The Blue Gardenia (1953): The First in Fritz Lang’s Newspaper Noir Trilogy

I decided to see The Blue Gardenia again because it is the first of three films in what are now called director Fritz Lang’s newspaper noir film trilogy. The other two are While the City Sleeps, released on May 16, 1956, and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, released on September 13, 1956. My plan is to see and write about all three in the trilogy as part of a series this April for my blog.

The Blue Gardenia is a noir that seems to get better and better with repeat viewings. In fact, I think it’s the best of the three films, which came as a bit of a surprise to me because the second two films star Dana Andrews, one of my favorite noir actors. But Richard Conte is another favorite of mine, and he is one of the stars of The Blue Gardenia.

The back cover of the DVD that I watched for The Blue Gardenia states the following:

 . . . The Blue Gardenia is a scalding critique of the public’s hunger for bloodshed and scandal. At the same time, it captures the panic of a nation sliding into cold war paranoia. “It was the first picture after the McCarthy business,” [Fritz] Lang later said. “Maybe that’s what made me so venomous.”

It is quite true that a murder and a newspaper reporter looking for a story are vital parts of the narrative. And Fritz Lang may well have been motivated by a newspaper-reading public that enjoyed articles about false accusations directed at their fellow Americans. But The Blue Gardenia is much more than a newspaper noir (and mentions nothing directly about McCarthyism). The way men treat women is just as important to the narrative in The Blue Gardenia.

I wrote about The Blue Gardenia once before for my blog. Click here to see my first article about the film. I saw the other two films in the trilogy just recently for this series of articles.

The film starts with reporter Casey Mayo and his photographer Al of the Los Angeles Chronicle arriving at the West-Coast Telephone Company. Mayo is planning to do a human interest story on the telephone operators who work there. Artist Harry Prebble is already in the telephone company offices sketching women at random, but on this particular day, he is sketching Crystal Carpenter. Norah Larkin and her two roommates, Crystal and Sally Ellis, not only live together; they also work together as telephone operators. Richard Conte, as Casey Mayo, may appear first on the screen, but the film is all about Norah Larkin, played by Ann Baxter, and Baxter gets top billing for this film.

(This article about The Blue Gardenia contains spoilers.)

It’s never made clear why Prebble is sketching women. That is, it’s never made clear that he has any connection at all with Casey Mayo or the Los Angeles Chronicle newspaper. It is clear that he has a lurid interest in women. All the female employees know that he is looking for dates and warn each other about his intentions. Crystal and Sally make sure to point out Prebble’s ill intentions to Norah, who seems not to have noticed that he dates women and then dumps them when he tires of them. Later in the film, viewers see that his apartment is littered with his sketches of women in pinup and cheesecake poses. Someone named Rose calls Harry Prebble at the West-Coast Telephone Company offices while he is busy sketching and working. She is upset, and the implication is that she is pregnant by Prebble. He puts Rose off, saying that he’ll call her when he is not so busy.

Crystal is interested in Casey Mayo and gives him her phone number. Harry Prebble overhears it, and he calls for a date with Crystal later that evening, even though she showed no interest in him and never gave him her phone number. (Would he have been considered pushy in 1953? The women working at the telephone company certainly had their doubts about him.) Norah is the one who answers the phone, and Harry thinks he is talking to Crystal. Norah accepts a last-minute date with Harry because it is her birthday and she has just received a “Dear Jane” letter from her boyfriend, a soldier serving in Korea who has met someone new. Norah meets Harry at a restaurant called the Blue Gardenia for dinner. Until the moment Norah arrives, Harry thinks he is meeting Crystal, but he is just as happy to see Norah. It doesn’t matter who shows up as long as he has a date for the evening.

The film’s theme song is “Blue Gardenia” sung by Nat King Cole. You can listen to it on YouTube. Nat King Cole is the featured nightclub act at the restaurant when Norah Larkin meets Harry Prebble for dinner, where he sings for the nightclub crowd and the film’s soundtrack.

Harry orders Polynesian Pearl Divers for him and Norah, but he lies and tells Norah that the drinks contain mostly ice and pineapple juice, even though viewers know that he ordered them heavy on the rum before Norah even arrived. Harry’s plan is always to get his date drunk; this time it happens to be Norah. He continues with this plan when Norah agrees to go to his apartment. Once Norah is about to pass out on his couch, Harry Prebble makes his move.

When Norah realizes that something isn’t right and that Harry has ulterior motives, she tries to push him away. Harry tries to force himself on her, and Norah puts up a fight. She manages to get up off the couch, pick up a fireplace poker, and hit Harry. Norah blacks out, but she finally gets away after waking from her position on the floor and running out the front door of Harry Prebble’s apartment. What she doesn’t realize is that Harry Prebble is lying on the floor, too. But he is dead.

Casey Mayo and photographer Al (who apparently doesn’t have a last name) are the first newspaper people on the murder scene. Casey is surprised to learn that the murder victim is Harry Prebble because he recalls meeting him at the West-Coast Telephone Company earlier in the day. Casey is determined to be the first to break each new development in the murder investigation, and part of his plan is to use his newspaper column to write an open letter to the murderer, christened by one of his staff as the Blue Gardenia.

Casey describes the murderer as “hot copy” because he sees her as a story that newspaper readers will gobble up. He writes a “letter” addressed to the Blue Gardenia in his newspaper column for the Los Angeles Chronicle and promises her legal help if she contacts him and gives him her story. Casey is a cynical reporter who promises to help the Blue Gardenia; in reality, all he wants is first access to her story. He’s willing to listen to all the crank callers who claim “credit” for the murder before Norah does reach out to him. She believes his willingness to help her, but she poses as a friend of the person who killed Prebble. Casey starts to care for Norah and regrets making promises that he has no intention of keeping. And in spite of his cynicism, Casey believes Norah when she tells him that she is speaking for a friend.

Crystal, one of Norah’s roommates, knows that something is wrong because Norah has not been her usual self. She helps Norah contact Casey again, and they meet again. Casey thinks at first that Crystal killed Harry Prebble; he is surprised when Norah admits to him that she killed Harry Prebble and asks him what they should do next. When Casey says that he doesn’t know, Norah realizes that Casey never had any intention of helping her, and she is justifiably angry. When the police show up to arrest her, she thinks that Casey set her up. But it wasn’t Casey who dropped the dime on her; it was Bill, owner of the diner where they met.

Casey Mayo is supposed to look good in comparison to Harry Prebble, and he probably did in 1953. But he has a little black book of women’s telephone numbers, and his photographer Al is jealous of Casey’s success with women. Casey’s black book comes up a few times in the narrative, and these instances make Casey and Al sound callous. Casey annotates his black book with a secret code, and he refuses to explain it when Al questions him, but that level of secrecy isn’t enough gallantry to make Casey look like a knight in shining armor. When Casey discovers that he actually cares about Norah Larkin, he is happy to get rid of his little black book. But he does so by tossing it to Al so that Al can call women he has never met and ask them out on dates, a tactic Harry Prebble used with Crystal Carpenter and Norah Larkin.

Harry Prebble doesn’t have a little black book because he has no intention of keeping in touch with women for very long. All three men—Casey, Al, and Harry—treat women as objects. Harry Prebble is the worst one of the three because he is a predatory rapist; he uses drugs and alcohol to get women to sleep with him and cuts them off soon after. Rose’s pregnancy, for example, is not and never was part of his future plans.

Norah Larkin has fallen in love with Casey Mayo, in spite of everything. Her roommate Crystal Carpenter advises her to play it cool, at least for a short while, and that’s probably a good idea. If there had ever been a sequel to the story, it wouldn’t have hurt Norah to find out if Casey’s developing conscience is permanent or just a ploy to get her sympathies.

Until the end of the film, Casey is another man, like Harry Prebble, who lied to Norah Larkin, and The Blue Gardenia is an excellent film noir that shows quite well the different predatory streaks in its male characters.

March 28, 1953, release date  •  Directed by Fritz Lang  •  Screenplay by Charles Hoffman  •  Based on the novella “The Gardenia” by Vera Caspary  •  Music by Raoul Kraushaar  •  Edited by Edward Mann  •  Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca

Anne Baxter as Norah Larkin  •  Richard Conte as Casey Mayo  •  Ann Sothern as Crystal Carpenter  •  Jeff Donnell as Sally Ellis  •  Raymond Burr as Harry Prebble  •  Richard Erdman as Al  •  George Reeves as Police Captain Sam Haynes  •  Ruth Storey as Rose Miller  •  Ray Walker as Homer  •  Nat King Cole as himself

Distributed by RKO  •  Produced by Blue Gardenia Productions

The Ministry of Fear (Book) (1943)

One of the reasons that I enjoyed The Ministry of Fear so much is because it is a novel that’s nearly impossible to categorize. Another is that the plot contains one surprise after another. It’s easier calling it simply a story about a character named Arthur Rowe who lives in London during the World War II Blitz of England by the Germans when fate brings him to the attention of a Nazi spy ring. In true noir style, the plot also gives plenty of reasons for fear and angst: Some are generally related to wartime; others come from Arthur Rowe’s personal experience.

The image of the front cover is from the first edition published in England by William Heinemann. The page references in this blog article refer to the edition from the U.S. publisher Viking Press, as noted below.

(This article about the novel The Ministry of Fear contains spoilers about both the novel and the 1944 film noir adaptation.)

I had seen the film noir based on Graham Greene’s novel several times before I read the novel. I usually prefer to read the novel first, but I don’t think it would have mattered either way because I enjoyed both the film, Ministry of Fear starring Ray Milland, and the novel. The novel might be even more noirish, but I count that as a plus.

The story in Ministry of Fear is told from the Arthur Rowe’s perspective. It puts readers in the position of identifying with Rowe, which helps to elicit their sympathy. Fate, one of the defining characteristics of noir, takes over Rowe’s life when he attends a charity fête and visits a fortune-teller. The fortune-teller mistakes his words for a secret password, and she gives him the correct guess to win the cake at the raffle stall. Rowe doesn’t know yet that the cake contains photographs the Nazis want to gain advantage in their war with England. When Rowe refuses to give up the cake and walks home with it, he is now in great danger.

This brief description of the opening of the novel may sound like the film is a close adaptation, but there are lots of differences, large and small, and I will not go into detail about those differences here. (Wikipedia includes a short comparison between the two in its entry for the novel.) Because I read the novel after seeing the film, however, I was struck by one major difference, which I think is the most important difference between the novel and the film: the amount of time that Graham Greene spends explaining Arthur Rowe’s thoughts, attitudes, and mental state.

In the novel, Rowe has already been released from psychiatric incarceration after poisoning his wife. He has been deemed unfit for military service and civilian duty in the war effort, and he is living on a government stipend. Rowe suffers from guilt over killing his wife (the implication is that he didn’t want to see her suffer, but why she was suffering or what illness she might have had is never explained completely), and the guilt seems to have had an effect that reaches far beyond simply his state of mind. The fact that he is declared unfit for military service when England is at war with Germany, that his government doesn’t trust him with a gun when it needed all the soldiers it could find, is another clue about Arthur’s state of mind.

Rowe is drawn irresistibly to the charity fête. But it’s not just fate or coincidence that draws him in. Heading toward it seems to take him back in time, all the way back to childhood:

The fête called him [Arthur Rowe] like innocence. It was entangled in childhood, with vicarage gardens, and girls in white summer frocks, and the smell of herbaceous borders, and security . . . (page 3)

This retreat into childhood is a recurring theme throughout the novel.

At the fête, Rowe visits Mrs. Bellair, the fortune-teller, and then wins the cake that gets him into so much trouble. Rowe meets Willi Hilfe and Anna Hilfe, brother and sister, when he visits the Mothers of Free Nations, the charity that sponsored the fête. He wants to know why the cake is so important that a stranger would come to his apartment looking for it and try to poison him, and part of his plan is to find Mrs. Bellair and ask her directly. Willi Hilfe offers to take him to Mrs. Bellair’s home, where they become uninvited guests at one of her séances. Rowe would rather leave, but he gives in. He meets Dr. Forester at this séance. Dr. Forester runs the second asylum that Rowe visits later in the novel because of amnesia.

Arthur Rowe survives a bomb explosion and suffers from amnesia as a result. This explosion (really an attempt on Rowe’s life) is what brings him to the asylum run by Dr. Forester. His memory comes back ever so slowly and only in fragments. One of the attendants at the asylum, Johns, is the one who explains the term (the Ministry of Fear) that Graham Greene uses for the title:

“The Germans are wonderfully thorough,” Johns said. “They did that in their own country. Card-indexed all the so-called leaders, socialites, diplomats, politicians, labour leaders, priests—and then presented the ultimatum. Everything forgiven and forgotten, or the Public Prosecutor. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’d done the same thing over here [in England]. They formed, you know, a kind of Ministry of Fear—with the most efficient under-secretaires. It isn’t only that they get a hold on certain people. It’s the general atmosphere they spread, so that you feel you can’t depend on a soul.” (pages 124–125)

When Rowe is finally aware that the asylum is run by Nazi spies, he makes his way back to London and goes straight to Scotland Yard, where he meets with Detective Prentice. Rowe becomes enthusiastic about the investigation and is happy to cooperate. He is attracted to Anna Hilfe, and he wants to impress her. He still suffers from amnesia, and he has forgotten that many are suffering because of the Nazi spies’ activities. When he and Detective Prentice go back to Dr. Forester’s asylum to pursue the spies and further the investigation, he holds a childlike view on very serious proceedings:

It was a long and gloomy ride, but all the time Rowe repressed for the sake of his companion [Detective Prentice] a sense of exhilaration: he was happily drunk with danger and action This was more like the life he had imagined years ago. He was helping in a great struggle, and when he saw Anna again he could claim to have played a part against her enemies. . . . He didn’t understand suffering because he had forgotten that he had ever suffered. (page 188)

Rowe doesn’t seem to realize yet how serious the situation has become for him and others. At the asylum, Detective Prentice and Arthur Rowe learn that Forester and Poole killed Major Stone, another patient that Rowe had befriended. The doctor’s assistant Johns shot both Dr. Forester and Poole.

At the end of the novel, when Arthur Rowe finds Anna Hilfe again, he finally starts to realize how much recent events in his life have changed him. He finally remembers that he poisoned his wife and killed her, and that Anna fell in love with him when he couldn’t remember. She may be implicated in war crimes as her brother’s partner at Mothers of Free Nations, the charity front for the spy ring. Rowe doesn’t know what Anna has done, and he doesn’t want to ask.

With all the time that Arthur and readers spend inside his head, I wondered at first if Arthur Rowe is a reliable character. Graham Greene tells the story from Rowe’s perspective, but Rowe is not the narrator. The author doesn’t allow readers to doubt Rowe or to be confused by the events relayed in the novel, even though there’s considerable uncertainty about the world Rowe lives in.

Viewers are much more sure of Stephen Neale, the main character in the film adaptation. Arthur Rowe’s dreams and instances of self-doubt are not part of the film, although these elements are common in other films noir. Psychiatric treatment or analysis is not given a large role in the film version: Neale is released from criminal psychiatric confinement after killing his wife, but his release happens at the start and is given only brief mention later in the film.

Click here for my blog article Ministry of Fear, the film that is based on Graham Greene’s The Ministry of Fear. And yes, the film and novel titles are just a shade different.

Among the many differences between the film and the novel, the biggest one is the amount of time that Graham Greene spends explaining Arthur Rowe’s thoughts, attitudes, and mental state. At the end of the novel, readers are left with Arthur Rowe and his pessimism about his future with Anna Hilfe. Stephen Neale in the film is also reunited with Carla Hilfe (her first name is different in the film), but his future is looking brighter compared to Arthur Rowe’s. Neale even makes a quick joke about cakes at weddings that closes the film.

Graham Greene apparently hated the 1944 film adaptation of his novel because it waters down the novel’s depiction of a man who poisoned his wife and suffers guilt after the murder. Maybe I would hate such a change to my work if I were the author, but I’m not the author and I have the luxury of enjoying the film just as much as the novel.

The Ministry of Fear, by Graham Greene  •  New York: Viking Press, 1943

List of main characters:

Arthur Rowe  •  Mrs. Bellairs, the fortune-teller  •  Mr. Rennit, manager of the Orthotex Detective Agency  •  Jones, employee of Orthotex Detective Agency  •  Willi Hilfe, manager of the Mothers of Free Nations in London  •  Anna Hilfe, manager of the Mothers of Free Nations in London and Willi Hilfe’s sister  •  Dr. Forester, guest at Mrs. Bellair’s séance  •  Mr. Cost, businessman and guest at Mrs. Bellair’s séance  •  Johns, attendant at Dr. Forester’s asylum  •  Major Stone, patient at Dr. Forester’s asylum  •  Detective Prentice at Scotland Yard