THE BLUE GARDENIA (1953)

From Fritz Lang’s final flurry of Hollywood activity comes this tawdry tabloid murder story that continues the odd combination of precision and ludicrous overstatement that marked/marred so much of the great man’s late work. Having just worked w/ Marilyn Monroe (CLASH BY NIGHT/’52), Lang gives husky-voiced Anne Baxter the full MM treatment. She plays a loyal gal with a soldier boy in Korea who gets a ‘Dear Jane’ letter and goes out for too much of a good time with a philandering Raymond Burr. When the creep turns up dead and she remembers nothing, tabloid columnist Richard Conte steps in. But is his ‘help’ on the level? Ann Southern & a sharp George Reeves bring some life to the party, and Lang does some mighty deft staging in the smallest of confines, but the unintentional gaffes do add up.