LAURA - Otto Preminger

Dienstag 16.10.2012

20.30 Uhr

vorgestellt von Jan K.

LAURA | US 1944 | 88 Minuten | 35mm, 1.37:1 | Regie: Otto Preminger | Produktion: Otto Preminger | Buch: Vera Caspary (novel) Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt (screenplay) | Musik: David Raksin | Kamera: Joseph La Shelle | Studio: 20th Century Fox | mit: Gene Tierney (Laura Hunt), Dana Andrews (Det. Lt. Mark McPherson), Clifton Webb (Waldo Lydecker), Vincent Price (Shelby Carpenter), Judith Anderson (Ann Treadwell)


Lovers of 1940s Hollywood – and of course movie-lovers in general – should savour every last drop of this rerelease, directed by Otto Preminger, made in 1944 and coming complete with an ad for US war bonds in the closing credits. It's a fascinating whodunnit-noir with a superb coup de cinéma halfway through. Dana Andrews is the rugged Detective Mark McPherson; on account of heroic gunshot wounds in the leg, the press have dubbed him "Detective with the silver shinbone". (Something, perhaps, to set aside Preminger's 1955 movie The Man With the Golden Arm.) McPherson is investigating the gruesome murder of Laura Hunt, played by the exquisitely beautiful Gene Tierney. In flashbacks, we see how she was swept up into fashionable cafe society by her infatuated but platonic bachelor admirer, the waspish newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) – the equal, surely, of George Sanders's elegant Addison DeWitt in All About Eve. Which of Laura's wide circle of acquaintance holds the key to the mystery? And how will McPherson's growing obsession with Laura's memory affect his handling of the case? Laura is still every bit as gripping in 2012.

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian


At the cynical heart of Otto Preminger's Laura is a murder, yet labeling this elegant 1944 noir classic a whodunit is to ignore its masterfully complex—and frequently campy—portrait of all-consuming romantic self-delusion. Laura (Gene Tierney) is a wealthy, mysterious beauty whose death-by-shotgun instigates an investigation by hard-nosed detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews). McPherson discovers that the victim inspired rabid, near-incomprehensible devotion from both cerebral newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb)—who, in a truly bizarre moment, greets the cop by exiting his bathtub in the buff—and shallow, gold-digging two-timer Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price), whom Laura was considering marrying in a week's time. Either man, as well as Carpenter's caustic, jealous girlfriend Ann Treadwell (Judith Anderson), might have been the executioner, or, in the film's surprise twist (spoiler alert), Laura might not be dead at all. It doesn't really matter, because the who, what, when, where, and why are merely the exquisitely constructed genre trappings of Preminger's critique of high society and examination of man's penchant for projecting their fanciful visions of idealized femininity onto women. (…)

(Nick Schager, slantmagazine)


Vincent Price berichtete davon, wie er Otto Preminger gefragt habe, warum er so viel besser mit dem Stoff zurechtkam als Rouben Mamoulian (der ursprünglich vom Studio vorgesehene Regisseur). Preminger entgegnete ihm, dass Mamoulian nur schöne und angenehme Menschen kenne, er aber die Charaktere in Laura besser verstanden habe, da sie Mistkerle wären, genauso wie Premingers Freunde.
(wikipedia)


Waldo Lydecker: "How singularly innocent I look this morning."
(Memorable quotes)