Made during a lull in Lang’s career caused in part by the McCarthy-era climate, The Blue Gardenia is a fast paced film noir the director managed to shoot in only twenty days. The story, based on a work by Laura novelist Vera Caspary, follows the misfortunes of Norah, a young woman who is despondent after receiving a farewell letter from her GI boyfriend. To drown her sorrows, she accepts a dinner invitation to the titled Blue Gardenia restaurant, where after too much to drink she follows her date home, fends off his advances, passes out, and awakens the next morning with a dead man by her side. While neither Norah nor the audience knows exactly what has transpired, both assume that she is guilty. A newspaper reporter with an eye for criminal evidence and an ear for music (particularly the film’s theme song as performed by the inimitable Nat King Cole) intervenes.