure seems to roll over Baxter and the women he seduces like a bug under a tank! So to the viewer her intetions are justifed and we never forget why she has to push so hard to define her self but for all teh respect Richard Conte's do good reporter offers Baxter in her quest for redemption the scene of Burr and Conte discussing women as conquests still leaves a shudder down my back!

In my opinion, a film noir DVD library never would be complete without the movies directed by german director Fritz Lang in Hollywood in the 1940-1950 period. They simply have to be in it. THE BLUE GARDENIA is the first of these Fritz Lang movies to hit the DVD market thanks to Image. Starring Richard Conte, Anne Baxter, Raymond Burr and Ann Sothern, THE BLUE GARDENIA is about murder, trust and guilt.

Anne Baxter thinks she has killed Raymond Burr, the police knows she has killed him because a lot of evidences have been found on the scene of the murder and we know that she's guilty because we have seen the scene with our very eyes. So what ? Where's the suspense ? Nowhere, because there isn't suspense in THE BLUE GARDENIA. Fritz Lang is more interested in describing the behaviour of Anne Baxter who really doesn't act as if she doesn't want to be rediscovered. The director has read the complete works of Freud and is playing with his heroine tortured by guilt.

No extra features with this Image presentation except for a scene access. Too bad.

A DVD for your library.

I just wanted to clarify some inaccuracies put forth in a couple previous reviews:

1) "The Blue Dahlia" was released on April 19, 1946.

2) Elizabeth Short's body was found nine months later, on January 15, 1947. It is most commonly believed that she was nicknamed the "Black Dahlia" by a sensationalistic press looking for a catchy nickname. It is probably a reference to both the Veronica Lake film, and the fact that Beth had a fondness for black clothing.

3) This film, "The Blue Gardenia" was not released until 1953, and really has nothing overtly to do with the notorious unsolved murder of Beth Short. However, I CAN see where the filmmakers may have slightly exploited the fact that the Black Dahlia had seeped well into America's collective unconscious by then.

Anyone interested in the facts and theories surrounding the Black Dahlia case would do better to consult www.bethshort.com or to read John Gilmore's book "Severed", available right here at Amazon!

This film stands by itself as a bonified flim noir classic. Contrary to some opinions that it was made to capitalize on the notorious Black Dahlia murder case, which had just occurred, it is quite the opposite. The Blue Dahlia had already been in release when the murder of Elizabeth Short occurred, and when it was discovered she had a tattoo of a black dahlia on her body, an enterprising L.A. newspaper reporter nicknamed her the Black Dahlia to spice up the interest in the case to sell newspapers. Strangely, after all these years, the murder of Elizabeth Short has still not been solved and the film will always be an eerie reminder of that tragic fact. A pretty good television film titled, Who Killed The Black Dahlia, starring Lucie Arnaz was made around 1974 but I have never seen it on television, video or DVD since.

I bought this movie really to try out a couple of the melodramatic Hollywood movies that came out in the 50s. It definitely pulls that need off. The simple thriller works both as a 'twist at the end' whodunnit and as a stylish Hollywood piece. But at the end it's just a quaint simple movie.