Laura

Laura

By

  • Genre: Drama, Mystery
  • Release Date: 1944-10-11
  • Runtime: 88 minutes
  • : 7.606
  • Production Company: 20th Century Fox
  • Production Country: United States of America
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7.606/10
7.606
From 799 Ratings

Description

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

Trailer

Reviews

  • CinemaSerf

    7
    By CinemaSerf
    We know right from the outset that the eponymous character (Gene Tierney) has been killed and that investigating police officer "McPherson" (Dana Andrews) is going to have quite a task finding out just what happened. The ensuing story tries to knit together the separate threads of evidence provided by her rather odious sponge of a fiancé (Vincent Price), her maid "Bessie" (Dorothy Adams), her wealthy and rather disapproving aunt (Judith Anderson) and finally from her somewhat supercilious mentor "Waldo" (Clifton Webb) who has a penchant for writing his acerbic newspaper columns from the comfort of his hot bath. It's this latter character that provides us with a bit of extra information, via a narration, to illustrate a story of an ambitious but flawed woman who was quite susceptible to a bit of manipulation. As if poor old "McPherson" didn't have his problems to seek, the arrival of a woman onto the scene midway through his foraging for the truth really does set the cat amongst the pigeons requiring a complete reassessment of the proceedings. This is a cleverly crafted enterprise with both Tierney and Webb at their best delivering characterisations that really do get under your skin. I always felt Andrews a bit light-weight, but here he too manages to contribute effectively as the mystery deepens and the audience are invited to make their own judgements on just about every vice - real or imaginary, as avarice and envy vie with lust for top billing amongst the candidates for motive amongst a family you might sooner not be a part of! Preminger gradually merges these separate strands to create a denouement that is not what you expect at the start and the film is at the better end of the noir genre that focuses on a story, strong writing and some characterisations that make it well worth a watch.

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