Laura (1944)

Director:

Otto Preminger

Writers:

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

Release Date:

November 1944 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Film-Noir | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Tagline:

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

Plot:

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

Plot Keywords:

Investigation | Apartment | Detective | Murder | Shotgun

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 1 win & 4 nominations

Cast

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

Runtime:

88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Portugal:M/12 | Canada:PG (Ontario) | South Korea:15 (2004) | Finland:S | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video re-rating) (2005) | UK:U (video rating) (1988) | USA:Approved (PCA #10088)

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

David Raksin ended up scoring the film only after Alfred Newman determined he did not have time to score it, and Bernard Herrmann subsequently turned the project down.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the detective first interviews Mrs. Treadwell, the position of his elbow changes between shots, from being up to resting on his leg.

Quotes:

Mark MacPherson: When the police told you on Saturday that Layra Hunt was dead you seemed sincerely shocked
Shelby Carpender: I was, I wasn't expecting that mistake.
Mark MacPherson: But you had your alibi ready no matter who was dead.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Hawaii Five-O: Highest Castle, Deepest Grave (#4.1)" (1971)

Soundtrack:

You Go to My Head

One of Otto Preminger's best

This is film noir played in part as a comedy of manners. (Incidentally, a comedy of manners gets its name from the satirical possibilities in the differing class views on proper behavior--manners--exploited by playwrights to the delight of an audience placed in a superior position--they think--of social discernment. Here we can see the differentials, but they are not played for comedic effect.)

Gene Tierney (at twenty-four) stars as Laura Hunt, a beautiful career girl who, as the picture opens, has been murdered. (Shot in face with a double barreled shotgun, a point of information not dwelled on by director Otto Preminger. Today's directors, of course, would have begun with a full facial shot of the corpse.) Dana Andrews is the leading man, playing Mark McPherson, a hard-boiled police detective with a soft heart. Vincent Price, who before he became a maven of horror, was actually a soft-spoken, hunkish ladies man, plays Shelby Carpenter, who could afford to have his reputation blemished, but not his clothes. He is a man about town who would fit nicely into a British comedy of manners at the turn of the nineteenth century.

But the surprising star is Clifton Webb who plays Waldo Lydecker, venomous columnist and radio personality, who against his first impressions, falls madly (and of course hopelessly) in love with Laura and becomes her mentor. This was before the genteel and very precise veteran of the musical stage was Mr. Belvedere, and before his triumph in Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), that is to say, before he was typecast as an irascible but lovable middle aged man--but not before his fiftieth birthday; strange how the fortunes of actors may go. By the way, George Sanders's Oscar-winning performance as the cynical critic in All About Eve (1950), owes something to Webb's work here.

The strength of the movie is in the intriguing storyline featuring surprising but agreeable plot twists, and especially in the fine acting by Webb, Andrews, Tierney and Price. Webb in particular is brilliant. I think this is another example of Otto Preminger getting a lot more out of his actors than he is usually given credit for. See Anatomy of a Murder 1959, starring James Stewart and Lee Remick, for another example. Known for turning commercial novels into commercial movies (e.g., The Man with the Golden Arm (1955); Exodus (1960); Advise and Consent (1962)) Preminger is at his best when he lets the material have its way. I call that the invisible style of directing and he follows it here. Add the beautiful score by David Raksin and this movie is a special treat.

As a mystery however it is a little predictable. We know from the beginning not only who will get the girl, but with a very high probability who pulled the trigger. What we don't know in the first case is how, since she is presumably dead, and in the second case, why. The lack of motive hides the killer's identity from us. But rest assured, all is unraveled in the final reel.

See this for Clifton Webb whose improbable Hollywood success, beginning with this movie, started when he was in his fifties and ended when he was in his sixties. If I were a thirty-year-old actor running to auditions, I would call that inspiration.