Laura [PG]

Designer Laura Hunt has been murdered. But she still manages to have a way with men from beyond the grave. Hard-boiled detective Mark McPherson is on the case and, as he hears descriptions and stories of Laura from her playboy fiancé and a second suitor, the acid-tongued and possessive journalist, Mark starts to fall for the woman himself and the case is made all the more difficult as each person involved including Laura’s maid and socialite friend Ann, seem to have some kind of suspicious hand in it. 

Otto Preminger has a really wondrous way of filmmaking. Despite being a fusion of multiple genres including noir, psychodrama, and crime thriller, Laura, like Anatomy of a Murder, makes superb use of the old adage that ‘less is more’ and a captivating foray of thrills, spills, laughs, and game ensue as a result of the experience of watching this movie! 

Designer Laura Hunt has been murdered. But she still manages to have a way with men from beyond the grave. Hard-boiled detective Mark McPherson is on the case and, as he hears descriptions and stories of Laura from her playboy fiancé and a second suitor, the acid-tongued and possessive journalist, Mark starts to fall for the woman himself and the case is made all the more difficult as each person involved including Laura’s maid and socialite friend Ann, seem to have some kind of suspicious hand in it. 

Preminger has this innate sense of how much effect a certain shot or motif will have on an audience, it’s so fantastic it sits within the realm of genius and perfection. Similar to Hitchcock’s Rear Window (which was released years later I am aware, maybe he took a leaf out of Preminger’s book), Laura features a series of tiny hints and miniscule clues that somehow you both notice and neglect on some level. Case in point, we have a clock, a few flashbacks to establish character: all things that are key to the narrative and move it along and we regard them as such and don’t read as much into them. But then when the ‘shocking’ twist comes into play, somehow we’re not really all that surprised by it. Do you sort of see what I mean? It’s very clever writing and filmmaking because everything in this movie does more than one thing and Preminger’s slow-moving shots, pausing points, and preference of mid-shots to create a larger mise-en-scene incurs everything from romance, to suspense, to conflict, to resolution. It’s utterly wondrous. 

The other thing that I really, really liked about this movie is the character of Laura herself. What sets this film aside from other romantic dramas and love-triangles is the way that the woman is depicted. If we were to compare Laura to Vidor’s Gilda, which was made two years later, we would see a fair few similarities, but a monumental difference between the two leading ladies. Where Gilda’s femininity is super-charged in terms of seductiveness, sensuality, and erratic emotional behaviour, Laura’s is heightened in terms of fragility, tenderness, and irresistible kindness. A complete 180-degree turn away from Vidor’s heroine, I found this depiction of the lady really refreshing because in the noir genre and often in these crime thrillers it’s the woman that has that element of mystery and sensuality, whereas here the lady is a pretty and innocent heroine and sex doesn’t come into play at all. Men are driven wild by Laura’s prettiness and caring nature, nothing really all that sensual or erotic at all. 

A new level of intrigue in this film is the fact that Laura is not the main character, despite being the film’s namesake. The real star of the show is the acid-tongued and smarmy journalist, Waldo Lydecker, played most perfectly by Clifton Webb. He is a constant presence all throughout the movie: he’s there at both the beginning and the end of the film and accompanies the detective on the case all throughout. Webb’s performance is brilliant because he’s a very hard person to read. His biting wit, fast-paced timing, curt remarks, and romantic eloquence when he describes Laura all work together to make up this smarmy yet somehow appealing character. He’s great. 

Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Judith Anderson, Cy Kendall, Grant Mitchell, and Vincent Price, Laura is a wonderful film filled with romance, drama, crime, mystery, and suspense. It’s utterly captivating from the get-go and I would highly recommend it for anyone who loves the ‘Classical Hollywood’ era!