The Blue Gardenia
Watching The Blue Gardenia, I hoped for a solid little noir and got something a bit stranger and sadder. Nora (Anne Baxter), dumped by letter from a boyfriend overseas, ends up on a rebound date with Raymond Burr’s predatory artist Harry Prebble and wakes up with a hangover, a fuzzy memory and a murder on the front page.
The whodunnit mechanics are conventional, but the mood carries it. Fritz Lang seems less interested in the mystery than in the way the press and the public swarm around it. Richard Conte’s columnist is charming enough, but there’s a missed opportunity to explore the relationship between Nora and her two flatmates – a more developed, supportive bond between the three women would have given the film extra bite.
The big problem is the ending, which feels tacked on and oddly thoughtless, as if everyone suddenly remembered they needed to clock off for the weekend. Still, for most of its length it’s enjoyable: cocktail bars, lonely switchboard girls and post-war exhaustion, wrapped up in a glossy little noir that leaves a faint bruise.
The whodunnit mechanics are conventional, but the mood carries it. Fritz Lang seems less interested in the mystery than in the way the press and the public swarm around it. Richard Conte’s columnist is charming enough, but there’s a missed opportunity to explore the relationship between Nora and her two flatmates – a more developed, supportive bond between the three women would have given the film extra bite.
The big problem is the ending, which feels tacked on and oddly thoughtless, as if everyone suddenly remembered they needed to clock off for the weekend. Still, for most of its length it’s enjoyable: cocktail bars, lonely switchboard girls and post-war exhaustion, wrapped up in a glossy little noir that leaves a faint bruise.
Mini Review: Watching The Blue Gardenia, I hoped for a solid little noir and got something stranger and sadder. Anne Baxter’s Nora, a dumped switchboard operator, wakes up from a drunken date with Raymond Burr’s predatory artist to find a murder on the front page. The mystery is conventional and the ending feels tacked on, but the mood, media circus and cocktail-bar melancholy give this glossy noir a lingering bruise.
