Director Otto Preminger (middle) on the set with his cameraman Joseph LaShelle
The various looks of actress Gene Tierney
LAURA A-
USA (88 mi) 1944
d: Otto Preminger
I shall never forget
the weekend that Laura died.
—film’s opening line spoken by Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb)
While generally regarded as a prominent example of film noir,
placed on all the best noir lists, found at #20, The
100 Best Film Noirs of All Time - Slant Magazine, listed at #15 by Graeme
Ross at The Independent,
20 best film noirs: From Double Indemnity to Shadow of a ..., listed at #9
by Andy Crump,
The 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time - Paste - Paste Magazine, while the
American Film Institute rates it at #4 in their mystery film category, AFI's
Top Ten Mystery - AMC Theatres, and while it does contain extreme angles
and dramatic lighting, this wasn’t shot with the German Expressionist film
style that is at the root of noir, with stark contrasts between shadows and
light (What is Film
Noir? - The Film Noir Foundation), feeling more like a hybrid of noir and
romance fueled by a murder mystery. It
does, however, provide the pervasive overall mood of fatalism and doomed
romanticism, including the death of the entitled character at the opening of
the film. Released just a month after
Billy Wilder’s Double
Indemnity (1944), which generated plenty of box office excitement and
critical acclaim, the studios ushered in a new style of crime thriller shrouded
in dark themes and a pervasive aura of cynicism. While Wilder’s film unpeeled layers of
concealed treachery in the sunlit Southern California locale, Preminger took
aim at the witty and urbane East coast, as exemplified by the smug and
sophisticated newspaper columnist and radio host Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb),
seen typing out his spoken narrative while naked in a bathtub, living in an
extravagant penthouse apartment defined by its ornate décor, giving it a museum
appearance, with a drawing room accentuated by a large oil painting of “Laura”
hanging over the fireplace, presenting the façade of an illusion as one of the
prevailing themes. Under the Hays Code (Hays'd:
Decoding the Classics — 'Laura' | IndieWire) censorship that regulated film
content for nearly 40 years, depictions of homosexuality were forbidden, so gay
characters were cloaked in innuendo.
Intruding into this perfumed world comes hardened New York police
detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), a working class stiff (never once seen
at the police station) investigating the brutal murder of Laura, shot before
the movie began in the face by a shotgun blast.
In contrast to Lydecker’s flowery language and effeminate style,
seemingly pulled from the latest Noel Coward play, McPherson speaks the tough
guy noir language, frank, directly to the point, like something right out of a
Raymond Chandler novel, though the film is adapted from a serialized novel by
Chicago crime author Vera Caspary, who typically merged a woman’s quest for
identity and love with murder plots, introducing the story over seven
installments in Collier’s magazine in
1942, republished in book form the following year while also turning it into a
play, finally selling the book rights to Fox studios on the cheap after
unsuccessfully shopping it around, becoming a box office smash hit. Caspary was outraged at Preminger’s portrayal
of Laura, largely defined by how men perceived her, symbolized by the towering
presence of that painting, which is barely mentioned in the novel, claiming the
film omitted her strong individualism, which is the centerpiece of the
story. Preminger was quoted with
describing Caspary’s Laura as “a nonentity with no sex,” which prompted a
Caspary response, “Do you mean she never got money out of men or mink or
diamonds? That doesn't mean a girl’s
sexy, Mr. Preminger, it just means she’s shrewd. My Laura knew how to love, enjoyed more than
one lover, and enjoyed her lovers lustily.”
These differences led to a feud, resulting in an infamous shouting match
between the director and the writer at New York’s prestigious Stork Club.
Hard to believe this film was made during the war years, as
there’s no sign of it anywhere, yet the film has a dazzling narrative style,
filled with convoluted plot twists that are simply ingenious, along with
expertly drawn characters, yet there’s an overall air of sophisticated
romanticism that pervades throughout, elevated by a lush musical score written
by David Raksin that weaves its way through the film. While Lydecker serves as a central narrator,
providing the engaging backstory of Laura’s life, a successful advertising
executive loved and respected by all, revealed in flashback sequences, the
story expands, eventually told from the viewpoints of several narrators. What stands out, however, is the razor-sharp
dialogue along with superb direction, casting a spellbinding allure over the
audience, as every man seems to fall in love with Laura (Gene Tierney), even
though she’s dead. Inventively leading
viewers down multiple storylines, the common element seems to walk us through
the threats and hazards a woman must confront in negotiating her way through a
male world, where even McPherson seems to fall under her charms, as what he’s
really investigating is the story of her life, caught in the web of a murder
mystery, similar to Jimmy Stewart’s role in Hitchcock’s Vertigo
(1958), particularly his mad obsession with a dead woman, becoming a
psycho-thriller exploring class, crime, and sexual politics. The enveloping characters stand out,
including Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), exuding the smarmy sleaze of effete
Southern charm, yet he’s a rich playboy (with bisexual suggestions) that never
worked a day in his life, leeching off the success of Laura’s aunt Ann
Treadwell, played by Judith Anderson, admittedly gay, known for her role as the
devious Mrs. Danver from Hitchcock’s Rebecca
(1940), in order to maintain his privileged lifestyle, yet viewed with
suspicion by Lydecker, who suspects him all along. Carpenter spews derogatory comments at
Lydecker, claiming he’s interfering in his relations with Laura, where their
homoerotic in-fighting grows personal, developing a detestable odor. Lydecker’s supreme arrogance is key to
unraveling his world, where his narcissistic behavior always centers around
himself, with suggestions of homosexual leanings, as his only interest in Laura
is strictly platonic, where she is more like arm candy, drawing attention to
himself when seen together in public, so he takes her out as often as he can,
keeping him in the public eye, jealous of any man she takes an interest in,
wanting her all to himself. McPherson is
more like the referee between these two sparring partners, where his sanity is
perceived as the voice of reason.
Nonetheless, he’s losing himself in all the drama and romantic mystique
swirling around this woman, who’s too kind and polite, perhaps even angelic to
be considered a femme fatale, yet it’s curious how much attention she draws
even from the grave. So it comes as a
bewildering surprise when out of nowhere she simply walks into the room,
startling McPherson and viewers, changing the entire perspective of the story,
which must be reevaluated in a different light, altering how we view each
character, with everyone now seemingly suspect in a case of mistaken
identity. It’s a bizarre plot twist
that is exceedingly rare in Hollywood movies, elevating the stature of the
film, even with an emotionally flat performance from Dana Andrews and a
miraculous build-up of Laura’s idealized character that few actresses could
live up to, including Gene Tierney, who’s a bit too wholesome and naïve, not
truly aware that she’s running in the company of sharks.
Caspary’s criticisms are justified, as Laura can be
assertive, but remains overly passive, continually defined by the men that
surround her, lacking the fierce individualism that they exhibit, or even other
comparable women of the genre, like Barbra Stanwyck in Double
Indemnity (1944), Joan Crawford in MILDRED PIERCE (1945), Lana Turner in
THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE (1946), or Jane Greer in Out of
the Past (1947), all of whom tower over her in stature, which actually
prevents this film from more consideration into the hallowed grounds of
cinema. Still, Laura’s saving grace,
just like the others, is to be underestimated by men who wrongly view her as
inferior. The tenets of film noir allow
these female characters to expand their roles, becoming part of the collective
American consciousness, challenging the romantic notion of love and marriage as
a fantasy, given the extreme postwar disappointment of having to live in a
cruel and nightmarish world, offering instead a grim or fatally-tinged notion
of romanticism. There is a certain
ambiguity surrounding ambitiously flawed noir women, more detached, no longer
complacent, yet capable of savoring the fruits of their labor, earning money
with regularity and enjoying the empowerment it brings. This newfound independence can be an
eye-opening revelation or a confusing threat to men who still view women “in
their place,” as power overall is still defined by men, remaining a patriarchal
society, yet there’s something altogether attractive about the idea of a better
or more equitable balance of power, where women’s behavior is legitimized as
equal in every sense. Laura is a
beautiful career woman, but remains misunderstood by every man in the film, as
if she’s simply too mystifying, yet she strives to break out of that stranglehold
of misconception, continually defined even throughout history as a femme
fatale, suggesting a fatalistic outcome.
While she is mentored as a businesswoman by Lydecker, not that different
than how men succeed in business, receiving help from influential people, she
quickly rises up the corporate ladder, eventually living on Park Avenue, yet
it’s harder for her to be accepted into “the boy’s club.” For most of the film it remains unclear not
only who committed the murder but who the real victim is, where this same
mystery surrounds Laura’s interior motives, rewritten by Hollywood
screenwriters into a sexless creature, seemingly attracted to the wrong type of
men, a closeted homosexual and a gigolo fiancé, both attracted to her beauty,
but clueless to her other traits. Men in
noir films see themselves as the protagonists, men of action, with visions of
heroism, while women are seductive, more pliable and passive. When the women stand up for themselves with
their own plan of action, there is inevitably a meeting of the minds, a
dramatic impact, where people react to failure and disappointment differently,
as some are immediately threatened, as it changes their view of themselves,
altering their behavior. How this plays
out is through a fatal attraction, where it’s most curious that the leading
male suspects may themselves be queer, an unconventional portrait of
masculinity, particularly in a noir film, though representative of the cultured
upper class, with each behaving like jilted lovers, veering more into an Agatha
Christie whodunit, where someone is disturbed enough to go off the rails,
violating all moral boundaries, where they’re perfectly capable of committing
crimes, even murder. This descent into
the moral abyss is at the heart of film noir, offering a malignant view of
existence, though there are incredulous suggestions of a happy ending.
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