To continue my series of classic movie reviews, I watched Laura, a movie which released in 1944 and fortuitously appeared on BBC iPlayer not too long ago (side note: BBC is great for classic movies). Read on for my thoughts on the film...
My classic movie diary so far..
1940: Rebecca
1941: Citizen Kane
1942: There Was A Father
1943: The Ox-Bow Incident
Laura is a mystery starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, directed by Otto Preminger, a filmmaker known for his film noirs. The story follows police investigator, Mark McPherson, who is investigating the murder of a much beloved socialite and advertising executive called Laura Hunt. In order to find out the truth, he questions her best friend, Waldo Lydecker who is a gossip columnist as well as Laura's fiancee, Shelby Carpenter. McPherson quickly becomes obsessed with the case, and Laura herself.
In addition to the format of its title, Laura reminded me of 1941's Rebecca with its film noir style and enigmatic female character. Even the opening narration ("I shall never forget the weekend Laura died. A silver sun burned through the sky like a huge magnifying glass...") resembles the mysterious foreboding of Rebecca's iconic "last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" opening line.
Something that I really liked about the film was that not one scene was without purpose, hence my attention to the story never wavered from the central mystery. With prior knowledge of the narrative twists, however, I am unsure how much value this will havein subsequent watches; it's a film that is built upon its twists. That's not to say that mysteries are disposable and only good for one time watches. Films like Gone Girl, Rebecca and Memento are proof that the opposite is true. Perhaps the element that casts doubt on rewatch value is the character dynamics within Laura, which lack the vibrancy of other movies in the genre. Having said this, Gene Tierney is a stand out as the titular heroine even though her characterisation is very much dependent on how the story's male characters view her.
Overall, this was an engaging film noir and only solidified my interest in watching more from the genre. From my (limited) experience with classic movies, my favourite genres seem to be emerging as comedies and mysteries, and Laura is a solid movie in the latter.
Others from 1944...
Lifeboat
Alfred Hitchcock's war time drama, Lifeboat, takes place entirely at sea on one small lifeboat. The story follows a small group of survivors of a ship wreck, torpedoed by the Germans. Tensions arise within the group when they pull a man out of the water who turns out to be a German from the U-boat that torpedoed the ship.
This was a really solid Hitchcock picture, certainly one of his more underrated films. Oddly, I would love for this movie to be remade so that the story can be told using modern filmmaking techniques and also a slightly different post-war perspective.
Gaslight
Gaslight is another Hitchcock picture released the same year and based on the1938 play of the same name. In it, Ingrid Bergman plays a woman whose husband slowly manipulates her into believing she is going insane by convincing her that her memory is untrustworthy.
I was really looking forward to this one ever since I found out that it essentially coined the term 'gaslighting'. Though there are elements of the story that worked really well- every time Bergman's husband remorselessly lies to her, for example, is disturbing to watch- I still found myself losing interest in the story as it went on. With a story this chilling, it might have been more effective to see Bergman's character work out her husband's ploy and have to use her wits to get herself out of the situation. Instead, it is a detective character, played by Joseph Cotton, who gets most of the glory by the end of the story and therefore the resolution feels slightly unearned.
Thanks for reading this article- be sure to check out the previous posts in this series and look forward to my next one which will be on 1945's Brief Encounter.
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