Empty pleasure.
I thought of ending this review there, but Dana Andrews deserves more.
Laura is a whodunit with a sort of surreal happy ending, and enough twists and pretend twists and twists on twists to make you give up guessing and just watch. It's not such a good thing to have the movie control the facts so that we can't participate in solving the mystery, not really. I know I gave up on this one easier than other people, and for me, the second time, not remembering who did do it, I still gave up on the guessing game.
But there is more here than that, by far. Just start watching as a start. Very smartly staged and photographed (LaShelle, masterfully), and with strong, clean performances, mostly from the demurring detective played by Dana Andrews (better known for his performance in "The Best Years of Our Lives"), watching is easy. The long scene two thirds through, where Andrews is alone in the posh apartment brooding, considering, puzzling, and possibly falling further in love with the dead Gene Tierney of the title role, is a little masterpiece of careful, restrained movie-making. As if to confirm his feelings (and really make the movie perk up), this is where he has a glass of whiskey, falls asleep, and wakes to see Laura standing there like a mirage or an angel. Or a mistake. Laura, the supposedly dead main character we had seen only in flashbacks. From here it takes us on a circuitous wrapping up and we sort of know what will happen, though still don't know how to guess who may have done it.
There might be some issues of confusion not intended--a plot this precise and interwoven begs for nitpicking. Watch the final big party scene with all the suspects gathered, where Andrews accuses, implicitly, Laura herself. Does she panic? No. If she wants us to think she did it (killed the model in her clothes), wouldn't she worry that she would go down by mistake? Isn't the electric chair a lot to risk? And then there is the clock, and Andrews smashing the bottom panel. Shortly later, a replacement panel is perfectly in place. Is this just good police cabinetry? Did I miss something about the second clock (there is an exact match somewhere)? Finally, we would all like to know how Laura could afford such a spectacular (and not very attractive) apartment on her working woman's salary.
No one besides Andrews is especially admirable or evil as a character here. And as actors, no one is especially amazing or awful, either, professional competence begetting the unexceptional. Of note: Vincent Price, a cult favorite, is strained as a chipper disingenuous boyfriend. And potential killer. Clifton Webb, is pretty amazing as a disdainful local writer. And potential killer. His verbal barbs are cutting and hilarious all the way through.
This is a quirky murder mystery, a little cutting edge for its time, and yet without social or psychological compensations. Like a Hitchcock thriller, we have intrigue and surprise, but unlike Hitchcock, there is too much composure and glint. And that painfully recurring theme song, which became a hit. This is somehow a great movie, but a flawed great movie.
I thought of ending this review there, but Dana Andrews deserves more.
Laura is a whodunit with a sort of surreal happy ending, and enough twists and pretend twists and twists on twists to make you give up guessing and just watch. It's not such a good thing to have the movie control the facts so that we can't participate in solving the mystery, not really. I know I gave up on this one easier than other people, and for me, the second time, not remembering who did do it, I still gave up on the guessing game.
But there is more here than that, by far. Just start watching as a start. Very smartly staged and photographed (LaShelle, masterfully), and with strong, clean performances, mostly from the demurring detective played by Dana Andrews (better known for his performance in "The Best Years of Our Lives"), watching is easy. The long scene two thirds through, where Andrews is alone in the posh apartment brooding, considering, puzzling, and possibly falling further in love with the dead Gene Tierney of the title role, is a little masterpiece of careful, restrained movie-making. As if to confirm his feelings (and really make the movie perk up), this is where he has a glass of whiskey, falls asleep, and wakes to see Laura standing there like a mirage or an angel. Or a mistake. Laura, the supposedly dead main character we had seen only in flashbacks. From here it takes us on a circuitous wrapping up and we sort of know what will happen, though still don't know how to guess who may have done it.
There might be some issues of confusion not intended--a plot this precise and interwoven begs for nitpicking. Watch the final big party scene with all the suspects gathered, where Andrews accuses, implicitly, Laura herself. Does she panic? No. If she wants us to think she did it (killed the model in her clothes), wouldn't she worry that she would go down by mistake? Isn't the electric chair a lot to risk? And then there is the clock, and Andrews smashing the bottom panel. Shortly later, a replacement panel is perfectly in place. Is this just good police cabinetry? Did I miss something about the second clock (there is an exact match somewhere)? Finally, we would all like to know how Laura could afford such a spectacular (and not very attractive) apartment on her working woman's salary.
No one besides Andrews is especially admirable or evil as a character here. And as actors, no one is especially amazing or awful, either, professional competence begetting the unexceptional. Of note: Vincent Price, a cult favorite, is strained as a chipper disingenuous boyfriend. And potential killer. Clifton Webb, is pretty amazing as a disdainful local writer. And potential killer. His verbal barbs are cutting and hilarious all the way through.
This is a quirky murder mystery, a little cutting edge for its time, and yet without social or psychological compensations. Like a Hitchcock thriller, we have intrigue and surprise, but unlike Hitchcock, there is too much composure and glint. And that painfully recurring theme song, which became a hit. This is somehow a great movie, but a flawed great movie.