Die Blauwe Gardenia

Crystal Carpenter, Sally Ellis, and Norah Larkin are friends, roommates, and fellow operators at the West-Coast Telephone Company in Los Angeles. Crystal is the streetwise one, Sally the slightly scattered one, and Norah the straight-laced one who pines for her boyfriend, a lieutenant in the military, stationed in Korea. Artist Harry Prebble, a notorious skirt chaser, has been a recent fixture at the telephone company in the hopes of picking up one of the many female operators. So when Harry overhears Crystal's telephone number in she having given it to Los Angeles Chronicle newspaper columnist Casey Mayo solely in a flirtatious manner, Harry calls looking for a date, his intention to get Crystal drunk and have his way with her. Who shows up instead at the discussed location of the Blue Gardenia nightclub is Norah, who needs to be with a man on this, her birthday, and in having just received a Dear Jane letter. When Norah awakens the next morning with a severe hangover not knowing much about the previous night after the third or so drink or how she even got home, she discovers that Harry had been found murdered in his apartment. Sam Haynes, leading the police investigation, knows certain things about the woman he was seen with at the Blue Gardenia, and discovers certain female items, Norah's items, at Harry's apartment. While not his regular beat, Casey becomes fascinated with who he coins the Blue Gardenia Murderess and makes a very public plea for her to get in touch with him for an exclusive, in return he promising assistance from prosecution from him and the newspaper, which doesn't sit well with Sam. Norah has to decide what best to do for herself.