Laura (1944)
Gene Tiernery, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb; d. Otto Preminger; A-

I remember my reaction to when Laura first started to play on my VHS player: "Oh no, not another ‘Yeah, that girl was gorgeous but damn she was bad’ movie. Sure, I liked Rebecca, however back in the 40’s that story was probably done to death. So, I sunk back in my chair and expected, for 88 minutes, to be bored out of my wits. I found myself, though, being surprisingly entertained. As they say, you can not judge a book by its cover.

Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), a detective, has been assigned the case of the murder of Laura Hunt (Gene Tiernery), a buisnesswoman found shot in the face in her appartment. Laura was a beautiful young woman who found herself trapped in a love triangle between her boss, Waldo Lydeker (Clifton Webb), who’s obsessed with her, and her unfaithful fiance Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). They both also happen to be the prime suspects, and with his shady personality as well has his questionable actions (especially during his relationship with Laura), Shelby seems to be the culprit. After visiting Laura’s appartment, McPherson and Waldo visit a restaurant, where Waldo tells of Laura’s social and buisness begennings, as well as his feelings for her. When Waldo first met Laura, she was an adwoman trying to get Waldo to endorse her pen. After a disasterous attepmt at persueding Waldo to endorse the pen, Waldo, feeling guilty after Laura dismisses him as a cruel man, agrees to endorse it. Later on, Waldo builds up her buisness career as an advertising woman, as well as her image (making her less mousy), and her society life. The downside of making her beautiful and popular in rich circles were all the men who came to her doorstep, getting in the way with his potential relationship with Laura. So, in order to scare them away, he writes incriminating articles about her potential suitors in the newspaper. This succeeds until he meets his worst enemy, Shelby Carpenter, whom he can’t seem to get rid of until he finds out that Shelby’s a two-timer. That information comes up when Laura has announced her engagement to Shelby, and thus causes her to leave her appartment and go out to the country to "think." Apparently, though, she never made it to the country because that night she was found murdered… Or so everybody thought. One night, while McPherson, who by that time was falling in love with the unattainable Laura, he wakes up to see Laura standing beside her fireplace, as if she had just come from outside. It turns out that Laura had not been murdered, but it was one of Shelby’s mistresses who was, right in Laura’s appartment. The question is, though, who murdered her, and why?

I am personally not a big film noir buff, and frankly I haven’t seen many of the genre. However, this film impressed me, and I think has persueded me to check out more of the genre. This is a superb film with an excellent cast, script, direction, cinematography, and music. The music, though, is kind of off putting for this film, seeing how it’s not in anyway "dark," as you would expect with film noir, but very beautiful, romantic, and sweeping. It works, still, in that it adds to the mystery of Laura.

As said before, the performances are great, especially coming from Clifton Webb and Dana Andrews. Waldo Lydeker is a complex character, a posessive man who will do anything to keep Laura. He keeps his emotions on the inside, though, and inside he’s a passionate yet jealous man. Webb plays this with excellency, not at all overacting as that character might be. Dana Andrews is perfect as the detective, a man who’s even more emotionless than Lydeker. He, too, prefers to keep his cool, but obviously because of the perfession he’s in. However, it’s obvious that he has good intentions in mind, in spite of his hard shell. Also noticable are Gene Tierney as Laura, and Judith Anderson (in the aforementioned Rebecca) as Laura’s aunt, Ann Treadwell.

This is definatly reccomended by me, especially to those who enjoy film noir as well as anyone who enjoys just plain crime films.

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2001