Laura

There's no easy way to start a conversation of Laura, Otto Preminger's brilliant yet absurd 1944 noir. It's a murder mystery in which neither the murder nor any of the character's subsequent behavior makes a lick of sense, a character study in which people act in ways that seem contrary to their basic nature and a romance in which love gets thrown around with a cavalier attitude that veers close to utter contempt.

And yet the film is entirely successful. It's one of those noirs that begins with the tawdriest of B-movie material and somehow elevates it into great art, that adds up to much more than the sum of its parts. It comes to DVD this Tuesday, and those of us determined to flaunt impressive film collections may have no choice but to shell out the $15.



As the film opens, we hear Waldo Lydecker speaking to us in voice-over. He's a newspaper and radio columnist in Manhattan, a man-about-town played with let's say great verve and enthusiasm by Clifton Webb in his first starring film role. He's also, how shall I put this, what they might have referred to in 1944 as a swish. Or, at least, he seems to be. When we first see him, he's typing nude in the bathtub while speaking to a detective (Dana Andrews). Then he stands up - the camera thoughtfully pans to the right, giving us the detective's reaction shot, but he's presumably getting a clear view of Waldo's unmentionables.

Did I mention this is a film in which the foppish, dainty 56 year old Waldo romances a beautiful young society girl, ending up in a torrid competition for her affections with the tall and statuesque Shelby (Vincent Price)?

So, the object of Waldo's apparent affection is Laura (Gene Tierney), a gorgeous ad executive. He molded her, helping her with her career and culturing her, after a mean-spirited initial encounter at the Algonquin Room. She had become involved with Vincent Price's Shelby, a charming but indigent country boy from Kentucky, in the months before her death, by shotgun blast, in the foyer of her well-appointed apartment.

For the majority of the film, we follow Detective MacPherson around as he interrogates and re-interrogates a variety of suspects. There's Waldo, of course, suspected because of his jealousy over Laura's affairs with Shelby and other men. Then there's Shelby, suspected because, well, because he's played by Vincent Price, mostly. And we also consider the case of Laura's aunt, Ann (Judith Anderson, chewing up the scenery right along with Price and Webb), who not-so-secretly was in love with Shelby herself.

Things get even more complicated when Detective MacPherson falls in love with Laura as well during the course of his investigation. Even this surprise pales in comparison with the ridiculous twists yet to come. This movie doesn't just require suspension of disbelief - disbelief must be expelled and refused readmission the next year. You just have to accept that this is MovieWorld, and people can fall in love with faceless corpses. Likewise, week-long cases of mistaken identity occur quite easily, detectives routinely allow suspects to tag along on murder investigations and gay men can have hot-white passionate crushes on women.

While Preminger's motives behind telling such a bizarre, convoluted story have been debated since the film's initial release, what's beyond argumentation is the brilliant method employed to tell the story. His film takes the noir style and explodes it, enhances it, creating something altogether new out of it. Instead of simple tracking shots, we get elongated takes that move us through walls. Rather than exaggerated lighting casting half a room in shadow, we get enshrouded apartments where the only thing visible is a haunting portrait over the mantle.

That's a portrait of Laura, by the way, hanging over the fireplace in her own apartment. It's terrific from a mise-en-scene standpoint - she's in effect watching over her own murder investigation from above, observing everyone involved in her life speaking about her now that it's over. But again, it doesn't make much practical sense - would a single girl, and a demure signle girl at that, really hang a portrait of herself above her fireplace? Wouldn't that have seemed ostentatious when she was alive?

My own theory about Preminger's odd tale was that he was disinterested in Laura as a love story. The characters fall in and out of love, and none of their relationships really have any passion. Instead, it's about the images we have of ourselves and one another, how we carefully craft them and how we react angrily when those fanciful notions are violated.

Laura is only too happy to accept Waldo's career and financial assistance, but when it came to his affection, she refused any part of it. Likewise, Waldo needed the idea of Laura to keep him going. More than the girl herself, he wanted to feel that he had created something special, that she was his commodity. So when she becomes independent and makes her own decisions, the realization of his utter lack of power sends him into a rage.

Webb's performance here is masterful and yet completely inauthentic. He and Price are often referred to as theatrical, or "stagey," actors and Preminger puts this to use to great affect here. Webb's giving what has become known as a "coded" performance - he's playing a gay character, but of course, you couldn't actually say or even directly imply that someone was homosexual in a 1944 Hollywood film. So, there were little tricks, hints to the audience, about the character's true identity.

Consider, for example, Waldo's cane. He's always carrying it around, caressing it, even using it as a tool in some sequences. Or the fact that he, and no other man in the film, constantly wears a flower on his lapel. Add this to Webb's overall dainty demeanor, and you get a character that clearly isn't interested in Laura as a sexual object. But he is interested in her as an object.

There's an indication that Shelby may be after her for her money, and one can only guess at the motives of the detective that becomes attracted to her post-mortem, but the important thing here to my mind is that Laura herself remains such a blank. Tierney's lackadaisical performance enhances this effect - she was quite a capable actress (see her in Leave Her to Heaven for an example) - but in Laura appears devoid of any inner life at all. She's the blank page into which these men can read whatever it is they want. And this is why she must eventually be destroyed.