Laura (1944)

Dana Andrews: Det. Lt. Mark McPherson

Photos 

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Quotes 

• Mark McPherson : I must say, for a charming, intelligent girl, you certainly surrounded yourself with a remarkable collection of dopes.

• Mark McPherson : Nice little place you have here, Mr. Lydecker.

  Waldo Lydecker : It's lavish, but I call it home.

• Mark McPherson : I suspect nobody and everybody.

• Mark McPherson : Yeah, dames are always pulling a switch on you.

• Mark McPherson : When a dame gets killed, she doesn't worry about how she looks.

  Waldo Lydecker : Will you stop calling her a dame?

• Mark McPherson : [about the list of suspects]  You know you are on the list too.

  Waldo Lydecker : Good. It would insult me to be overlooked.

• Bessie Clary : I ain't afraid of cops. I was brought up to spit whenever I saw one.

  Mark McPherson : OK, go ahead and spit if that'll make you feel better.

• Mark MacPherson : On Saturday when our men went to the hotel to tell you that Laura Hunt was dead you seemed sincerely shocked.

  Shelby Carpenter : I was. I hadn't expected that mistake.

  Mark MacPherson : But you had your alibi ready no matter who was dead.

• Mark McPherson : Were you in love with Laura Hunt, Mr. Lydecker? Was she in love with you?

  Waldo Lydecker : Laura considered me the wisest, the wittiest, the most interesting man she'd ever met. I was in complete accord with her on that point. She thought me also the kindest, the gentlest, most sympathetic man in the world.

  Mark McPherson : Did you agree with her there, too?

  Waldo Lydecker : McPherson, you won't understand this, but I tried to become the kindest, gentlest, the most sympathetic man in the world.

  Mark McPherson : Have any luck?

  Waldo Lydecker : Let me put it this way: I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbors' children devoured by wolves.

• Waldo Lydecker : Have you ever been in love?

  Mark McPherson : A doll in Washington Heights once got a fox fur outta me.

• Mark McPherson : I suspect nobody and everybody. I am strictly trying to get at the truth.

• Waldo Lydecker : Look around. Is this the home of a dame? Look at her.

  Mark McPherson : Not bad.

  Waldo Lydecker : Jacoby was in love with her when he painted it... But he never captured her vibrance, her warmth.

• Waldo Lydecker : Will you please stop dawdling with that infernal puzzle? It's getting on my nerves.

  Mark McPherson : I know, but it keeps me calm.

• Mark McPherson : Why did you say they played Brahms's First and Beethoven's Ninth at the concert Friday night? They changed the program at the last minute and played nothing but Sibelius.

  Shelby Carpenter : I suppose I should have told you in the first place. You see, I'd been working on that advertising campaign with Laura. Well, we'd been working so hard, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I didn't hear a note at the concert. I fell asleep.

  Waldo Lydecker : Next he'll produce photographic evidence of his dreams.

  Shelby Carpenter : I know it sounds suspicious, but I'm resigned to that by now. I'm a natural-born suspect just because I'm not the conventional type.

• Laura Hunt : It was a terrible shock, poor darling.

  Mark McPherson : Don't tell me you're in love with him too?

  Shelby Carpenter : Look here fella, you're not to talk that way to Miss Hunt.

  Mark McPherson : Shut up.

• Waldo Lydecker : [Music starts playing]  Would you mind turning that off?

  Mark McPherson : Why? Don't you like it?

  Shelby Carpenter : It was one of Laura's favorites. Not exactly classical, but sweet.

• Waldo Lydecker : Haven't you any sense of privacy?

  Mark McPherson : Murder victims have no claim to privacy.

  Waldo Lydecker : Have detectives who buy portraits of murder victims a claim to privacy?

• Shelby Carpenter : Well, I rather thought you'd want to ask me some questions.

  Mark McPherson : Oh, yes. What did they play at the concert Friday night?

  Shelby Carpenter : Oh, Brahms's First and Beethoven's Ninth.

• Mark McPherson : Haven't you seen the papers? Where have you been?

  Laura Hunt : Up in the country. I don't get a newspaper.

  Mark McPherson : Haven't you got a radio?

  Laura Hunt : It was broken.

• Waldo Lydecker : I object to you prying into Laura's letters... especially those from me.

  Mark McPherson : Why? Yours are the best in the bunch.

  Waldo Lydecker : Thanks. But I didn't write them to you.

• Mark MacPherson : [to Laura]  You better take off those wet clothes. You might catch cold.

• Mark McPherson : [about a bottle in Laura's liquor cabinet]  But she never bought cheap stuff like that; not a lady like Miss Hunt.

• Mark McPherson : The doorbell rang. She opened the door. A shot was fired.

  Waldo Lydecker : And how do you deduce that?

  Mark McPherson : She fell backward. The body was there.

  Waldo Lydecker : I thought you hadn't been up here before.

  Mark McPherson : I saw the police photos.

  Waldo Lydecker : McPherson, tell me, why did they have to photograph her in that terrible condition?

  Mark McPherson : When a dame gets killed she doesn't worry about how she looks.