Laura (1944)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

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 McPherson: Yeah, dames are always pulling a switch on you.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Quantum Leap: Good Night, Dear Heart - November 9, 1957 (#2.17)" (1990)

Soundtrack:

You Go to My Head

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.