The Blue Dahlia
All team (47)
Short description
Johnny Morrison comes home to Los Angeles after serving in the Navy during the Second World War, expecting to settle back into family life. Instead he finds that his wife Helen has become an alcoholic and has taken up with Eddie Harwood, the owner of a nightclub called the Blue Dahlia. After a loud argument at the house, Johnny walks out. Not long afterwards Helen is found dead, and the police treat Johnny as their leading suspect. Unwilling to trust them, he goes on the run and starts looking for whoever actually killed her, helped by Joyce, a woman he meets along the way.
George Marshall directed the film, the third of the thirteen features he made in chronological order, following Texas and preceding Monsieur Beaucaire. Raymond Chandler wrote the screenplay, and John Houseman produced it for Paramount. Alan Ladd plays Johnny, with Veronica Lake as Joyce, William Bendix as his friend Buzz, Howard Da Silva as Eddie and Doris Dowling as Helen. Around seventy players and nearly fifty crew members were credited.
The film was released in April 1946 and took about 3 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.1 out of 10 from roughly 10,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.7 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 6.9 reflects a comparable middle-ground response.
What's left behind the scenes
- After the fight scene with Alan Ladd's (1913-1964) character and two villains, one of the latter is shown with a broken leg. This was not in the script, but it happened that the actor actually broke his leg, and director George Marshall (1891-1975) made changes to the script (regarding the broken leg) without even consulting screenwriter Raymond Chandler (1888-1959).
- Veronica Lake (1922-1973) was cast as the female lead alongside Ladd, in part due to her height. Ladd was just over 1 meter 60 centimeters tall, while Lake was under 1 meter 50 centimeters. Ladd disliked the fact that Doris Dowling (1923-2004), who played his wife, was almost the same height as him (he even demanded that the role be given to another actress), so in all scenes with him, Dowling either sits or lies down.
- Chandler initially intended to make Baz the murderer, but the film was released shortly after the end of World War II, and he was advised that portraying a returning veteran as the killer would be inappropriate. Chandler therefore rewrote the ending and made another character the murderer.
- A former alcoholic, Chandler stopped drinking for health reasons shortly before beginning work on the script. However, the work wasn't progressing, and Chandler decided that the only way to regain inspiration and finish the script was to get drunk. Chandler initially agreed to write the script without a fee, “as a favor” to producer John Houseman, but then requested a case of whiskey as payment. Ultimately, over several weeks, Chandler drank heavily, and upon completion of his binge, presented the finished script.
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