Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb and Vincent Price
Written by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt
Directed by Otto Preminger
Production Year 1944
Running Time 88 minutes
This film noir is one of the most stylish, celebrated and elaborately plotted murder mysteries to come out of Hollywood. It was directed by Otto Preminger, an Austro-Hungarian emigre whose output included a number of the most controversial and ground breaking films in post war cinema. His movies troubled the censor and pushed the boundaries of what could be portrayed. In The Man With The Golden Arm Preminger tackled drug addiction, Anatomy Of A Murder dealt frankly with the subject of rape and in Advise And Consent homosexuality was overtly referenced.
Laura, the bewitching tale of a mysterious and beautiful woman and the men who are obsessed with her, was initially to be directed by Rouben Mamoulian but he was replaced by Preminger after creative differences. The two young leads Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews were made stars by the film and it features a memorable supporting role for Clifton Webb as the splendidly named Waldo Lydecker - a powerful newspaper columnist with some of the greatest one liners ever heard on film.
The haunting theme song by David Raksin has been recorded by many artists including Nat King Cole, Charley Parker, Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra.
