Lydecker is played by the great stage actor Clifton Webb, a famed columnist (reportedly modeled on Alexander Wolcott, though there\u2019s a fair amount of Walter Winchell in there too) first seen typing in the bathtub, Trumbo-style. He\u2019s being questioned by Det. Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Anderews), who is investigating the death of Laura (Gene Tierney), a beautiful ad executive who was Lydecker\u2019s\u2026 well, who knows, really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laura was the subject of a grisly shotgun murder\u2014excuse me, \u201cA BRUTAL SLAYING,\u201d per the newspaper boys in front of her apartment building\u2014and there are already a handful of suspects, in which Lydecker is borderline ecstatic to be included. \u201cTo have overlooked me would\u2019ve been a pointed insult,\u201d he tells Det. McPherson, before asking to tag along the interviews of the other suspects, for funsies. McPherson agrees, because he doesn\u2019t seem to have much interest in professional ethics (he hauls off and slugs another suspect in the stomach later on), and off we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kane influence comes into play when it\u2019s time to backfill, as Lydecker takes McPherson out to dinner to tell him about his relationship with Laura. Suddenly McPherson is the newsreel reporter, tracking down everyone who knew Laura and getting conflicting versions of her past and intentions, and that could\u2019ve worked\u2014but they go in a very <\/em>different direction, which is also mighty entertaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s wild, and frankly incongruous, about Laura<\/em> is how it\u2019s both sort of nuts and also credible. As Roger Ebert notes<\/a> in his excellent analysis for The Great Movies, there are multiple pieces that don\u2019t really add up, but \u201cAll of these absurdities and improbabilities somehow do not diminish the film’s appeal. They may even add to it.\u201d Director Otto Preminger and his team of screenwriters construct a specific Manhattan bubble wherein everyone is wildly self-absorbed and slightly suspicious, up to and including Det. McPherson, who falls in love with the dead woman\u2014and that\u2019s before she walks in through the front door halfway through the picture. (\u201cDames are always pulling a switch on you!\u201d he explains to a fellow cop.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet it all comes across because Preminger\u2019s direction is so smooth and skillful, and because the script is so wittily quotable. You\u2019ll have your own favorite lines, but I narrowed it down to one from each of the key players:<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s just something magnificent about the way Webb says earthy<\/em> in that moment, the way he manages to put a sneer not on his face but into his voice, that\u2019s sort of unforgettable. The entire performance is like that, a perfectly-tuned portrait of a man who\u2019s lived the bulk of his adult life in a perpetual state of smug self-satisfaction. A young and clean-shaven Vincent Price appears as Shelby Carpenter, Lydecker\u2019s chief rival for Laura\u2019s affections, and he\u2019s appropriately difficult to pin down, in both intention and accent (\u201chis family\u2019s from Kentucky,\u201d we\u2019re told, and Price\u2019s stab at a Southern drawl confirms that he was no dialectician).<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for Tierney, well, the draw is understandable; she\u2019s gorgeous and charismatic, and if the characterization is occasionally flat, that feels more like the script making her an enigma than her not figuring out how to play one. (Pairing this with the following year\u2019s Leave Her to Heaven<\/a><\/em> makes quite a case for her considerable range.) And she has an arc, which a character like this doesn\u2019t always get; there\u2019s a terrific moment where she finds her spine with Waldo, pointedly telling him, \u201cFor the first time in ages<\/em> I know what I\u2019m doing.\u201d And Andrews has a strangely compelling screen presence\u2014handsome in a face-like-a-bag-of-beans kinda way, with a withdrawn, come-to-me quality that makes his performance often seem more contemporary than those of his co-stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, surprisingly, Laura<\/em> is just a damn fine mystery, one that keeps you guessing with good suspects, clever clues, unexpected twists, and an action-packed finale. It\u2019s the kind of movie that shouldn\u2019t work as well as it does, and in that way, it\u2019s a wonderful outlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Laura” is streaming on the Criterion Channel.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/laura-still-1024x576.webp\")
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