Laura
(1944)
20th
Century Fox
Cast:
Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price.
Rating:
NR
Run
time: 87 mins..
Genre:
Crime
Verdict:
Brilliant
(see rating
system)
With
Double Indemnity and Laura in theatres, 1944 was a great year
for Film Noir.
Both
films retain their magical power more than 60 years later
and have never looked better, thanks to DVD technology.
While
Double Indemnity was a raw story of lust and greed, Laura
built its unforgettable love story around jealousy and betrayal.
The
gorgeous Gene Tierney is the Laura of the title, a talented
and beautiful advertising associate savagely shot to death
in her elegant New York apartment. Streetwise detective Mark
McPherson (Dana Andrews) investigates and finds a shifty circle
of friends who knew Laura - and might have had reason to kill
her.
They
include the boyfriend (Vincent Price) she'd recently decided
not to marry and his older secret lover (Judith Anderson).
Acid-tongued newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker, Laura's much
older mentor, introduces McPherson to not-so-polite society
and offers up a few theories of his own about her killer.
The
more he delves, the more McPherson becomes obsessed with the
stylish Laura and soon finds himself irrationally falling
in love with a woman he can never know.
Then,
in one of the great plot twists in movie history, McPherson
has an encounter with a ghost...
A
brilliant script and a fine cast (including an Oscar-winning
turn by Webb) plus the unforgettable theme music by David
Raksin help make Laura a timeless delight.
The
movie has been beautifully restored and there are some fine
extras, including the A&E Biography documentaries on the
lives of Vincent Price and Gene Tierney.
