Synopsis
The story of a love that became the most fearful thing that ever happened to a woman!
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.
Laura
1944 Directed by Otto Preminger
Cast
Gene Tierney Dana Andrews Clifton Webb Vincent Price Judith Anderson Dorothy Adams Wally Albright Bobby Barber Harry Carter Lane Chandler Dorothy Christy James Conaty Ralph Dunn Jean Fenwick Clyde Fillmore James Flavin Bess Flowers Lee Tung Foo William Forrest Frances Gladwin William Graeff Jr. Beatrice Gray Sam Harris Kathleen Howard Yolanda Lacca Frank LaRue Kay Linaker Gloria Marlen Thomas Martin Show All…
Director
Additional Directing
Producer
Writers
Original Writer
Editor
Cinematography
Additional Photography
Art Direction
Set Decoration
Special Effects
Visual Effects
Composers
Sound
Costume Design
Makeup
Popular reviews
More-
Won't lie, had a great time watching this. Gasped with every turn this film took. Not one bad performance but Vincent Price really is just THAT dude, ya know? The camera movement, the use of space, it all comes together into an ending that left me completely on edge. Not to mention the fact that Laura really is one of the most fascinating characters I've seen, especially for this time period. I'm sure there are actual reviews that actually go into depth about that. Too tired to add more sowwy 🥴
I wish Vincent Price were still alive so he could get into podcasting. -
-
Blown away. I can't believe that this movie exists and that I hadn't seen it until now and that it achieves so much perfection in under 90 minutes. This is absolutely essential viewing for any fans of film noir and particularly for anyone interested in the femme fatale as a symbolic cinematic figure. It's also the first time I've really been bowled over like this since I discovered and fell in love with The Conformist back in May. Anyway:
"My mother always listened sympathetically to my dreams of a career, and then taught me another recipe."
Laura (Gene Tierney) is dead. Shot in the face with a shotgun. Detective McPherson (Dana Andrews) is on the case, and he's followed closely…
-
-
-
Judith Anderson looking into her compact, reapplying lipstick, matter-of-factly speaking about murder, cold as ice.
“Because I can afford [Shelby], and I understand him.He's no good, but he's what I want.
I'm not a nice person. Neither is he.
He knows I know he's... just what he is.
He also knows that I don't care.
We belong together because we're both weak and
can't seem to help it.
That's why I know he's capable of murder.
He's like me.
No, dear, I didn't...
but I thought of it.”
There’s more bloodshed in those words than anywhere else in the film. -
I am going to make an assumption that this classic film is a personal favourite of David Lynch. The film starts after the murder of a beautiful young woman named Laura. Every male character, both young and old, seems to be in love with her. A detective attempting to solve her case even falls in love with her posthumously after listening to other people's recollections and falling under the spell of her bewitching portrait. Sounds familiar? Well, a friend of a friend is a friend of mine, and so I am a little in love with this Laura, too.
I have always enjoyed the device of rendering the main character by the impressions they have left behind in their absence,…
-
Laura is an adaptation that excels in style and acting, but pales in actually building suspense and intrigue, which should be the prime purpose of the murder mystery genre.
The original story has some of the most memorable characters in fictions, and the marvellous cast was adequate enough to pull off the tall order, from Gene Tierney's charming portrait of the titular character, to Clifton Webb's Oscar-nominated interpretation of a quick-witted yet romantically hopeless critic.
Yet what's stopping Laura from being a successful noir adaptation is the lack of organic buildup to its rushed, lazy closer. The detective procedures are overwhelmingly lacking for a whodunnit story, and the final reveal doesn't come as much of a surprise as it should've been.
Overall the acting and power dynamics on display are what Laura's good at, while it's simply underwhelming with its murder mystery aspect.
-
Wartime cynicism, deeply flawed characters, pervasive male obsession, and the effortless allure of Gene Tierney. On these aspects alone, Laura might just be the finest noir ever made, and that’s without even acknowledging Preminger’s remarkable aptitude for navigating space. So much of what makes this a time-conquering masterpiece is embedded in its visual approach; in-your-face whip-pans, fluid tracking shots and intricate blocking all building the technical basis not just for the genre, but for the medium as a whole. From Lynch to Scorsese, this fatalistic gem is as rich with influence as it is riddled with the hazy air of death and cigarette smoke, evoking all the gothic mystique of a spine-tingling ghost story, and yet ultimately descending into hot-blooded…
-
This movie is spectacularly, monumentally queer, from Shelby Carpenter's (Vincent Price) assertion that he's a natural suspect because he’s "not the conventional type," to Mark McPherson's (Dana Andrews) amused, pointed glance crotchward as Waldo Lydecker (Cliffton Webb) stands up from his bath on their first meeting; from Waldo's description of McPherson as "muscular and handsome," with "a lean, strong body," to Shelby's arch suggestion to Waldo that he "get down on all fours again," because "it's the only time you've ever kept your mouth shut."
The examples are numerous and pointed, but the majority of the queer content centers on Webb and Lydecker. From the start, the relationship between Waldo and McPherson resembles a courtship, from their risque meeting in…
-
63/100
Shifting tastes in middle age part 817: For all its plentiful surface pleasures (particularly Clifton Webb's reptilian-dandy act), this now seems more of a shallow potboiler than the moody noir I'd dimly remembered, and hardly a patch on less heralded Premingers like Daisy Kenyon and Angel Face (or even Fallen Angel). Mid-film plot twist is a doozy—and I somehow never realized before that it anticipates The Third Man—but Dana Andrews is too blunt an object to embody obsession with a dead woman (Laura anticipates Vertigo as well, come to think of it), and the ostensible passion that ignites between them seems like mere writer's fiat. Still a lot of fun, but superficial, weighted too heavily toward plottiness and speechifying for the New Me. I used to be so into those things, too...
-
Similar Films
Powered by Nanocrowd
