Laura (1944)

[Steve-O]

From the NOTW archive:

Laura (1944)

Posted by NoirFanatic

This being my first review for the site (go easy on me folks) I decided on the film, Laura, but as I started to write this review a major question popped into my head, “How does one write a review or commentary for a major film entry in the world of noir without giving away a major, and I stress MAJOR plot spoiler? I’m not too sure, but, for the benefit of those who may not have seen Laura, I’m going to do my best to talk about and review this classic noir without giving away the MAJOR plot spoiler.

Directed masterfully by Otto Preminger, who was not set as the original director for Laura, but was the only director available when the original director, Rouben Mamoulian was pulled from the project, this production presents career-making performances from stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, and Vincent Price.

From the opening frame when we first meet Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) and the first words we hear are his voice-over, “I shall never forget the weekend Laura died,” we know this will be a murder mystery like none other seen in the 1940s. Lydecker is a newspaper columnist who is full of himself, a pompous ass, who believes he had fallen in love with Laura (Gene Tierney) and would do anything to help her succeed in the advertising industry and be accepted with the rich and fabulous of the city.

Enter Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), your typical 1940s hard-boiled detective, who is investigating the murder of Laura through interviews of the two possible suspects, Lydecker and Laura’s fiancé, Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). Through the interviews, Laura’s story is told by means of flashbacks, a technique used in most but not all noirs, and through these flashbacks we begin to uncover how Lydecker fell for Laura, how Laura began to fall for Shelby, and how their obsessions for her love result in her death.

Through these interviews of Laura’s suitors McPherson has no real success which he uses as an excuse to go to Laura’s apartment at night where he searches for clues by going through her personal letters in the hopes of getting one step closer to finding the person who murdered her. What he doesn’t realize or tries not to show is that he to has become obsessive for Laura and is slowly falling in love with a dead woman. He is eventually called on it by Lydecker when he says, “You better watch out, McPherson, or you'll end up in a psychiatric ward. I don't think they've ever had a patient who fell in love with a corpse.”


I did say McPherson was your typical 1940s hard-boiled detective, right? Well, what would a hard-boiled detective be without his alcohol? After doing a search through Laura’s apartment, our detective helps himself to a few drinks and falls asleep on one of the sofas only to be awakened to the shock of his life…

And that is where, my friends, to avoid spoiling anything for you, I must quote an old saying, “This is where the plot thickens.”

The script itself is what drives Laura along. The scriptwriters have presented us an intriguing storyline with outstanding plot twists all throughout Laura. You must give credit to scriptwriters of this film, Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Betty Reinhardt; the trio do an outstanding job adapting the best selling 1943 detective novel by Vera Caspary.



David Raksin’s score for Laura is a beautiful and at times haunting theme that sets the tone and pacing for the entire movie. The story behind this score is to be believed -- that Preminger told Raksin to take a weekend and come up with the theme or he was going to used Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady.” The ultimate theme that Raksin developed was a perfect fit for the film and Preminger used it for the entire movie.

All the acting performances for Laura were considered career-making for the four leads. However, without Clifton Webb as Waldo
Lydecker, this film would be nothing. Webb is believable as the full-of-himself newspaper columnist who believes that he is the right man for her and does everything in his power to prevent Laura from having other relationships with men--including attacking the men with words through his newspaper column.

Webb also gets some of the best dialogue in the film. Early in the film, Laura approaches him to endorse a pen; his reply, “I don't use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom." His delivery of this line just shows you what kind of man Lydecker really is.

Webb’s Lydecker is considered to be one of the most memorable characters in all of film noir and cinema.

The ultimate credit should also be given to the director Otto Preminger, for when he took over this film it was a mess! From the acting to the cinematography and all the way down to the film score, Laura would not have become the classic noir it is without Preminger at the helm.






Tue, 04 Sep 2007

[GingerIngenue]

Once you're dead, every inch of you will be searched. Not just your body, but all your belongings. The things you have hidden in your house or apartment; the things you prize, and the things you're ashamed of. Stuff you believe safe, that no one else in the world will ever see. Your most private possessions. Journal pages. Secrets. And every concrete detail to who you were as a human being before you died.

Whether it's pilfered through by your next of kin, or by the police, depends on whether or not you get murdered.

According to Lt. Mark McPherson, "Murder victims have no claim to privacy."

But what if the detective, in charge of finding your killer, makes a second home of your apartment? Enjoys pilfering through your belongings. What if he falls in love with you! Simply from staring at your portrait? And one stormy night, while sleeping with too much scotch in his veins, he imagines you resurrected and walking through the living room.

Mark McPherson -- played by Dana Andrews -- is a young detective who's never met the woman of his dreams. And now that's he's found her, she's already dead!

But Laura Hunt is more than just the murder victim in McPherson's latest investigation; and more than just a pretty face in a painting: she's also in the memories, and on the lips and pen of famous New York columnist, Waldo Lydecker -- played by the equally effeminate, well-dressed, and clever, Clifton Webb.

Waldo: and his precious, razor-sharp tongue and wit. Currently writing Laura's story in the bathtub, as the film opens, with Lt. Mark McPherson pawing at delicate antiques. Unaware that he is being studied by Waldo, who purposely left the bathroom door ajar...

Now despite his love for the deceased Laura Hunt, I believe Waldo -- like Webb -- is essentially asexual. Too refined to let loose sexually with ANY gender; physically though, I think Waldo craved men; but emotionally and mentally, he wanted Laura.

And every time she fell in love with another man, Waldo would dismiss him as unworthy of Laura; since Laura was Waldo's Pygmalion-esque creation, and obviously the world is unworthy of glorious HIM.

So yes, Waldo thinks himself superior to everyone, regardless of gender. But observe how fond he is of Mark in the opening scene. Of how comfortable he is, in washing himself, dressing himself, even rising from the tub, in front of Mark.

Upon realizing who Mark McPherson is -- a few years prior, McPherson gained a hero's reputation by taking down a gangster, and receiving a leg full of lead in the process -- Waldo says, "I always liked that detective with the silver shinbone."

Ha. I'll bet he did.

Though I assure you, McPherson isn't interested.

The handsome and subtle detective, like Dana Andrews himself, is very masculine.

So desperate not to lose his temper, Mark plays with a handheld baseball game throughout the film. "It keeps me calm," he says.

But upon seeing it for the first time, Waldo begins with his 'usual pattern' of emasculating any and all men who surround him; the unworthy -- If Waldo can't be a real man, no one can! -- but is amused by Mark for being something of a realist; a purist detective who cares only about getting at the truth.

Mark, on the other hand, is rarely amused, and never impressed by the likes of Waldo and Laura: high-society New Yorkers with fancy apartments, luxurious belongings, and seemingly-platonic relationships. [Yawn]

Speaking of platonic, Mark agrees to have dinner with Waldo. This is when the flash-backs begin. And where we finally meet Laura, as played by the gorgeous Gene Tierney.

Investigating her murder, but also delving into this rich world that McPherson is unfamiliar with, this world he believes is false, and snobbish, Mark becomes fascinated. Perhaps not by the shimmering edifice of the world itself, but of how it's former resident, Laura Hunt, could have been suckered into it! She sounds like a nice girl, and here's Waldo Lydecker, talking about how he added a layer of gloss to her, and made her as well-known as his own walking-stick.

A possession.

A lump in the coal that slightly revealed itself -- that day in the Algonquin hotel, where Laura approached the famous Lydecker, in hopes of his endorsement of an advertising campaign she created herself -- and he saw this naive, fresh-faced young beauty, also with brains and talent. But Waldo mainly saw Laura's potential. He plucked the untouched diamond from the earth. He dusted it off (or so he thought) and made a bracelet of her! Polished her. Gave her a sense of culture and breeding.

In reality, Laura's upbringing and beliefs were more akin to Mark's. But Waldo knew Laura was capable of rising up to HIS lofty level. He could never find another human-being he felt was as good as him, or deserving enough, to be near him. At least Laura was close enough...he used her career as a starting point, as an excuse! Waldo then molded Laura into his ideal woman.

[GingerIngenue]

And Laura allowed it, because it would skyrocket her beloved career. But in going along with Waldo's 'renovations' of her -- improving her looks, her wardrobe, her social status -- Laura began to feel less human. More like one of the cold, glass ornaments in Waldo's collection.

But then she met Shelby Carpenter -- in whom Laura found her chance to be WOMAN again, for a cold glass ornament can't have sex with a big handsome man! -- as played by Vincent Price.

Waldo brags to Mark how he was always capable of destroying Laura's affections for undeserving men, but with Carpenter, Waldo failed to dissuade her. And at the time of her death, Shelby and Laura were engaged.

But Waldo assures Mark that Laura was having second thoughts. She made more money than Shelby. Her career was above his, and she was strong and independent. Perhaps due to his Southern heart and mindset, Shelby soon felt insecure, and less of a man. He had to PROVE he was a man! The same way Laura proved she was a woman...by going out and screwing around; Shelby cheated on Laura, not only with an attractive young model, named Diane Redfern, but also with Ann Treadwell, Laura's own aunt!

Scandalous: yes.

But I don't think LAURA truly enters Film Noir territory until Waldo relinquishes the film's narration, allowing Mark to become the official view-point character.

After that, everything gets a little darker...

The painting of Laura watches over Mark as he drowns his sorrows. In the bedroom, he inspects her closet, smells her perfume, and fondles the contents of her dresser drawer -- delicates? Sure, but where's Waldo to tell him not to! -- besides, they're not breakable.

Neither was Laura.

Alone in her apartment. Only a few feet away from the spot where she was murdered! The rain pours, and the clock chimes, and after one last glimpse of Laura's portrait, Mark drinks himself to sleep.

It's debatable whether or not the remainder of the film is actually real or Mark's dream.

When Laura Hunt enters her own apartment, she automatically becomes a suspect for killing Diane Redfern, the girl that was actually shot last Friday night; she was also the model Shelby Carpenter had sex with!

Gee, why would Laura want to kill her?

Mark doesn't care; Mark's thrilled! Not because Laura might be guilty of murder, and therefore sent to prison, or worse! But because his dream woman is a reality now -- flesh and blood, and all that goes with it! -- and by walking into her apartment. By returning to the scene of her own death? No! To the scene of the crime. By stepping down from her own painting; by finally leaving the pedestal built for her by Waldo Lydecker, Laura also finds Mark. A man not here to worship her, but protect her. A man with a capital M. Wanting to make love to her, for she is giving, and optimistic, warm and friendly; not fodder for a platonic relationship! Like with Waldo...her sardonic and possibly sadistic Henry Higgins, to whom Laura always felt indebted.

To Mark, Laura owes nothing.

And Mark doesn't feel insecure, like Shelby and Waldo. Mark is one hundred percent man, with nothing to prove! No reason to make Laura into living proof that he deserves an attractive woman. He wants to take her out of that glass cabinet, and remind her that she's human! A real woman: not a trophy, or a status-symbol, or an old diamond bracelet never worn.

Laura likes finding Mark in her apartment.

"As if he were waiting for me," she says.

So once the crime of 'Who killed Diane Redfern while mistaking her for Laura Hunt' is resolved, Mark and Laura can live happily ever after!

Or maybe not.

Perhaps Laura IS a dream, a ghost, a vision from too much Scotch! The beautiful idea of Heaven while McPherson has succumbed to alcohol poisoning -- someone cue the Twilight Zone theme!

And of course there's always the major problem of whoever tried to murder Laura Hunt, RETURNING to murder Laura Hunt! Now that she's returned from the grave.

But at least this will give Mark McPherson the chance to save his dream woman: and that's more than he could ever do for her portrait, or her ghost.

If you don't know who the killer is, I'm not gonna outright spoil it -- I've already ruined the 'twist', the least I can do is salvage the ending -- but even knowing the killer's identity, the finale is shocking to see.

And surely the ghost of Diane Redfern will enjoy the ironic sight of her own killer dying in the same spot, in the same apartment...

I'm guessing Mark sent someone else to pilfer through Diane's apartment? It must not have included a giant portrait, and a bottle of scotch...

Ha. But who needs it? Mark has Laura, and the music swells, and I could watch it a million times over!

LAURA. A unique, romantic mystery. Perhaps not a strict film noir, but a classic: unforgettable.

[Steve-O]

Ginger's classic movie blog is quite excellent too...

[HJ]

A really stylish and outstanding review of my favorite Noir. Ya done great, Ginger Ingenue!

[Christina Delassalle]

Love is eternal. It has been the strongest motivation for human actions throughout centuries. Love is stronger than life. It reaches beyond the dark shadow of death.

Excellent review! I can watch it a million times over too. One rainy Sunday I watched it 3 times, once with no commentaries and then 2 more times with the commentaries. The first commentary is primarily by Jeanine Basinger, a film professor at Wesleyan University, and composer David Raksin chimes in every once in a while with a brief comment. Not the best commentary I have ever heard, but hey, it's Laura, so who cares.

The second commentary is by film historian Rudy Behlmer. He bombards the listener with a ton of behind-the-scenes information, he is amazingly knowledgeable.
Most of what they both had to say I already knew, but still it held my interest.

And also the DVD contains a pair of A&E biographies, one on Gene Tierney, the other on Vincent Price. The one on Tierney covers her career, her battle with mental illness, and her two marriages, as well as her romances with Prince Aly Khan and John F. Kennedy. The one on Price sketches his professional life, his three marriages, and his involvement with art. I already knew most of the info about them, but it was still interesting.

Nobody ever seems to mention it, but Gene Tierney's life, what happend to her baby because of the measles she was exposed to during her pregnancy is the exact plot twist in Agatha Christie's The Mirror Cracked From Side to Side.

*Edit*
It is mentioned on Wikipedia, I take it back.

In June 1943, while pregnant with Daria, Tierney contracted rubella during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen. Daria was born prematurely in Washington, D.C., weighing only three pounds, two ounces (1.42 kg) and requiring a total blood transfusion. Because of Tierney's illness, Daria was also deaf, partially blind with cataracts and had severe mental retardation. Tierney's grief over the tragedy led to many years of depression and may have begun her bipolar disorder. Some time after the tragedy surrounding her daughter Daria's birth, Tierney learned from a fan who approached her for an autograph at a tennis party that the woman (who was then a member of the women's branch of the Marine Corps) had sneaked out of quarantine while sick with rubella to meet Tierney at her only Hollywood Canteen appearance. In her autobiography, Tierney related that after the woman had recounted her story, she just stared at her silently, then turned and walked away. She wrote, "After that I didn't care whether ever again I was anyone's favorite actress." Biographers have theorized that Agatha Christie used this real life tragedy as the basis of her plot for The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. The incident, as well as the circumstances under which the information was imparted to the actress, is repeated almost verbatim in the story. Tierney's tragedy had been well-publicized for years previously.

[Steve-O]

Laura 1944

[Steve-O]

Laura theme song

[Movie Memories]

Great review, great commentary, beautiful picture, and haunting theme song. All that Laura is...one of the best!

[Roger Wade]

This film had to grow on me. When I saw it at last (quite late in my Film Noir career) I was deeply disappointed, considering its legendary fame. Glossy interiors, snobistic chit chat, artificial characters and not much of a plot (or at least not very mysterious). What was the genre: glamour-mystery melodrama? At least it didn't look like a noir to me, depite the fedora and the rainy street.

After reading the book by Vera Caspary (which is quite good, very 1940s, like a kind of diabolical Dorothy Parker) I understood that these characters are MEANT to be nasty and shallow, there is much wickedness under the veneer and they all play it out in grand style. Slowly I began to understand the 'mystique' of the film. It VIEWS like a well budgeted A-film, with great looking stars, a witty script, excellent production values. But you REMEMBER it as a noir: the voice-over, the flash-backs, the portrait, the various kinky obsessions of about all the characters, the cruelty disguised by good manners and insincere conversation. The one blot is Waldo Leydecker played by Clifton Webb. OK, he is good but the film could have been perfect with Claude Rains or George Sanders in the part (Rains later gave an impression how his Leydecker could have been in The Unsuspected and Sanders in All About Eve).

But still, a film I take out to watch about every two months when I am in a 'Laura-kind-of-mood'.

[Steve-O]

Roger: You feel the same way I do about LAURA. I love it but I certainly didn't when I first watched it.

[MartinTeller]

After two viewings, I like it but still don't hold it in as high esteem as most seem to...


(review from 6/17/05)

Excellent noir with a great twist in the middle and constantly shifting suspicions. Good for a watch, would sit through it again if I caught it on TV, but it didn't rock my world or anything. Rating: 8


(review from 2/22/10)

Laura is often cited as one of the most significant noirs, but I really see it as more of a melodrama/mystery. At least, it's not seedy in the way that I like my noirs. It's still an excellent movie, with one of the best second act twists ever. Not really the kind of thing I'd watch a third time, though. I much prefer Where the Sidewalk Ends, even though it's far less known. Rating: 8

[Steve-O]

Today I discovered this really excellent piece on Laura by Ben Parker:

“Film noir” is an awkward genre. On one hand, its stylistic features are easily codified—a morally ambiguous hero caught in a bind, a femme fatale, labyrinthine flashbacks, and high-contrast black-and-white photography—prompting any number of homages and parodies, from Breathless to Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid. On the other hand, film noir is also something of a parasite, an atmosphere that invades otherwise innocent films and bends them to its generic will. Otto Preminger's Laura (1944) is one of the most beloved film noirs, not least because of its self-consciousness about the genre: is it a noir or a noir-ification of a gothic melodrama?

[Roger Wade]

McPherson: "Nice little place you here here"

Lydecker: "It's lavish, but I call it home!"

It is witty lines like this that make me return again and again to this film. I think LAURA is quite unlike any other Film Noir, perhaps because of dialogue like this.

[Film Noir Press - Noir news from the internet]

As part of the series "Class Reunion: High School Through the Decades," the SIFF Film Center presents a one-time screening of Richard Linklater's 1993 last-day-of-high-school comedy "Dazed and Confused" at 9:30 p.m. Friday; Film Center at the Seattle Center campus. At the Uptown, SIFF's Ballet in Cinema series continues at 6:30 p.m. Monday with "Romeo and Juliet," a broadcast of London's Royal Ballet performing Kenneth MacMillan's choreography, recorded last month before a live audience. Also at the Uptown is "Scarface," with Al Pacino, which screens at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Critic/author David Spaner discusses global capitalism in Hollywood and the trend of indie filmmaking in a presentation called "Occupy Hollywood" on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Film Center. It includes a Q&A with screenwriter Stewart Stern ("Rebel Without a Cause"). For tickets and information on any SIFF event, see www.siff.net or call 206-324-9996.
The Grand Illusion continues its Cary Grant series this week with "North by Northwest," the 1959 Hitchcock classic with Grant (as the unfortunate Roger O. Thornhill), James Mason and Eva Marie Saint. It screens nightly — in 35mm — through Thursday; 206-523-3935 or www.grandillusioncinema.org.
The Academy Award-winning documentary "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision," about the young architect who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., will have a free screening at the Central Library at 7 p.m. Monday. Tickets and reservations are not required. Microsoft Auditorium (Level 1), 1000 Fourth Ave., Seattle; for more information, see www.spl.org or call 206-386-4636.
One of the great examples of film noir (and a great film, period) screens at Northwest Film Forum this week: Otto Preminger's haunting 1944 drama "Laura," the story of a police detective becoming emotionally entangled in the case of a young woman's murder. It plays nightly through Thursday in a new 35mm print; if you haven't seen this film, do yourself a favor and go get caught up in its spell. NWFF, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle; 206-267-5380 or www.nwfilmforum.org.Speaking of noir, the every-other-Thursday film-noir series at the Historic Everett Theatre continues this week with "The Spiritualist," a 1948 thriller about a woman who thinks she's seen the ghost of her dead husband. Tickets are $5. 7:30 p.m., 2911 Colby Ave., Everett; for tickets, see www.everetttheatre.org or call 425-258-6766.
Seattle Film Institute will have its Spring Open House from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, preceded by free 9:30 a.m. workshops: a production workshop "Hardware Store Movie Lighting" and screenwriting workshops "The Power of Metaphors." 1709 23rd Ave., Seattle; for more information, see www.seattlefilminstitute.com or call 206-568-4387.
And finally, this weekend's midnight movie at the Egyptian is Danny Boyle's 2002 plague drama "28 Days Later," playing Friday and Saturday. 805 E. Pine St., Seattle; 206-781-5755 or www.landmarktheatres.com.
Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com



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[Film Noir Press - Noir news from the internet]

If not as ensnaring as*Double Indemnity,*The Big Sleep,*or*Out of the Past, Otto Preminger’s urbane police procedural*Laura*is one of the best film noirs because it transcends the genre. It is an inverted women’s picture – about the hubris of a successful career girl cum Galatea – a savage critique of the decadence of Manhattan high society, and a commentary on the neurotic idealization of beautiful women.
It begins like*Rebecca: the Wildean newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb)*musing, with the words “I shall never forget the weekend Laura died", on the buckshot-to-the-face homicide of the protégée, Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), he monopolized. The crime is being investigated by a blunt cop, Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), who’s bemused by the bitchy feuding over the corpse by the acid Waldo (below right, with Laura) and the caddish Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), who believes Laura would have married him, notwithstanding his affair with the spineless Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson).
Flashbacks establish that Laura was as unknowable in love as she was ambitious in advertising. The alluring portrait of her in her apartment captivates and disorients McPherson. Having fallen asleep below it, he wakes to the “ghost” of the real woman, concludes that someone else was slain, and adds Laura to the suspects. In the glare of the interrogation light, Laura is less a mystery woman than a hard-boiled sourpuss. But by now McPherson’s probing is that of the jealous lover, not the driven detective.
Nocturnal rain (and trenchcoats), and the shadows cast by light filtering through Venetian blinds insist that Laura is a noir, albeit a baroque one: Waldo’s and Laura’s twinned apartments are stuffed with antiques and geegaws, his feminine taste perfectly echoed by hers. That extends to Macpherson, whose unapologetic masculinity shows up Waldo’s effeteness and Shelby’s unctuousness: in 1944, the movie said to the boys overseas, you, too, can aspire to a dame as breathtaking as Gene Tierney if you’re as tough as this New York dick.

• Order Laura from MovieMail

Watch the recent BFI trailer for Laura



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[Film Noir Press - Noir news from the internet]

You don’t see many film noirs nowadays, so to get your fix you usually have to dive into the vaults of studios and pick out a*hard-boiled*detective flick from way back when. In an effort to make that easier and to cash in on annual Oscar-fever, Fox has released Otto Preminger’s 1944 Laura a film that loosely qualifies as a noir but certainly deserves the recognition it received for its beautiful cinematography, the very quality which also makes it an ideal transfer for Blu-ray. Laura might not be the traditional film noir of cleverly lit rooms or a strong femme fatale, but it’s a compelling enough mystery with some strong character performances that makes it a worthwhile watch from start to finish.

Detective Lieutenant Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) has a murder on his hands but no one that seems particularly inclined to have committed it, or so it appears at first. With the widely beloved Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) dead, McPherson begins investigating the usual suspects, namely the older gentleman Mr. Lydecker (Shelby) who dotes upon her professionally and her self-absorbed good-for-nothing beau Shelby (Vincent Price). As the story of Laura’s rise in the world of advertising becomes apparent, along with the roles each of them played in the days leading up to her murder. However, as the story unfolds it becomes increasingly unclear as to who would want to kill Laura, and whether the victim is who they thought her to be (in a sense).

A few nice twists and some solid performances make the film an enjoyable murder mystery, but fans of the film noir genre will find Laura a bit different from their typical fare. The beautiful appearance of the film comes with a cost, and a big piece of it is the diminished, if not entirely absent, visual aesthetic of the usual noir. If all a noir is to you is a detective hunting down clues (a description which doesn’t even fit half the most celebrated noirs out there), a woman with veiled intentions (which doesn’t really even apply to this film), and the more cynical approach to human nature then Laura is a very loose fit indeed. Especially considering how the weakest character in the story just might be the detective and the overall characterization of whom isn’t too pivotal to the film’s premise. Instead, the film is more a look at the dangerous game of cats and mouse being played by an attractive woman and the men around her.

Laura is a great, classical murder mystery that looks brilliant in high-definition, but don’t expect much more than that.

Blu-ray Bonus Features
Two audio commentaries (one by a film historian and the other by a composer and a film professor) and two episodes of Biography (on Tierney and Price) are the disc’s best extras. Otherwise, the film’s trailer, a sole deleted scene, and an extended cut of the film finish out the disc.
"Laura" is on sale February 5, 2013 and is not rated. Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery. Directed by Otto Preminger. Written by Vera Caspary, Jay Dratler. Starring Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney.



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