The Blue Gardenia is a 1953 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang from a screenplay by Charles Hoffman, based on the novella The Gardenia by Vera Caspary. The film stars Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, and Ann Sothern. An independent production distributed by Warner Bros., The Blue Gardenia – a cynical take on press coverage of a sensational murder case (the Black Dahlia) – was the first installment of Lang's "newspaper noir" film trio, being followed in 1956 by both While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. The song "Blue Gardenia" was written by Bob Russell and Lester Lee and arranged by Nelson Riddle. The director of cinematography for The Blue Gardenia was RKO regular Nicholas Musuraca, then working at Warner Brothers. Plot Norah Larkin (Anne Baxter) is a single woman who works as an L.A. switchboard operator along with her roommates, Crystal Carpenter (Ann Sothern) and Sally Ellis (Jeff Donnell). On her birthday, she decides to celebrate by dining alone at home, with the picture of her fiancé, a soldier serving in the Korean War. At the candlelit dinner table, she opens the latest letter from him only to receive a Dear Jane letter revealing his plans to marry a nurse he met in Tokyo. Devastated, Norah accepts a date over the telephone with a womanizing calendar girl artist Harry Prebble (Raymond Burr) that had been sizing up prospects earlier that day at the telephone office. When she arrives at the Blue Gardenia restaurant and nightclub, Harry is surprised to see Norah rather than Crystal. Immediately he plies her with strong tropical cocktails, one after the next till she is completely but happily soused, pianist Nat King Cole crooning the song "Blue Gardenia" in the background. Harry then takes her to his apartment to "show her his art", and plays the same Cole record on his phonograph. He puts on all his moved, but Norah passes out on his couch. Persisting, he awakens her, she resists, then strikes him with a fire poker, shattering a mirror. Semi-conscious, she flees the scene, leaving behind her black suede pumps behind. The next morning, Norah is awakened by Crystal; she has suffered a blackout as to the events of the previous night. Meanwhile, at the crime scene, police question a maid (Almira Sessions) about what she found before she discovered Harry's body. She admits to cleaning the poker, which would