- George Marshall's The Blue Dahlia is a potboiler noir helped tremendously by Raymond Chandler's screenplay and the always-compelling combination of Veronica Lake and Alan Ladd. The plot is one of those so-simple-its-complicated setups. A good-time girl named Helen (Doris Dowling) is found murdered in her bungalow. Her husband Johnny (Alan Ladd), newly returned from the Navy, caused a scene the night before when he crashed a party and punched a sleazeball named Eddie Harwood (Howard Da Silva) for wearing the "wrong lipstick," namely Helen's. Meanwhile, Johnny's tragically imbalanced war buddy Buzz (William Bendix) may have dropped by Helen's looking for Johnny, but he tends to get confused and violent whenever there's music in the air. Finally, the creepy house dick "Dad" Newell (Will Wright) saw it all happen while waiting out in the rain. Why was he out in the rain, again?
- But before Johnny even learns of Helen's death, he gets picked up on the road by Joyce (Veronica Lake), a woman so charming that she can even convince Johnny to smile. It's clear that they're both running from something, but neither gets the full story on the other until much later in the film. Regardless, Johnny ditches Joyce on multiple occasions, which is actually the most implausible part of whole film. Sure, in one of those instances he had just found out that his wife had been murdered, but seriously, who would ever ditch Veronica Lake? Regardless, Johnny immediately suspects Harwood for the murder, especially when he discovers a note from Helen suggesting that the businessman used to go by a different name in a different town. You may think that Harwood's wife would be able to shed some light on the situation, but think again!
- While the identity of Harwood's wife involves a coincidence that is just a little too much to swallow, The Blue Dahlia generally does a great job with its large cast of suspicious characters, very few of whom it is afraid to kill off. My favorite scene may be one in which Johnny finds himself hustled into a seedy hotel ("how often do they change the fleas?") only to have cops show up and shoot one of men who hustled him. Talk about your mean streets. As for the film's best dialogue, well, I'll let it speak for itself:
- JOYCE: "Well, don't you even say good night?."
- JOHNNY: "It's good-bye, and it's tough to say good-bye."
- JOYCE: "Why is it? You've never seen me before tonight."
- JOHNNY: "Every guy's seen you before somewhere. The trick is to find you."
- Proof that Raymond Chandler can elevate a standard noir into something greater in only four lines. Imagine them said by Lake and Ladd, and you'll want to see The Blue Dahlia.
- There is an interesting backstory for this film about Alan Ladd getting called up for military service and Raymond Chandler demanding more money to work drunk in an attempt to expedite the script. Naturally.
