Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
“You’d better watch out, McPherson, or you’ll finish up in a psychiatric ward. I doubt they’ve ever had a patient who fell in love with a corpse.”
Many noir films deal with the allure of mysterious women (often luring otherwise straight-laced men into crimes and/or misdemeanors) but perhaps none have taken it as literally as Otto Preminger’s Laura, in which the eponymous lady manages to bewitch every man in the film even though she’s dead before the opening credits roll.
Laura (Gene Tierney) was a popular and successful young ad executive before the morning when a close-range shotgun blast blew the world apart. Rough-edged detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) begins investigating and quickly discovers that even in death, Laura maintains an incredible presence in the lives men like Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price) and newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb). And before too long, McPherson is himself falling under the spell.
And then…well, that would be telling.
A troubled production, Laura struggled with a behind-the-scenes civil war between producer Daryl Zanuck and director Otto Preminger, who was initially barred from directing the film and relegated to a producer’s role. When early footage was disappointing, Preminger was able to wrestle control of the picture back and the end result achieved acclaim from audiences and critics alike, and has continued to inspire noir and mystery stories down the years, not least of all a little television program called Twin Peaks.
Our thanks to frequent guest Adrianna Gober for the recommendation!
Next Week’s Pick:
It’s been entirely too goddamn long since our silver screens were graced with a new film by the one and only Edgar Wright. To celebrate Baby Driver screeching into cinemas, let’s look back at one of his previous forays into action-comedy insanity.
Hot Fuzz was the proof that Shaun of the Dead was no fluke and the comedy consortium of Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost was a powerful unit that could juggle any genre, style and tone.
Hot Fuzz is available on Netflix Instant, so give it a watch and send us your thoughts!
Submissions can be sent to [email protected] anytime before midnight on Thursday.
Our Guests
Adrianna Gober:
Otto Preminger’s Laura bears some tell-tale hallmarks of film noir: the low-key chiaroscuro lighting, a murder-mystery in an urban setting, a hard-boiled detective. But where most films in the genre are concerned with the lower ranks of society, Laura withdraws to the apartments and bedrooms of the upper crust as protagonist Detective McPherson navigates the eccentricities and unscrupulousness of high society.
He discovers a cast of amusingly dysfunctional characters, most memorably Waldo Lydecker (a diabolically camp Clifton Webb), newspaper columnist and Laura’s former mentor who regularly says things like: “I don’t use a pen, I write with a goose quill dipped in venom.” Laura herself appears as a kind of ghost whose spirit radiates from the alluring portrait overlooking the room where she was murdered. She is evoked through several very effective mechanisms: flashbacks, symbolic lighting, and a haunting musical motif. As McPherson grows obsessed, his investigation takes an incredible turn mid-movie. Saying any more would spoil things; you ought to just watch.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t touch on Preminger’s fluid visual style. The camera movement is slick and deliberate, the blocking carefully choreographed. Nearly every movement holds important narrative function, and the mise-en-scene cleverly rewards repeat viewings. (@jeerthelights)
The Team
Double Indemnity may be the top film noir entry in many people’s eyes, but there’s no doubt that Otto Preminger’s Laura, with all its hypnotic twists and turns, certainly gives the former film a true run for its money. Besides providing inspiration for David Lynch in his conception of Twin Peaks, Laura is the kind of noir-driven tour de force which both embraces the trappings of the genre, while also transcending them. This is true when it comes to the titular character herself, who is granted one of the most incredible entrances in screen history; undoubtedly the film’s most incredible moment in which audiences realize that Laura, the film, plays by its own rules. It’s a single moment in a film which expertly weaves mystery, romance, obsession, and sexual intrigue in ways which were rarely as powerful in the 1940s on screen. Each and every plot turn is more intricate and compelling than the last while the gorgeous use of shadow and darkness gorgeously captures the visual spirit of film noir. The movie put Preminger, as well as stars Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, and especially Gene Tierney (brilliant in the title role) on the map. Laura is probably one of the best roles any actress could have asked for with her mix of strength, determination, innocence and vulnerability, all of which are anchored by the bewitching effect she has on the men who cross her path. Neither Preminger, nor his cast (including a perfect Judith Anderson and an even more perfect Vincent Price) ever topped the intense power of Laura and the genre rarely found a better title to represent it.(@FrankFilmGeek)
What I’ve learned about film noir over the last few years is that I am hit or miss on my enjoyment and responses to it. I can truly enjoy noir and neo-noir under appropriate circumstances — which require me to be in the right mood and a film with the right tone and story — and I can also find myself disinterested to the point of extreme boredom. Many noir films fall into the in-between, neither great not biting, for me as well. In short, I’m all I’ve the map on this genre.
And with that… Laura… this week’s selection. I guess in this case, the formula was sound as this film hit me just right. It builds slow but kept me on the edge of my seat. The actors are perfectly melodramatic in their performances. The twists and turns are perfect. Everything adds up to be one of the best film experiences in the noir genre that I’ve had.
Great pick, highly recommended.(@ThePaintedMan)
Good lord but do I love Laura. A lot of what I love about it has already been expressed by Frank and Adrianna, so I’ll just echo that Laura works in large part because it is simply a crackling good mystery story with twists and turns that would sing in any medium, but that are given even more power by Preminger’s directing and the performances of all involved, most especially Tierney. For as fun as Laura is, there’s a deep and abiding sadness to the film and its ultimate resolution. Like its descendant, Twin Peaks, Laura’s ease with crazy plotting and cutting quips belies a weary and broken heart that only truly comes into focus after each card has been overturned and the full scope of the tragedy comes into view. As haunting and haunted as the shadow-filled apartments where its characters lurk and scheme and murder, Laura remains one for the ages. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
I was surprised to see that this week’s selection was directed by Otto Preminger. For some reason, I’d always thought Laura was a Hitchcock — probably because of the similarly-titled Rebecca. Preminger is a bit of a blind spot for me that I was already eager to address, having seen only a coupe of his films before.
Laura begins as a murder mystery surrounding the title character, but turns into another thing entirely. Through flashbacks and personal accounts that aren’t necessarily trustworthy, we see the perspectives of three male characters harboring an obsession with the deceased: her polite but dopey fiance (young Vincent Price!), a jealous much older ex-lover to whom she owes her successful career, and the police detective trying to solve her murder, who becomes entranced with her painted portrait which seems now to haunt her fancy apartment.
The film is brilliant on multiple counts — as a twisty murder mystery, a film noir with stylized dialogue visuals, and an indictment of male possessiveness. (@VforVashaw)
Get it at Amazon:
[Blu-ray] | [DVD] | [Amazon Video]
Watch it on Netflix:
https://www.netflix.com/title/60010582
Next week’s pick: