Gardenia blu

Blue Gardenia (1953)

The likable Richard Conte makes a great news reporter here, and Anne Baxter as the woman in trouble is pitch perfect. In fact, Baxter's two sidekicks are also right on, Jeff Donnell (a woman, really sharp) and Ann Southern. It's a good story, a little forced, but with lots of atmosphere at the right times (including a scene with the real Nat King Cole playing and singing).

What holds the movie back is a mixture of basic story line, which lacks velocity and credibility equally, and direction, which doesn't heighten what is really strong here. That is, a great cast, and some great situations (including murder). Fritz Lang, the director, is accountable, of course, for some judgements that let things loosen up too much, and for the cute but abrupt ending. There are some characters that got developed in the beginning that don't get a chance to blossom. If we just focus on the two leads (no counting Raymond Burr, who has a brief and different kind of presence), there is a chemistry not quite clicking. Nice, regular guy Conte and slightly sophisticated Baxter don't quite match up, even though both are convincing individually.

There is some talent behind the scenes here worth mention, especially cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, who has done a whole slew of great small movies with astonishing visuals. Lang uses him well, though with a studied restraint that almost implies this was a throwaway effort. It comes between two of his greatest American movies, however: Clash by Night and The Big Heat. It's worth a look, a good movie not quite a noir by usual measures, but filled with intrigue and a little touch of welcome romance.

Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) is a telephone operator who plans to spend her birthday evening alone with her boyfriend - or rather, with his photograph and a letter she just received from him. The real guy is 6000 miles away in Korea. While her two roommates - Crystal (Ann Sothern), a wisecracking divorcée and Sally (Jeff Donnell), a sweet girl with a taste for bloodthirsty mystery novels - are gone, Norah, wearing a black taffeta dress and sipping champagne, reads the letter and blanches. Her sweetheart has dumped her. She ends up spending the rest of her evening with Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr), a wolf who draws girls for a living and ruins them as a hobby. He takes her to the Blue Gardenia and they listen to Nat King Cole as he gets her very drunk on Polynesian pearl divers. The next morning she wakes up with a terrible hangover, but that's the best part. At work she learns of a murderess soon to be called the Blue Gardenia Girl. The label is invented by a newspaper columnist named Casey Mayo (Richard Conte), who hopes to find the femme fatale before the police. What worries Norah is that he and the police may both be looking for her.

Fritz Lang directed this solid mystery thriller that has our complete attention from beginning to end. A good script and good performances are accentuated by Fritz Lang's camera and his usual sharp eye for detail and way of creating mounting dread.

A women whose boy friend has just jilted her (Anne Baxter) gets invited to a restaurant by a known philanderer (Raymond Burr), gets drunk and accompanies him to his apartment. When he tries to force himself on her she struggles against him but passes out and has no memory of what happened and how she got home. The next day he is found dead and she assumes she killed him. This is a well-acted and well-directed picture with great music and excellent photography. The plot is suspenseful almost to the last minute; in so far 'The Blue Gardenia' leaves nothing to be desired. If you want to spend an entertaining almost 1 1/2 hours, it is the film for you. For all that, my impression was that director Fritz Lang could easily have made more of the material. Towards the end there is a sort of romance - this is an element that could have been introduced earlier and of which more could have been made. Also, the way the actual murderer (of course not Baxter, you didn't seriously think so, did you?) is found is far too straightforward. All it takes is one clue discovered by a journalist (Richard Conte) and one visit to a record shop, and that's it. In so far, the film left me a little dissatisfied. However, all in all it is still very good.

Norah, a young, attractive woman (played by Anne Baxter), gets a letter from her overseas boyfriend, informing her that he has found a new love. At just the moment she realizes she has been rejected, the phone rings. It's a dinner invitation from a womanizer who thinks he is talking to one of Norah's two female roommates. Depressed and vulnerable, Norah impulsively accepts the invitation, on her own behalf. This is the setup for "The Blue Gardenia", set in the early 50s, a film with a good beginning and some really high-powered Hollywood talent.

The screenplay, with its contrived plot, and director Fritz Lang's ambivalent direction render a flawed production. The film's tone, expressed both in the B&W cinematography and in the music, tends to seesaw back and forth between romance and mystery. But, the film can still be enjoyable to viewers looking for a murder-mystery/romance combo that is not overly complex. The easy to follow plot moves along unencumbered by the confusion wrought by multi-layered plot gimmicks so common in today's films.

The film's ending is one for the books. In all the mystery films I have watched, I don't recall a murder investigation being wrapped up so easily as this one. It's way too neat and too tidy to be credible. The film's 88-minute run time leaves a lot of room for additional material. Expansion of the film's final Act could have provided a more realistic and satisfying ending.

I really liked seeing Raymond Burr and Ann Sothern. The film also sports some clever dialogue. With its interesting premise, "The Blue Gardenia", despite a flawed script, will likely appeal to viewers looking for a melodramatic film with a nostalgic setting, wherein the plot is straightforward. Viewers looking for a topnotch script and/or a complex storyline with lots of plot twists and subtlety will need to look elsewhere.

The first part is rather cute. Sothern, Baxter, and Donnell play off one another really well as three girl buddies living together. Of course, viewers like me also have to get used to Raymond Burr as a lover-boy. After so many years as a movie heavy and TV's Perry Mason that takes some getting used to. But the lighter part ends when Burr turns up dead and Baxter thinks she did it. At that point, things turn more mysterious and psychological.

Baxter is easy to look at as she assumes the central role of conflicted woman. More importantly, Baxter the actress wisely avoids her sometimes tendency to over-emote. But the movie's remainder is only mildly suspenseful as Baxter tries to deal with her supposed guilt. Did she really bonk Burr on the head with a poker since she was too drunk to know. And who can she turn to for help. Newspaperman Conte appears helpful, but maybe he's just interested in a big story. And what about Superman's George Reeves as a detective with a moustache, no less.

There are some interesting visuals as one might expect from an artist like director Lang. Nonetheless, the overall result could have been helmed by a dozen lesser directors than the maker of Metropolis (1927) and Woman in the Window (1944). All in all, the movie's an interesting time-passer. But for fans of the German director like myself, it's nothing special.