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The Blue Dahlia is a 1946 American crime film and film noir with an original screenplay by Raymond Chandler directed by George Marshall and starring Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake and William Bendix. It was Chandler's first original screenplay. Plot Three demobilized United States Navy aviators, Johnny Morrison, Buzz Wanchek, and George Copeland, arrive in Hollywood, California. All three flew together in the same flight crew from Kwajalein Atoll in the South Pacific. Buzz has shell shock and a metal plate in his head above his ear. While George and Buzz get an apartment together, Johnny surprises his wife, Helen, at her hotel bungalow where she is hosting a riotous party with many drunken revellers. Johnny discovers that Helen is having an affair with Eddie Harwood, the owner of the Blue Dahlia nightclub on the Sunset Strip. Johnny punches Eddie as he leaves and then apologizes for losing his temper. The party ends and everybody leaves. Helen, drunk, confesses to Johnny that their son, Dickie, who Johnny believed died of diphtheria, actually died in a car crash that happened because she was driving while drunk. Johnny and Helen scuffle, which is witnessed by the hotel detective, "Dad" Newell. Johnny decides to leave. He pulls a gun on Helen, states 'that's what you deserve,' but drops the gun on a chair and leaves. Buzz goes out to find Johnny at his hotel bungalow. He meets Helen Morrison in the hotel bar and, unaware of her identity, goes to her bungalow for a drink to wait for Mrs Morrison. Helen rings Eddie who breaks up with her over the phone. However, she then blackmails him into seeing her again. Eddie visits Helen at her bungalow; this is witnessed by the hotel detective. Johnny is picked up by Joyce Harwood (who is driving to Malibu) while walking in the rain. She is estranged from Eddie. Neither reveals their names. Although attracted to each other, they part ways and Johnny spends the night in a beach-side inn. The next morning, at the same inn, Joyce sees Johnny at breakfast and reveals that she stayed at the same inn. They decide to walk on the beach to look for moonstones. Whilst purchasing a bus ticket for Los Angeles, Johnny hears the radio announce that Helen has been murdered and that Johnny is suspected. He then quickly leaves to board a bus. The police interview Newell, Harwood, Buzz, and George. Johnny checks in to a cheap hotel in Los Angeles under an assumed name. Corelli, the hotel manager, finds Johnny's framed photo of himself with Dickie and tries to blackmail him. Johnny punches Corelli out, smashing the frame in the process; he discovers on the back of the photo that Helen has written an insurance note revealing that Eddie is really Bauer, a murderer who is wanted in New Jersey. Corelli revives and sells information on Johnny's identity to a gangster named Leo (the nightclub partner of Eddie), who then kidnaps Johnny when he visits George and Buzz. Buzz and George visit Eddie at the Blue Dahlia. Joyce, who has agreed to meet Eddie, introduces herself. As Joyce picks at a blue dahlia flower, the nightclub's music sets off a painful ring in Buzz's head. Lapsing into a fit, he remembers the agonizing music that he heard at Helen's bungalow, as she played with a blue dahlia. Johnny escapes Leo and his side-kick, knocking them both out just before Eddie arrives. They talk and Eddie admits with regret that, fifteen years earlier, he was involved in the shooting of a bank messenger. Leo comes around and tries to shoot Johnny, but during a scuffle, he shoots Eddie instead. Johnny ends up shooting Leo and flees to the Blue Dahlia, where the police are trying to force a confused Buzz to admit that he killed Helen. Johnny enters and suggests that Joyce turn up the jazz music that Buzz hates. As his head pounds, Buzz remembers leaving Helen alive in her bungalow. Newell tries to shift suspicion towards George, then attempts to leave as Police Captain Hendrickson confronts Newell with the accusation that he tried to blackmail Helen about her affair, and that he killed her when she refused to comply. Newell then tries to escape from the office but is shot dead by Hendrickson when he pulls his own gun. Later, outside the Blue Dahlia, Buzz and George decide to go for a drink, leaving Johnny and Joyce together. Cast Uncredited performances include Mae Busch as Jenny the maid, Anthony Caruso as a corporal playing a jukebox, and Noel Neill as Nolie the hatcheck girl. Production Development In 1945 Alan Ladd was one of Paramount's top stars. He had served for ten months in the army in 1943 before being honorably discharged due to illness; however, he had recently been reclassified 1-A for the military draft, and he might have had to go back into the Army. Paramount kept applying for deferments so he could make films but Ladd was due for induction in May 1945. The studio wanted to make a movie starring him before that happened, but had nothing suitable. Producer John Houseman knew Raymond Chandler from having collaborated on Paramount's The Unseen, which Houseman produced and Chandler rewrote. Houseman says Chandler had started a novel but was "stuck" and was considering turning it into a screenplay for the movies instead. Houseman read the 120 pages Chandler had written and, within 48 hours, it was sold to Paramount. Houseman would produce it under the supervision of Joseph Sistrom. It was the first original script for the screen that Chandler had ever written. He wrote the first half of the script in under six weeks and sent it to Paramount. Delighted, the studio arranged for filming to start in three weeks' time. Paramount announced the film in February 1945, with Ladd, Lake, Bendix and Marshall (the director) all attached from the beginning. Houseman said George Marshall had a reputation for rewriting extensively on the set and had to persuade him to stick to the script. (Marshall said he was so impressed with the writing he never had any intention of rewriting.) Houseman recalled that Ladd was unhappy with the casting of Doris Dowling as his wife because she was half a foot taller than he but this was disguised during their scenes together. Shooting Shooting began in March 1945 without a completed screenplay. Houseman was not worried initially because of his confidence in Chandler. He says four weeks into filming the studio began to worry as they were running out of script. "We had shot sixty-two pages in four weeks; Chandler, during that time, had turned in only twenty-two—with another thirty to go." The problem was the ending. Originally, Chandler intended the killer to be Buzz having a blackout. However, the Navy did not want a serviceman to be portrayed as a murderer, and Paramount told Chandler that he had to come up with a new ending. Chandler responded at first with writer's block. Paramount offered Chandler a $5,000 incentive to finish the script, which did not work, according to Houseman:It was the front-office calculation, I suppose, that .... Discover the Chandler Morrison popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Chandler Morrison books.