Sunday, May 18, 2014

Family Movie Night: Laura

Title: Laura
Director: Otto Preminger
Original Release: 1944
Choice: Mine
My Overall Rating: 3 stars out of 5
via Wikipedia
This was my first time watching Laura, a classic film noir from the golden age of the genre.  It's got all the requirements: long shadows, silhouettes, a beautiful woman (Gene Tierney), a deadpan detective (Dana Andrews) and murder.  There's generally a plot twist, too, and Laura's is an unusual one, even by noir standards.  The story was adapted from Vera Caspary's novel of the same title.  Somewhat surprisingly for a movie of its reputation, Laura lacks a big name cast.  The most well-known actor is Vincent Price, though he would ultimately be better known for his career in B-movie horrors and, of course, his contribution to Michael Jackson's "Thriller."



Laura's strongest legacy may well be its title theme music - composed by David Raskin - which took on a life of its own as a jazz standard.  Lyrics were added later by Johnny Mercer.  A few renditions from the giants:

Charlie Parker -


Ella Fitzgerald -


Dave Brubeck -


Frank Sinatra -


12 comments:

  1. I haven't seen this one. I'll have to think about it.

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  2. I wasn't quite clear on why it lost those 2 points. Because of no big-name cast member? :)

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    1. I don't approach the ratings quite that way. The default rating for me is 3. Most movies are fine. To get a 4, I need a desire to watch it again. To get a 2, I need to be tempted not to finish it.

      Laura's a very good movie. As my wife just assured me, it's required viewing for any film noir class. But I don't need to watch it again.

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  3. I saw this film as a teen and I loved it then and still do.
    At the time I think the plot twist was a big one. but is over used today.
    I always though Vincent Price was handsome, dashing and quite charming.
    I know people forget all his films were not scary or horror.
    The Wales of August is a good one to see.

    cheers, parsnip

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    1. His voice was amazing, too. In Laura, I recognized the voice before the face.

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  4. I've never seen this one but I've heard about it all my life. I need to check it out!

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    1. I first learned of the movie from a 20th Century Fox calendar my sister had years ago. I'm glad to have finally watched it and recognized the still from the calendar when the scene came up in the movie.

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  5. I saw this many moons ago. Pretty decent film; definitely worth seeing .

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  6. I've never seen this movie but it's interesting how Price was typecast as a horror actor considering the strength of his younger roles. A great loss.

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    1. He lived a good, full life, though, and has a very rich legacy - 197 screen credits in total, plus the stage work.

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