Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

The Blue Dahlia (1946)

Director: George Marshall

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Ladd's returning war veteran stalks stoically down those mean streets once more in search of the killer of his wife (Dowling), a faithless floozie undeserving of his concern. Raymond Chandler's script never quite recovers from the Navy Department's objection to having Ladd's war-wounded buddy Bendix, wandering around with a steel plate in his head and intermittent amnesia, turn out to have done the killing (out of outraged loyalty to his friend, then blanking it out in his memory). The plot rewrite involves one or two arbitrary connections and a much less satisfactory conclusion. A fine hardboiled thriller for all that, with excellent dialogue and performances, and much more apt direction from Marshall than one might expect.

Author: TM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: George Marshall

Producer: John Houseman

Cast: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard da Silva, Hugh Beaumont, Doris Dowling full cast

Genre(s): Film Noir

Duration: 98 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.