The Blue Gardenia (1953) on Netflix
NR19531h 30mCrimeDramaFilm-Noir
Switchboard operator Norah Larkin learns her soldier fiancé has found another woman in Tokyo. She accepts a date with artist Harry Prebble and wakes to news that he has been murdered.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.8/107,310 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes84%
Trailer
Plot summary
Norah Larkin works a switchboard in Los Angeles. On her birthday she opens a letter from her fiancé, a soldier in Korea, saying he will marry a woman he met in Tokyo. A call meant for her roommate Crystal Carpenter puts her on a date with Harry Prebble, an artist who draws calendar girls. At the Blue Gardenia, a South Seas-themed restaurant, Prebble plies her with tropical cocktails and takes her to his apartment. There he turns violent; she fights back and flees into the night with little memory of it. She wakes to learn that Prebble has been murdered and that police are questioning the women who posed for him, while a columnist, Casey Mayo, calls the wanted killer the Blue Gardenia murderess.
Cast
- Ruth Storeyas Rose Miller
Show all 20 cast
- Papa John Creachas Man Playing Violin (uncredited)
- Sam Finnas Photographer (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Blue Gardenia (1953)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Vera Caspary's novella was called The Gardenia; the film's title was changed to The Blue Gardenia, probably to attract audiences by reminding them of the highly publicized unsolved Black Dahlia murder of 1947.
- Fritz Lang recalled The Blue Gardenia as his first picture after "the McCarthy business", shot in twenty days, and said that might be what made him "so venomous".
- The Blue Gardenia was the first film in Fritz Lang's "newspaper noir" trilogy, followed in 1956 by While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt.
- Ruth Storey, an actress married to the film's leading man Richard Conte, was visiting him on set when the producer spontaneously suggested she play the small but pivotal role of Rose.
- Fritz Lang wanted Dana Andrews, then the top film noir actor, for the male lead, but Andrews had begun a sabbatical; the part went to Richard Conte, who had previously starred in The Fighter for Alex Gottlieb.
- In 1951 the female lead was negotiated for Dorothy McGuire and then offered to Linda Darnell, Joan Fontaine and Margaret Sullavan, with the film at that point set up at Fidelity Pictures.
- Ann Sothern's role was her first film part since MGM dropped her in 1950 over health issues, and her next cinema credit was the 1964 film The Best Man.
