Laura (1944)

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

Director:

Otto Preminger

Writers:

Vera Caspary (novel), Jay Dratler (screenplay),

Stars:

Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb

Won 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 4 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Gene Tierney	...	Laura Hunt
Dana Andrews	...	Det. Lt. Mark McPherson
Clifton Webb	...	Waldo Lydecker
Vincent Price	...	Shelby Carpenter
Judith Anderson	...	Ann Treadwell
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Grant Mitchell	...	Lancaster Corey (scenes deleted)

Storyline

Detective Mark McPherson investigates the killing of Laura, found dead on her apartment floor before the movie starts. McPherson builds a mental picture of the dead girl from the suspects whom he interviews. He is helped by the striking painting of the late lamented Laura hanging on her apartment wall. But who would have wanted to kill a girl with whom every man she met seemed to fall in love? To make matters worse, McPherson finds himself falling under her spell too. Then one night, halfway through his investigations, something seriously bizarre happens to make him re-think the whole case.

---

Plot Keywords:

investigation | apartment | detective | painting | shotgun | 

---

Taglines:

The story of a love that became the most fearful thing that ever happened to a woman!

---

Genres:

Drama | Film-Noir | Mystery | Romance

---

Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

November 1944 (USA)

Also Known As:

Lora

Filming Locations:

Stage 9, 20th Century Fox Studios - 10201 Pico Blvd., Century City, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on February 5, 1945 with Dana Andrews Gene Tierney and Vincent Price reprising their film roles. Lux broadcast it a second time on February 1, 1954 with Tierney reprising her film role and Victor Mature substituted for Andrews.

---

Goofs

MacPherson tells Laura at one point that the shotgun retrieved from her country house has been ruled out as the murder weapon (and thus potentially clearing Shelby). Shotguns fire pellets and cannot be tested ballistically like bullets, thus it would be impossible to rule it out as the murder weapon.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Waldo Lydecker: [narrating off screen] I shall never forget the weekend Laura died. A silver sun burned through the sky like a huge magnifying glass. It was the hottest Sunday in my recollection. I felt as if I were the only human being left in New York. For with Laura's horrible death, I was alone. I, Waldo Lydecker, was the only one who really knew her, and I had just begun to write Laura's story when another of those detectives came to see me. I had him wait. I could watch him through the ...
[...]

---

Connections

Referenced in Free Enterprise (1998)

---

Soundtracks

"You Go to My Head"
(uncredited)
Music by J. Fred Coots (1938)
Used instrumentally in dance scene

User Reviews

You'll fall in love with this film...

One of the best suspense films of the 1940s, "Laura" is loaded with elegant sophistication, witty dialogue, unscrupulous characters, and romantic obsession, all wrapped in hauntingly beautiful music.

Lovely Gene Tierney is Laura; the young advertising executive allegedly murdered at the front door of her apartment. Dana Andrews is well cast as Mark MacPherson, the handsome, no nonsense detective assigned to unravel the case.

Clifton Webb is superb as Waldo Lydecker, Laura's mentor and an egocentric, effeminate newspaper columnist who has made a career of eliminating Laura's prospective suitors. Lydecker detests Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), a southern playboy to whom Laura is engaged. Anne Treadwell (Judith Anderson) is Laura's aunt who, incidentally, is in love with Carpenter herself.

As MacPherson sorts through the motives and alibis, he finds Laura too bewitches him. In one of the most memorable movie scenes of all time, Dana Andrews gives an intense performance of a man driven to distraction by the story of Laura, her letters, private diary, perfume, and hauntingly lovely portrait above the fireplace. Clearly agitated, he takes a drink as he sits in a chair beneath Laura's portrait. He falls asleep, and the audience is left wondering if his dreams of Laura are coming true, as she appears through the doorway. He awakens and rises from the chair, his soul shaken by the sight of Laura alive.

This intriguing story, combined with Clifton Webb's biting quips, Gene Tierney's beauty and elegance, Dana Andrews' intensity and dark good looks, and Vincent Price's sense of humor, makes this film immensely watchable again and again.