Laura [Blu-ray]

I love this movie! The disk worked great.

At last Fox has released to us, newly bright and polished, without crude splices, jumps, grit and noise, this most perfect of cinematic marvels, the divine Laura (1944). Nominally a Manhattan murder mystery, it is set amongst a crowd so elite it is free of any wartime references, save an invitation to buy bonds in the end-title. The wars in Laura are private, conducted by spoiled narcissists, living in vast East Side apartments replete with servants, balconies and objets d'art. The film's unusual plot is a scaffold for Vera Caspary's social commentary on the character-corrupting effects of beauty, wealth and genius. We remember the eponymous Laura, the venal suspects in her "murder," and the crackling dialog, still fresh after nearly seventy years, far better than her story.Laura is a showcase for the ingenue Fox chief Darryl F. Zanuck called "the most beautiful woman in movie history." If Marilyn Monroe photographed as flesh, Gene Tierney, equally beloved by the camera, is living porcelain. Unlike Monroe, whom everyone felt they could know, Tierney is maddeningly unknowable, unpossessable, like the prize statuette in Zanuck's earlier Warners' production, The Maltese Falcon (1941). Laura's sphinx-like beauty drives the film relentlessly forward as she fascinates us and everyone else on the screen, never leaving our minds after the picture ends, inviting us to view this film again and again, not to solve its mystery, which we learn in first viewing, but its mysterious power over us that makes it the singular and unique Noir classic it remains today.Haunting as Tierney's beauty is the movie's theme, now also known as Laura. Written by David Raksin over a weekend and inspired by a Dear John letter, it is the only song Cole Porter regretted he had not written. Lovingly recorded no less than four times by Frank Sinatra, also by Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker and countless others it is now a jazz standard. You hear it here first, long before Johnny Mercer gave it lyrics. Even a hilarious Spike Jones parody has not diminished its emotional power.Laura owes an undeniable debt to the equally imperishable Casablanca (1942); they share key devices and elements: romantic triangles, even quadrangles, deft and mesmerizing flashbacks, lost or unrequited love, idealized femininity and American macho, but most importantly the unforgettable characterizations supported by brilliant screenwriting.Nearly as riveting as Gene Tierney's beauty is Clifton Webb's voice. He portrays the effete columnist and critic, Waldo Lydecker, modelled, it is said, on Alexander Woollcott. The movie's narrator and Laura's mentor and promoter, his unmistakable and inimitable voice never before sounded so crisp, eloquent and irresistible as in DTS-HD. Amazingly, this was Webb's sound film debut at age 54; he was a Broadway celebrity in song and dance for decades. A very fey presence on screen and gay in his private life, the credibility of his passion for Laura has been questioned in print; in fact it is irrelevant. Lydecker is a collector of beautiful things and Laura is, to quote him in another context, "the gem of my collection and I intend to have it back."Supporting Tierney and Webb are Vincent Price, as Shelby Carpenter, Laura's sociopathic fiance, the "six foot baby" of Caspary's book, and Dame Judith Anderson, the fiendish Mrs. Danvers of Rebecca (1940), no less wicked but far more powerful as Laura's wealthy cougar-aunt. Piecing the mystery together is the street-smart but socially outclassed detective, Mark McPherson, investigating what he plainly calls Laura's "collection of dopes." Portrayed by Dana Andrews (in substantial lifts, made more obvious in HD; as were Bogart's lifts and wig in Casablanca), he plays fast and loose with our Constitution, invading homes, bank accounts and the physical integrity of suspects, but with a likable credibility and unerring eye for visual detail the cinema always loves.Finally, in a bow to ethnic diversity and the working class, there is the brief but memorable appearance of Dorothy Adams, a Hollywood stalwart, as Bessie Cleary, Laura's hysterical but devoted Irish-American maid.So welcome to Laura's apartment, now in HD and as clear and vibrant as Rick's Cafe, and enter a world of entitlement where, though it is 1944, the War has never happened, cigarettes are omnipresent and harmless, drinks are served before noon, we leave work to go dancing at lunchtime and everybody already has a maid, who may care about our murder more than anyone else.

Laura is one of the must-see films of the 40's, a noirish mystery set in the lavish world of New York café society that made careers for its director, most of its actors and the composer of the score whose theme became one of the biggest love songs of its era. The odd thing is that the film was not expected to be very much and the studio, Twentieth Century Fox, threw a bunch of their minor people together on the project almost as if it were a B-picture. But that's the way magic works; always when you least expect it.The author, Vera Caspary originally sought to make a stage play from her 1942 novel, but no producer would back it. At Fox, Daryl Zanuck only optioned the book after his least favorite director, Otto Preminger, pushed him into it by promising it would be made inexpensively. Zanuck so hated Preminger over the failure of the Zanuck-adapted "Kidnapped" in 1938 that the director was only hired back by the studio when Zanuck was away in the Army. And to spite Preminger, who was very enthusiastic about Laura's film potential, he refused to let him direct it and instead, only produce it with Rouben Mamoulian as the film's director.After great script and casting difficulties with Mamoulian, Preminger was finally given the director's chair and kept the film within its budget partly by using actors that Fox didn't know what to do with. The beautiful Gene Tierney was being groomed as a lead actress but so far hadn't clicked in movies like Tobacco Road and Belle Starr. Dana Andrews had been appearing in a number of Fox Westerns and action pictures but also to little effect. The young Vincent Price had not yet established himself and was not typical romantic material and Judith Anderson was equally hard to cast despite her acclaimed sinister performance in Rebecca. Finally there was Clifton Webb, a Broadway actor and dancer who Preminger had to force Zanuck to hire for the role despite Zanuck's disapproval of Webb's overtly gay character. The music, an important mood creating element in most mysteries, was given to David Raksin, who had never composed for a film before. Here seemed to be a recipe for disaster, or at least a minor and forgettable misfire.Instead they created one of the biggest hits and masterful suspense films of the decade, and all involved went on to long and fruitful careers well into the 50's and beyond. Clifton Webb received an Academy Award nomination for his remarkable portrayal of the caustically witty Waldo Lydecker, and Gene Tierney became one of the most glamorous and famous actresses of her day. Preminger, Andrews and Price all enjoyed very long careers. And Zanuck made a ton of money from it despite the fact that he almost seemed to want it to fail.To say any more about the film itself would give too much away. The dialogue is memorable, the black and white sets are beautiful and opulent and the cast works wonders together. There is some disagreement over whether it is a true film-noir, but that's more like some kind of obscure theological argument that misses the point that this is a remarkable film regardless of what you call it. It's a must for any lover of Forties films, mysteries and great ensemble acting.