A Favorite Film: LAURA (1944) starring Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb

LAURA, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la-a-a-a....! You know the song. It's hard to think of the title without the music by David Raskin popping into your head.

A personal note: This is one of only a handful of films in which Dana Andrews doesn't make me gag. I admit it, I'm not the world's biggest Dana Andrews fan. But he's terrific in this. He has just the right amount of square jawed truculence to make the cop who falls for an alleged dead woman, work.

Okay, let's back up and begin at the beginning. LAURA, based on the novel by Vera Caspary and directed by Otto Preminger, is a well-known classic noir flick that most everyone has on their 'favorites' list. I wasn't going to talk about it at all, but what the heck, even if it's popular and everyone knows it, there's gotta' be something new I can say about it. I'll give it a try. There are several things about the screenplay that bother me even though, on the whole, I love the film. Watch the trailer here.

The story begins with a voice-over from the inimitable Clifton Webb as Waldo Lydecker recounting how he felt when he first heard about Laura's death at the hands of a shotgun wielding killer. So you get right in the mood from the very start. We meet and greet Laura only through a painting that hangs in her apartment and from Waldo's words as he reveals his special memories of her.
Obviously Waldo is besotted with Laura and we're meant to understand that from the start. It's an odd sort of relationship, because you soon realize that if Waldo isn't gay, he's close enough as makes little difference. I mean, he is so prissy, you do begin to wonder what on earth is going on. As the story unfolds, it's also obvious that despite our suspicions about his sexuality, Waldo has placed Laura on a high pedestal in a kind of asexual exercise in denial. He can't have her and no one else is good enough for her either. That's the best I can make of it after seeing the film many, many times. Webb plays a pygmalion role to her galatea, I suppose. Though it's made obvious she doesn't really see him as a viable man. Webb gets in a few good zingers and plays the part to the hilt, but he is never a 'real' flesh and blood man. It isn't any wonder that Laura doesn't take his 'courtship' seriously, if she noltices it at all.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Clifton Webb, but his role in this film is SO disconcerting that I can only suppose it's meant to be.

Anyway, once Laura is 'murdered', in comes Dana Andrews as Lieutenant Mark McPherson, the 'lower class,' stalwart, cynical cop in charge of the investigation. He is immediately taken with the large portrait of Laura that hangs in her apartment. And by the way, what sort of police investigation is this? The body is gone within a couple of hours and all is neat and clean with nary a chalk outline or unsighly blood. WHO CLEANED IT UP? - we never see ANYTHING untoward. The front doorway where Laura was shotgunned to death is clean as a whistle - not even a smidge of fingerprint powder is left. SHOTGUN splatter - what happened to it? It also appears okay for people to come and go in and around the crime scene, almost immediately - the next morning. Dana Andrews practically moves in and hangs around the apartment as subsequent suspects come and go and he spends time interviewing them and dropping insinuations.

Something else which is kind of strange: the cops bug Laura's phone and set up surveillance in the basement to see if she gets any calls? HELLO? Dead women don't make calls. Furthermore: far as I know, dead women DO NOT RECEIVE CALLS. I've always wondered about this. This is before answering machines so any calls received, unless answered by a ghost were blank...see what I mean?

The reason for the bugging is a plot device made clearer later when a phone call from the apartment is overheard and McPherson acts. But the reasoning behind the bugging is never made clear. I mean, who bugs a dead woman's apartment in 1944? What? In case the killer calls? Who's he gonna' talk to?

Anyway, let me say a few words about Laura as a character. Gene Tierney is so beautiful she makes you doubt your own senses so you can't blame McPherson for getting addled. As played by Tierney, she is remote, self-contained and almost as silent as a clam.

Laura's story begins from Waldo's point-of-view. For whatever reason, once upon a time he'd taken a shine to her when she'd shown up with a portfolio to try and get him (he's a famous newspaper columnist) to endorse a fountain pen for a magazine ad. From then on, he'd taken her under his wing and introduced her to all the right people and she moved quickly up the ladder of success. Waldo still takes her to the 'right' parties for some face-to-face networking,  etc. (But mostly, I think, to show her off.) At one of these parties she meets Shelby Carpenter, played in an extraordinarily oily way by Vincent Price - my favorite male weakling. He is, at that moment, being kept by Ann Treadwell (played by Judith Anderson), an older woman who slavishly dotes on him in practically the same way that Webb dotes on Laura.

Why Laura falls for Shelby is never made clear, since any woman with half a brain would have figured out his story in five minutes, I mean, he gives you the creeps from the get-go. But, fall for him, Laura does and decides to marry him. (At that point you may begin to wonder whether Laura's brain power is all that is should be. But then, men in those days weren't interested in women with brains. Of course, that's all different now....Ha!)

But before the marriage takes place, Laura is killed.

Okay, for the three or four of you who have never seen the film, there's a BIG SPOILER coming up.

The best scene in the film, in my opinion, is the moment when Laura shows up, alive and well and wearing a fetching raincoat. She opens her front door and comes across McPherson taking a nap on her living room chair after having guzzled down a whole bottle of Laura's liquor. (Murder victims appear to have no property rights.)

From then on, it's obvious that though Laura was the intended victim, another woman has been killed in her place. So this changes the point of view of the investigation. The dead woman turns out to have been a model from the agency whom Shelby had been bedding even while planning his wedding to Laura and having his bills payed by Ann Treadwell. See what I mean? The guy is Super-Creep.

Since McPherson is half in love with Laura through her portrait, it's only a hop, skip and jump for him to fall for the real woman. And she, in turn, falls for him - literally overnight. One of the things I love best is how Waldo makes fun of McPherson and Laura's burgeoning affections - he calls McPherson 'sweaty' and 'muscle-bound' (or words to that effect), very funny. He insinuates that that's the only reason Laura has obviously fallen for him. Well, in truth, he has a point.
The big denouement comes about in a very tense, very suspenseful fashion. Although why a certain piece of furniture is first searched by a certain cop is never revealed. WHAT WAS THE HUNCH? Give us a clue! And please notice how he re-inserts the certain something BACK inside the certain piece of furniture, holding it with just a handy hanky. The certain something is NEVER photographed in situ, nor is it dusted for fingerprints. Obviously tampering with evidence didn't matter way back when.

But what does any of it really matter? All's well that ends well, as the killer is killed and Laura and McPherson the sweaty cop, live happily ever after.

In my view, the reason why the film works in spite of its faults, is the overarching, melodramatic mood that director Preminger and the production designers create. The fabulous shadowy cinematography sets the mood and holds it. This is one instance where Preminger's penchant for melodrama works well. And Tierney is so damn beautiful, she is the hub around which the whole thing turns. The fact that her character is essentially a hollow center, makes no difference. The film is more than the sum of its parts. I admit I never get tired of watching it.