"The Blue Gardenia" Review

 

by Daniel White

Having recently had back surgery, which was done at Lenox Hill hospital on the upper east side of Manhattan (don't worry hep cats, I will be up and jitterbugging in no time), I decided to Google: "celebrities who have died in Lenox Hill hospital" (I'm a bit on the morbid side). Bingo, I hit pay dirt! Myrna Loy, Sylvia Sidney, Anne Baxter, which of these lovely ladies would I choose to salute for having kicked the bucket at Lenox Hill?

I went with Anne Baxter, not because she's my favorite (that honor goes to Myrna Loy), but because she was in Jean Renoir's Swamp Water, which I've always wanted to see.

Alas, Swamp Water was not to be. I put it on last night, and though it's a very interesting movie, I was too goo-goo from my pain medication, and lost interest. It will have to keep for another time.

Not to be deterred in my quest to honor Miss Baxter, and with a much clearer head, today I caught Warner Brothers' The Blue Gardenia (1953). Helmed by one of my favorite directors, Fritz Lang, and based on a Vera Caspary novella, the movie is a pretty nifty flick, a crime drama with some noirish elements.

A blonde Baxter plays telephone operator Norah Larkin, who makes a date with pin-up artist Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr) after her soldier beau dumps her via a Dear Jane letter. Things go terribly wrong when our heavy gets our switchboard sister drunk on Polynesian Pearl Divers ("Can I get high on one of these?", an unhappy Anne asks), then brings her back to his place for some unwanted nooky.

A blacked out Baxter comes to in her apartment the next morning, knowing something horrible had happened, but unable to recollect the details of her drunken date with bad boy Burr. When she discovers that Prebble has been murdered (bludgeoned to death by a fire poker, no less), she assumes she's the culprit and immediately begins to go to pieces.

Released several months before Lang's immortal The Big Heat (now that's a film noir!), The Blue Gardenia is very good but never reaches greatness. Some of that has to do with the leading lady, Anne Baxter, who is miscast as a working girl. Not the first choice (I would have liked to see Linda Darnell, who was considered for the role, play Norah), she just doesn't strike me as a blue collar gal from Bakersfield. And her drunk scene is unconvincing (in her defense, playing a drunk convincingly is one of the hardest tasks for an actor), an amusing but artificial piece of theatrics.

Thankfully, Ann Sothern is on hand to liven things up as Anne's co-worker and roommate (now there's a switchboard operator!), Crystal. Sothern is great, a sharp-tongued wise acre who wouldn't have needed a poker to off Burr; she would have shredded him with her tongue.

I like the feminist proletariat feel to the film, three working women (Jeff Donnell is the third) who share an apartment, carp about men, and exchange clothes (a black taffeta dress plays an important role in the mystery). These women like men, but they are not dependent on them (except maybe for Baxter; her troubles start when she gets jilted).

Richard Conte shows up as Casey Mayo, a newspaper columnist who concocts a plan to lure The Blue Gardenia in (the name the mysterious murderess has been labeled by the press). I like Conte and I like him most when he plays against type in a "good guy" role.

Not on the level of The Big Heat, but several notches above House by the River, The Blue Gardenia is a fine Fritz Lang film and despite my objections to Anne Baxter, an above average mystery.

Co-starring George Reeves as the copper hot on the heels of our heroine, and a smooth Nat King Cole singing the title song, The Blue Gardenia is available on YouTube. And remember: "Taffeta has a voice of its own."