Laura Review

Laura (1944)

One of the foundation stones of the film noir universe, Laura stars beautiful Gene Tierney, the apparent victim in a horrific murder on New York’s Upper East Side. This luxurious setting is contrary to the usual noir practice, which almost always features seedy locations. Here you are among the wealthy, far from the sordid back alleys and shabby apartments usually associated with the genre. It’s a refreshing change of pace and the top quality production values of the movie guarantee that the viewer will be satisfied.

Much of the action features Laura’s apartment where the poor woman was found murdered, her face disintegrated. A huge portrait of the murdered woman dominates the apartment, which is baroque with lots of interesting decorations.

Laura (Gene Tierney) was the protégé of poison pen columnist Waldo Lydekker (Clifton Webb) who could make or break careers with the stroke of a pen, probably based on real columnists Walter Winchell or Hedda Hopper. Laura, a young vibrant woman was the unfortunate axis of a supposed love triangle together with Lydekker and Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), a gigolo who alternately romances the aging socialite Anne Treadwell (Judith Anderson). Already you can see the list of suspects begin to generate itself.

Dana Andrews is the police detective who takes the case. Andrews has got a plebeian, unflappable demeanor that is refreshing compared to the stuffy high brow characters he has to investigate. As he traipses around looking for clues he gathers an entourage – the very suspects he has been interviewing, Clifton Webb and Vincent Price. That’s where I get the illogic – there is no way a suspect wants to be around the police! Anyway, Andrews hunts for the murder weapon and the murderer and eventually works his way around to a solution, however, I will leave you to watch that for yourself. Andrews fits the role of a detective like he was born to it, challenging such noir antiheroes as Humphrey Bogart and Robert Mitchum, for the trench coat and fedora championship.

The 20th Century Fox production featured a new director and a new photographer, Otto Preminger and Joseph LaShelle. Preminger developed a unique style of directing where he carefully choreographed his dialog scenes around his planned path of the camera. Then, his photography crew tracked and panned among the characters as they played out the scene, sometimes moving from one room of the set to another. The result is a movie with very few cuts and a unique visual signature that, to my knowledge belongs to Preminger alone.

The sets and costuming are very high quality and this, unlike most films noir is a strictly A film, rather than a quickie B movie as they usually are.

The Fox DVD is presented in pristine black and white, in 1.33:1 theatrical format with a running time of 88 minutes. There is a lot of extra content, including two A&E Biography segments on Vincent Price and Gene Tierney, which are the best extra features. There are two full length commentaries that are also informative.