The Blue Dahlia

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 was recently reclassified 1-A for the World War II military draft, and he might have had to go back into the Army. Paramount kept applying for deferments so he could make films but he was due for induction in May 1945.[6]

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.[7]

It was the first original script for the screen that Chandler had ever written.[8][9] 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.[10]

Paramount announced the film in February 1945, with Ladd, Lake, Bendix, and Marshall all attached from the beginning.[11] Houseman said George Marshall had a reputation for rewriting extensively on the set and had to persuade him to stick to the script.[12] (Marshall said he was so impressed with the writing he never had any intention of rewriting.[13])

Houseman recalled that Ladd was unhappy with the casting of Doris Dowling as his wife because she was half a foot taller than he. The filmmakers placated him by having her sitting or lying down in their scenes together.[14]

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."[15]

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 $5000 incentive to finish the script, which did not work, according to Houseman:

It was the front-office calculation, I suppose, that by dangling this fresh carrot before Chandler's nose they were executing a brilliant and cunning maneuver. They did not know their man. They succeeded, instead, in disturbing him in three distinct and separate ways: One, his faith in himself was destroyed. By never letting Ray share my apprehensions, I had convinced him of my confidence in his ability to finish the script on time. This sense of security was now hopelessly shattered. Two, he had been insulted. To Ray, the bonus was nothing but a bribe. To be offered a large additional sum of money for the completion of an assignment for which he had already contracted and which he had every intention of fulfilling was by his standards a degradation and a dishonor. Three, by going to him behind my back they had invited him to betray a friend and fellow Public School man. The way the interview had been conducted ('sneakily') filled Ray with humiliation and rage.[15]

Chandler wanted to quit, but Houseman convinced him to sleep on it. The next day, Chandler said he would be able to finish the film if he resumed drinking. Houseman said that the writer's requirements were "two Cadillac limousines, to stand day and night outside the house with drivers available," "six secretaries," and "a direct line open at all times to my office by day, to the studio switchboard at night and to my home at all times."[15] Houseman agreed and says Chandler then started drinking:

[Chandler] did not minimize the hazards [of drinking]," said Houseman in 1964, "He pointed out that his plan... would call for deep faith on my part and supreme courage on his, since he would in effect be completing the script at the risk of his life. (It wasn't the drinking that was dangerous, he explained, since he had a doctor who gave him such massive injections of glucose that he could last for weeks with no solid food at all. It was the sobering up that was parlous; the terrible strain of his return to normal living)."[15]

At the end of that time, Chandler presented the finished script.[16]

Chandler was unhappy with the forced ending, saying it made "a routine whodunnit out of a fairly original idea."[17] He also disliked the performance of Lake. "The only times she's good is when she keeps her mouth shut and looks mysterious," he told a friend. "The moment she tries to behave as if she had a brain she falls flat on her face. The scenes we had to cut out because she loused them up! And there are three godawful close shots of her looking perturbed that make me want to throw my lunch over the fence."[18]

Chandler received a lot of deference on the set, but Lake was not familiar with him so upon asking about him and being told, "He's the greatest mystery writer around," she made a point of listening intently to an analysis of his work by the film's publicity director to impress newspaper reporters with her knowledge of a writer she had never read.[19] Chandler developed an intense dislike for Lake and referred to her as "Moronica Lake".[20]

Lake later said about her role, "I'm not much of a motivating force, but the part is good."[21]

By May 1945 the government ruled that all men aged 30 or over would be released from the obligation to go back into the army. Ladd did not have to re-enlist after all.[22]

It was one of the most popular films at the British box office in 1946.[23]

The staff at Variety magazine gave the film a positive review and wrote:

Playing a discharged naval flier returning home from the Pacific first to find his wife unfaithful, then to find her murdered and himself in hiding as the suspect, Alan Ladd does a bangup job. Performance has a warm appeal, while in his relentless track down of the real criminal, Ladd has a cold, steel-like quality that is potent. Fight scenes are stark and brutal, and tremendously effective.[24]

Critic Dennis Schwartz wrote:

A fresh smelling film noir directed with great skill by George Marshall from the screenplay of Raymond Chandler (the only one he ever wrote for the screen, his other films were adapted from his novels). It eschews moral judgment in favor of a hard-boiled tale that flaunts its flowery style as its way of swimming madly along in LA's postwar boom and decadence.[25]

Diabolique called it "a fantastic film noir, full of atmosphere, intrigue, crackling dialogue and sensational performances, which was recognized as a classic almost immediately and made a tonne of money." [26]

The film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 100% of its critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 6.88/10, based on 8 reviews; and 71% of its audience gave the film a positive review with an average rating of 3.6 stars, based on 1,087 ratings.[27]

Chandler was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.[28]

• The Blue Dahlia on Screen Guild Theater: April 21, 1949