The Blue Dahlia

Plot synopsis:
Johnny Morrison, ( Alan Ladd ) Buzz Wanchek, ( William Bendix ) and George Copeland, ( Hugh Beaumont ) have arrived in California after their discharges from the United States Navy. Johnny was given leave after his heroic action in the South Pacific, George was released due to bad eyesight and Buzz suffers from shell shock and has a metal plate in his head above his ear. Johnny, apprehensive about seeing his wife Helen ( Doris Dowling ) and has not told her of his return, instead decides to surprise her. He arrives home to find a party going on and soon discovers Helen is having an affair with Eddie Harwood,alias of Bauer ( Howard Da Silva ) owner of a Sunset Strip nightclub, the Blue Dahlia. After the party guests have left, Johnny and Helen have a fierce quarrel, with Helen confessing that their young son Dickie really died in a car crash caused by her driving drunk, and not from diptheria as Johnny had been told. Angry, Johnny pulls a gun on Helen, but drops it and leaves. Meanwhile a disoriented Buzz leaves the apartment he shares with George, and ends up at a bar meeting Helen. Unaware of her identity, he goes to her bungalow for a drink. Eddie phones Helen to end the affair, and she blackmails him into seeing her again. Meanwhile, Johnny walking in the rain with his suitcase, is asked by a passing motorist if he wants a ride. The driver is Joyce Harwood, ( Veronica Lake ) who is seperated from Eddie. Neither reveals their name, and unaware, they both spend the night in the same Malibu Inn. Next morning Joyce is surprised to see Johnny and asks if they may go for a walk on the beach. While Joyce leaves to change her shoes, the lobby radio announces that Helen has been murdered and her husband Johnny is suspected. Joyce watches as a flustered Johnny quickly leaves the Inn. "Dad" Newell, ( Will Wright ) a house detective who saw Johnny and Helen fighting and witnessed Buzz and Eddie enter her bungalow, goes to the police. Buzz and George are both questioned, but Buzz can remember nothing. Johnny has checked into a cheap hotel under an assumed name, Corelli ( Howard Freeman ) the sleazy hotel manager, finds Johnny's photo of himself with Dickie and tries to blackmail him. Johnny knocks out Corelli, and discovers on the back of the photo, Helen has written that Eddie is really Bauer, a murderer wanted in New Jersey. Corelli comes to and sells information to a gangster named Leo ( Don Costello ) about Johnny's identity, who is then kidnapped. Buzz and George pay Eddie a visit at the Blue Dahlia, and Joyce introduces herself to them. As Joyce begins to pick at the petals of a dahlia flower, Buzz becomes quite annoyed, and the nightclub's loud music sets off a pounding in his head, which triggers a memory of the loud music he heard at Helen's bungalow as she picked at the petals of a dahlia. Meanwhile, Johnny escapes Leo's henchmen as Eddie arrives, he forces him to admit to the murder he was guilty of fifteen years ago. Leo tries to shoot Johnny, but hits Eddie instead. Johnny flees to the Blue Dahlia, where the police are trying to force a muddled Buzz to admit he murdered Helen. Johnny suggests they turn up the music on the loud speaker, as Buzz's head pounds, he remembers leaving Helen alive in her bungalow. Police Captain Hendrickson, ( Tom Powers ) then confronts house detective Dad with the accusation that he tried to blackmail Helen about her affair, then killed her when she refused to comply. Dad then tries to escape , but is shot by Hendrickson. As the case is now solved, Buzz and George decide to go for a drink, leaving a friendly Johnny and Joyce alone.

Tags: cult, mystery, murder

Review:
It's been long overdue.This is another Alan Ladd-Veronica Lake film (their third of the decade) but William Bendix steals the show as a G.I. who suffered brain damage in World War II.
THE BLUE DAHLIA concerns a recently discharged military man Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd) who returns home to find his wife Helen (Doris Dowling) has been as unfaithful as the day is long--and is presently carrying on with club owner Eddie Harwood (Howard da Silva), over whom her hold is not entirely romantic.
After stomping out into the rain, Morrison learns Helen has been murdered, and must race to prove his innocence before the coppers pick him up.Ladd would give considerably more sophisticated performances in his later years, but he strikes all the right ultra-tough chords, and although Veronica Lake is a rather wooden actress she is remarkably beautiful and as a team the pair has considerable chemistry.
The standouts in the cast, however, are Da Silva, who gives the role of the heavy a surprising interpretation, and William Bendix, who plays Ladd's war-wounded buddy to great effect.THE BLUE DAHLIA lacks both the moodiness and grittiness of truly great film noir, so it is not in the first rank of the genre--but it is no less enjoyable for that.
Not as dark as other Chandler scripts, or indeed as other film noirs of the time, it however seems more suited to the acting talents of Lake and Ladd.
Because it was Chandler I always regarded it maybe too highly, but it certainly has some powerful noir-ish moments whilst remaining essentially a normal Paramount studio-bound potboiler.War vet Alan Ladd comes home to find his wife playing around, gets accused of murdering her while being picked up by Veronica Lake.
This is a superb film noir which although not as famous as some of Bogart's is just as good.It's the story of a ex-pilot who comes back from the war to find his wife has become a party girl and their son died because of her drunkenness.
I recently watched The Blue Dahlia for the first time and found it excellent and very gripping.Johnny Morrison and two of his pals have just come back from serving in the Second World War. Not long after, Morrison's wife is found dead and has been murdered.
Towards the end, we find out who really murdered Mrs Morrison...This movie is shot well in black and white and certainly has some gripping moments.The cast includes the excellent Alan Ladd (Shane), Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Doris Dowling as Mrs Morrison and Hugh Beaumont.If you are a fan of mysteries or just old movies, The Blue Dahlia is a must.
Certainly, it boasts all the proper credentials:  Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake reunited for their third outing together (after This Gun For Hire and The Glass Key); a sinister supporting cast including William Bendix, Howard Da Silva and Hugh Beaumont; and an original screenplay by none other than Raymond Chandler.It almost lives up to its reputation.
Unfortunately, that compromise splashes back through the length of the movie, making little sense of Bendix' performance -- even of his presence, except as the rankest of red herrings -- and turning what might have been a topical and disturbing film noir into just another glossy '40s murder mystery..
The cast is pretty good, and the atmosphere is classic 40's film noir.Alan Ladd plays a World War II pilot who comes home only to find an unfaithful, unpleasant, drunken wife waiting for him.
When she is found murdered he is the number one suspect, he must find who is responsible before it's too late.Legend has it that Paramount Pictures were so pleased about the success of Double Indemnity, and in particular Raymond Chandler's writing on it, they handed the writer a contract, where, he produced this tightly wound film noir piece.
Ladd does good work, very appealing yet tough, but it's Bendix who steals the movie with an intense portrayal of an ex serviceman with psychological issues.With the original ending and a deeper exploration of the war veterans not being warmly received on homecoming, The Blue Dahlia would have been close to being a genre classic.
"The Blue Dahlia" is a flower and a nightclub, both of which figure in the plot of this 1946 film starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix and Howard da Silva.
There's plenty of the busy, somewhat chaotic post-war atmosphere in this movie as war pals Johnny Morrison (Ladd), Buzz Wanchek (Bendix) and George Copeland (Hugh Beaumont) return from service.
While the brain-damaged Buzz and Copeland get an apartment together, Morrison returns to his beautiful wife (Doris Dowling) whom he finds has been living a wild, party-filled existence and cheating on him with club owner Eddie Harwood (da Silva).
On the run, and with some help from Joyce, Morrison tries to find out who really killed his wife.This is a pretty good noir with a solid, effective performance from Ladd and excellent work by both Bendix and da Silva.
Meanwhile, loud music drives him nearly insane, and he suggests getting on a bus, not remembering he just got off of it.The Veronica Lake role is criticized - it's true she doesn't have much to do; it's also true that not many people liked working with her; and that she wasn't the world's greatest actress (Raymond Chandler called her Moronica), but she and Ladd made a great, if short, team, and she was always beautiful to look at and listen to.All in all, worth watching for one of the great noir teamings and some good performances..
For the Police, he becomes the first suspect of this crime.I've heard a lot about this movie (a classic of film noir with the legendary couple Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake) without being able to see it for years.
Los Angeles noir with Alan Ladd as the strong, silent type, Doris Dowling as his slinky-eyed, under-dressed, bad wife and murder victim, Howard da Silva as the shady nightclub owner, Veronica Lake as the dissatisfied woman who left him, and William Bendix as a brain-damaged friend of the hero.
Unfortunately it's let down badly in two places; when Veronica Lake picks up Alan Ladd in the torrential rain - this is scripted as perfectly normal, and even in 1946 LA(?) that's doubtful - this scene just clunks; and in the ending, which as many have pointed out was changed, turning it into less of a film noir and more of a gung-ho for the navy pic.
"The Blue Dahlia" (1946) is a film noir directed by George Marshall and stars Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard Da Silva and Will Wright.
The key credit to this should probably go to scriptwriter Raymond Chandler, probably the best hardboiled crime novelist there ever was along with Dashiell Hammett.The story is classic noir: Johnny Morrison (Ladd), war veteran of the South Pacific, returns home to find his wife (Doris Dowling) has been unfaithful.
His war buddies Buzz Wanchek (William Bendix) and George Copeland (Hugh Beaumont) believe he is innocent, but everything points towards to Morrison...The screenplay has some vintage Chandler lines, and characters like Bendix's disturbed veteran and Wright's marvelously smarmy house peeper could have jumped out of his Philip Marlowe novels.
Acting wise, Bendix takes the top honours, but Ladd and Lake are both very good, as is Howard Da Silva, owner of the eponymous "Blue Dahlia Club" .This film noir is one definitely to check out..
Things take a turn for the worse when Johnny's wife later turns up dead; the offending weapon being the one he used to threaten her with...The atmosphere is one of the key elements in any noir flick; and this one unfortunately falls down on that point, as the film lacks atmosphere and actually comes off feeling rather cheap.
Recently discharged USN officers, Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd), Buzz Wanchek (William Bendix) and George Copeland (Hugh Beaumont-I think Ward Cleaver was actually a Seabee) return to Los Angeles with some service connected problems.
A film noir starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, scripted by Raymond Chandler, sounds right up my street.
They argue and are overheard by the hotel's seedy house-detective who later plays both ends in a blackmail scandal when the wife ends up dead and Ladd's Johnny Morrison character goes on the run.While some of the writing seems rushed (the identity of the murderer for one thing plays against everything the film has been leading up to) and unnecessarily padded (when Ladd is kidnapped and taken to a run-down hotel by a couple of cheap crooks), there's still a lot to like.
The story goes that Raymond Chandler was under the gun to finish the script for "The Blue Dahlia", and so chased his demons away as best he could to put the last period in a timely manner to satisfy Paramount studio heads.
And though everything gets wrapped up a little too quick - seriously, it made the audience I was with laugh out loud so to speak - the plot is fairly air-tight for what Chandler is working with, which involves the procedural stuff, false flags, and revelations that ultimately are about showing the two leads together in fine style.Actually, for Ladd and Lake, there is one very good scene here, where the two are in the car at night and trying to come up with the name from the initials J.M. A scene like that, somehow, the actors come off more relaxed, get into the script fully, and the direction is nice too.
Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd) returns home from the war with his two buddies (William Bendix, Hugh Beaumont).
THE BLUE DAHLIA (Paramount, 1946), directed by George Marshall, reunites the popular trio of Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and William Bendix from a Dashell Hammett mystery tale of THE GLASS KEY (Paramount, 1942), in another mystery tale, this one by author, Raymond Chandler.
In later years, it's become one of Ladd's most televised movies in the sixties, seventies and part of the 1980s, and it's easy to see why.The story starts off with an introduction of three war buddies from World War II coming out of a Hollywood bus in the city of Los Angeles, California, to face a new world of civilian life: Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd), a Navy lieutenant commander; "Buzz" Wenchek (William Bendix), a shell-shock victim with great sensitivity towards loud juke box "monkey" music; and George Copeland (Hugh Beaumont), an attorney by profession.
Bomber crew Buzz Wanchek (William Bendix), George Copeland, and Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd) return home after fighting in the war.
When Helen Morrison winds up dead, Johnny is the prime suspect, and his predicament is only worsened by his resolve to avoid capture and solve the case himself.Of course, Ladd is joined in the film by his previous co-stars from 'The Glass Key (1942)'  namely, Veronica Lake and William Bendix.
The third film Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake made together, this one wasn't as good as the glass key but better than This gun for hire.
But since Raymond Chandler wrote the script, it emerges as a satisfying enough film noir, expertly crafted except for a weak ending which seems to come out of nowhere.HOWARD DaSILVA, WILLIAM BENDIX, DORIS DOWLING and HUGH BEAUMONT give strong support to Ladd and Lake, with Bendix having the most interesting role as Ladd's shell-shocked war comrade who seems to be the most likely man to have killed Ladd's wife.
DORIS DOWLING does a bit of over-emoting as the unfaithful wife, but she's a striking presence and HOWARD DaSILVA gives off sparks as a tough and equally suspicious nightclub owner.Biggest flaw is the revelation of the murderer in the final scene which seems an arbitrary choice made by the scriptwriter as a last minute decision.Ladd and Lake are still in their physical prime, but the roles might have been better handled by Bogie and Bacall over at Warner Bros.Chandler's script earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay..
A screen original by author Raymond Chandler, it casts Ladd as Johnny Morrison, a WWII veteran who comes home to find that his wife Helen (Doris Dowling) has made a shambles of her life.
An ex-bomber pilot (Alan Ladd) is suspected of murdering his unfaithful wife (Doris Dowling).Today, this film might be best remembered as indirectly providing Elizabeth Short with the nickname "Black Dahlia".
George Marshall's The Blue Dahlia marked the third time leads Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake starred together in a film noir - following This Gun for Hire and The Glass Key (both 1942) - and, more notably, the first time that legendary author Raymond Chandler penned an original screenplay.
On one hand, The Blue Dahlia is a rather scrappy, messy noir, lending it a certain ruggedness, and on the other hand the film's climax seems rather sudden and out of the blue.Three discharged Navy officers, Johnny (Ladd), Buzz (William Bendix) and George (Hugh Beaumont), arrive home after serving in the South Pacific.
Before Johnny returns to his wife Helen (Doris Dowling), the three stop for a drink and almost get into a fight when Buzz, suffering from shell shock and a metal plate in his head following a war injury, demands that a fellow officer turn off the loud 'monkey music' that causes him to suffer from delusions.
When Helen turns up dead the next day, Johnny finds himself on the run from the law with a mystery to unravel.While it was understandably overshadowed by Howard Hawks' masterpiece The Big Sleep released the same year, The Blue Dahlia is a solid piece of film-making, bolstered by a suspenseful central murder mystery that keeps you guessing until the very end.
Anyone who knows Chandler's bio will appreciate why he will have identified far more closely with Helen's character than with any other in the drama.A typically underplayed Chandler one-liner crops up when Eddie learns from concerned business partner Leo that his beloved ex, Joyce (Lake), has left a message saying she's quit town 'to save money on flowers' as obviously, she was receiving too many of Eddie's signature blue dahliasEddie (morosely): "She could have told me that herself." Leo: "Maybe she figured it would sound worse, coming from me."And Buzz's interplay down at the station house with the old cop is priceless, too.An imperfect film written by an imperfect man, sure, but with enough fine moments to satisfy any Chandler aficionado..
1946's "The Blue Dahlia" would be the 3rd (and final) pairing of actors, Alan Ladd & Veronica Lake in a feature film.
What matters is the actual story and relations among the characters.In this case, the main character, Navy skipper Morrison (played by Alan Ladd) returns home from the war to find his wife throwing a party, and bestowing her attentions on the rather smug top villain Harwood (Howard da Silva), whose real name is Bauer (a German name, to boot).Ladd's character is Hamlet-like, seemingly moving between Malibu and other places to stay away from his wife, but never staying, and in the process he meets Lake, who -- small world -- is married to Harwood.
Returning WW2 vet Alan Ladd finds his wife (Doris Dowling) has been cheating on him with bar owner (the name of the bar is the Blue Dahlia) Howard DaSilva.
Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd) suffers a different but also common problem when he finds that things at home have changed and not for the better.Johnny returns from the war, traumatised from completing too many missions, only to find that his wife Helen (Doris Dowling) has become a heavy drinker and is having an affair with Eddie Harwood (Howard Da Silva) the owner of a night club called "The Blue Dahlia".
The theme of doubles also emerges elsewhere in the story as it contains two "cheap blackmailers" (Dad Newell & Corelli), two women (Helen & Joyce) who irritate Buzz with their habits of picking petals off flowers and two men (Johnny & Harwood) who both dump Helen on the same evening.Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake have great on-screen chemistry and deliver very good performances in their ultra-cool style.
So when the faithless wife unsurprisingly turns up dead, the cops are looking for Johnny and we're wondering who really did it.The trouble is the story meanders after this promising start, while Ladd fades somewhat into the background, and Chandler's screenplay seems unsure what to do with Veronica Lake.
"The Blue Dahlia" is one of the more high profile film noirs of the mid-forties, with a screenplay by Raymond Chandler, direction by George Marshall, and starring performances by one of the more famous romantic teams of the era, Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake.
Johnny Morrison, just returned from military service, comes home to his Los Angeles bungalow to discover his fickle, unscrupulous wife, Helen (the relatively unknown Doris Dowling, best remembered as Ray Milland's drinking buddy in "The Lost Weekend"), hasn't exactly been waiting in the wings for him - she has been having an affair with Eddie Harwood (Howard da Silva) owner of the Blue Dahlia nightclub ("You've got the wrong lipstick on, mister!").
However, the film isn't perfect--just very enjoyable.Alan Ladd returns home from the service along with two war buddies (Hugh Beaumont and William Bendix).
I guess that comes from thinking about the high degree of coincidence necessary to pull off the story, like Joyce Harwood (Veronica Lake) finding hitchhiker Johnny Morrison (Alan Ladd) in the rain, or Helen Morrison (Doris Dowling) picking up Buzz (William Bendix) in a bar after being ditched by her husband.
Johnny Morrison's, Alan Ladd, wife Helen, Doris Dowling, really was.Helen has been cheating on her husband Johnny while he was away in the Pacific fighting the Japs by having an affair with the manager of "Blue Dahlia" nightclub Eddie Harwood, Howard De Silva.
War hero Alan Ladd returns home to find out his wife (Doris Dowling) has been cheating on him with sleazy nightclub owner Howard DaSilva.