Laura (1944)

Instant killers to a blogger's game: moving. Waiting to have my internet installed was torture.....'


It took me awhile to figure out which movie to talk about. I've watched a smattering of good movies, a good mix of american and korean movies. Instead, I would rather talk about a movie that grabbed my attention for reasons I'm not too sure of.

Let me just say that I'm not really into film noir.  I learned from a long-ago class that it tends to paint the female character as a femme fatale in order for those returning from war to cope with the new status that women gave themselves. Before learning that, I thought the femme fatale  was a great new status that women had in films. They were beautiful, strong, and in tuned with their sexuality. Until I realized that the femme fatale was usually set up to fail or die. Which made me really unhappy. Also, I kept getting distracted at deciphering what those cocked mouth men were saying. Why was that way of speaking so popular? It just seemed so painful and irritating. Eh, not my fad.

Once again, can't remember why I had this on my netflix queue. I did enjoy watching this movie with my boyfriend. It was pretty comical trying to figure out what the heck they were saying. Once we did get into the movie, it was hard to get out. It was a great story to follow. The ending was really abrupt. Completely abrupt. As in gasp, credits roll. Huh?

"Laura" is a murder mystery. McPherson, a detective with a dark past is set to discover to who murdered Laura. Laura, a beautiful  socialite remembered by her ex-fiance- Shelby (played by a very young Vincent Price!), her friend and admirer-Waldo, and her loyal maid- Bessy. As McPherson ferrets out the leads leading to Laura's death, he finds himself becoming more entrenched in her beauty, falling in love with a ghost. A ghost that may not be a ghost at all.....


I have to admit,it's fun writing like this. Can you hear the trill of background music?

It was a great trying to guess who killed her. Each person in her history had a motive to kill her. Each had alibis.The more back story we get on each character, the more complicated her story becomes. Did she deserve to die? Was it an accident?  Was it an act of love?

Mcpherson definitely employs some interesting tactics to bring out the killer to light. At times it seemed drawn and pointless, other times it was brilliant. After ping-ponging over who the real killer is, the final revelation was a bit of a downer. It seemed so obvious yet not.The justifications the killer gave just made it so creepy...

The dialogue had some great moments. Most of them came from Waldo, a man who writes a column for a newspaper with an acid tongue. His wit and delivery were hilarious times and weird at others. He's the type of person that says scathing remarks about people yet everyone adores him. Seriously, this guy did not give a f**K! He first speaks to McPherson in the bathtub while typing away. Then he makes the detective hand him a towel.I can't help but wonder if he wrote all those articles in such a way because his testicles were shrinking by the moment? Weird thought but now your thinking of it too....

Gene Tierney. One of my favorite classic hollywood actresses. She was absolutely gorgeous. Stunning. She was gorgeous in "Leave Her to Heaven". She was a great femme fatale. I could easily see how anyone would fall for her charms. Even to death.


This is definitely a film that should be re watched to appreciate all of its facets. Now that I know who the killer was, I wonder if I could figure out the clues.



All in all, I can definitely understand why this movie is considered a cinematic gem. It definitely surprised the heck out of me.