Laura

Directed by Otto Preminger, 1944

Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, Grant Mitchell

"A haunting film noir that is about a police detective investigating the murder of a mysterious, beautiful young woman."

~ Link ~

I shall never forget the weekend Laura died...



Storyline: Detective Mark McPherson investigates the killing of Laura, found dead on her apartment floor before the movie starts. McPherson builds a mental picture of the dead girl from the suspects whom he interviews. He is helped by the striking painting of the late lamented Laura hanging on her apartment wall. But who would have wanted to kill a girl with whom every man she met seemed to fall in love? To make matters worse, McPherson finds himself falling under her spell too. Then one night, halfway through his investigations, something seriously bizarre happens to make him re-think the whole case...

"The troubling premise of the film is that homicide detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is seduced by the portrait and aura of murder victim Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). As he investigates and interviews the scoundrels, charlatans, and egomaniacs of New York society with whom Laura surrounded herself, McPherson the blue-collar outsider is lured in by their universal testimony as to Laura’s decency, charm, and intelligence. Caught up in this unseemly passion, he begins to see his investigation as a battle for the dead woman's soul. It's a short step from this chaste fascination to jealousy:  McPherson starts to believe that in solving her murder he can also save Laura from the taint of her lovers, the penniless Southern cad Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price) and the narcissistic columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb). McPherson, in a way, is carrying on a more than usually fraught courtship, with a dead woman." - Ben Parker.