Friday, June 28, 2013

The Blue Gardenia

The Blue Gardenia
Released Date: March 23, 1953
Director: Fritz Lang
Actors: Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern, Raymond Burr, Jeff Donnell, Richard Erdman, George Reeves, Ray Walker, Ruth Storey, and Nat 'King' Cole



     I love watching TCM, and my favorite thing about TCM.. Turning it on and starting a random movie. Or even going on Demand and seeing the movies they have for you to watch for a whole month. That is how I stumbled upon The Blue Gardenia. I saw that Anne Baxter was in it and also Raymond Burr. That had my attention from the start. Then reading the summary, that got me to hit play. I love the sound of Nat 'King' Cole, and his beautiful voice starts the movie off right. I love seeing Anne Baxter as the good girl, when I was younger I was convinced she really was evil like Eve, and I didn't like her at all. But then seeing her in I Confess by Alfred Hitchcock and then this, I can see how wonderful of an actor she really is. And how many roles she could accomplish.



     Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) works as a telephone operator with her two roommates, Crystal Carpenter (Ann Sothern) and Rose Miller (Ruth Storey). They too are telephone operators. You can see from the beginning that Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr) is up to no good, and gets the girls telephone number. Flirting with the operators and then closing his office door to talk to another woman on the phone, who seems to be a little more than a coworker or even friend. Norah has a boyfriend anyway, well she did. He's away in the military and she is having her relationship through letters. Till one day, on her birthday, she gets the dear john letter, wait is that what they are called? He has found another girl in Japan and he is going to marry her. Harry Prebble calls the house and expects to get one of the single girls. Instead, Norah answers, but just having her heart broken, she accepts his date offer of Chinese food and drinks. And boy does she drink. She gets drunk even, and ends up at his apartment. With the song "Blue Gardenia" playing the whole time, either in your head because it played at dinner, or they really do play it a few times. But its nice anyway. Harry tries to kiss Norah, and realizing what she's done, she hits him over the head. The next day, Harry is found murdered. Was it Norah? Was it when she hit him upside the head? Find out by watching this fun movie.

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