The Blue Gardenia
(1953)
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The Blue Gardenia is a 1953 black-and-white film noir directed by Fritz Lang and based on a story by Vera Caspary. It stars Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern and Raymond Burr. The first installment of Lang's "newspaper noir" movie trio — with While the City Sleeps and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt — The Blue Gardenia offers a somewhat negative look at newspaper coverage of a sensational murder case. The film could be seen as a partial remake of Whirlpool, which Conte also starred in and likewise centers on a woman who may have committed a murder but can't remember. Nat King Cole sings the title song and appears in the movie. The theme song was written by Bob Russell and Lester Lee and arranged by Nelson Riddle. Film director and writer Peter Bogdanovich called the film "a particularly venomous picture of American life". The director of cinematography was one of RKO Radio Pictures' regulars Nicholas Musuraca, then working at Warner Brothers.