Laura (1944)

20^th Century Fox Studio Head Daryl F. Zanuck and producer/director Otto Preminger had been feuding for years.

It erupted over the 1938 production of Kidnapped in which Preminger, feeling alienated by the material, walked away from the project. Zanuck vowed he would never allow Preminger to direct for him again. The rancor was to last six bitter years, seeing Zanuck off to help the Allied war effort (WWII) and Preminger’s return to his theater roots. The feud ironically ended in a compromise, 1944’s Laura, which would ultimately become Preminger’s breakthrough film and a major commercial and artistic success for the studio.

Laura’s production history was rocky but never tempestuous. Author Vera Caspary sold the film rights for $30,000 after tiring of numerous struggles to bring her vision to both the stage and screen. She implied in later interviews that she was glad to be rid of it, retaining only the theatrical stage rights. Early rumors had hinted that Marlene Dietrich was seriously interested in playing the title role. It was not to be.

Zanuck agreed that Preminger would serve only as the film’s producer (he was livid that Preminger had directed some films in his absence and fired Fox VP William Goetz for allowing it). The script would be written by Jay Dratler who had penned the stage play with later assistance from the writing team of Samuel Hoffenstein and Betty Reinhardt who sharpened many of the film’s memorably acerbic lines.

Zanuck was, as always, an integral hands-on force in the process. Upon reading Dratler’s original draft he whipped up a five page memo with criticisms and recommendations which, had they not proved insightful and ultimately correct, may have been perceived as niggling to a credited writer. But Zanuck, unlike the studio moguls of his time, had a screenwriting background.

The role of Laura was originally seen going to either Hedy Lamarr or Jennifer Jones (a Zanuck lust interest) but ultimately fell to a relative newcomer in the Fox stable, Gene Tierney. Her exotic looks and mannered style would lend the certain mystique that the character and story required. Her turns in Sundown (1941) and Heaven Can Wait (1943) had proved her competence as an actress in the studio’s system.

For the key role of the snobbish newspaper columnist Waldo Lydecker, who acts as svengali to the young Laura, the names of Monty Woolley and George Sanders were bandied about. But here, Preminger stepped in and suggested an old song and dance man turned stage actor named Clifton Webb whom he had seen working in a production of Blythe Spirit. Fey, urbane and reedy, Webb possessed the exact qualities needed to transform Waldo into one of the screen’s all time best bitches. Preminger tried to convince Zanuck of Webb’s abilities with a film test of a reading from Blythe Spirit (Webb refused to audition for Zanuck). Reluctantly, the mogul agreed. It was to be the 53 year old Webb’s first role in sound motion pictures.

For the hard edged detective Mark McPherson who must solve the murder mystery, Zanuck’s wife had recommended Dana Andrews. The square jawed supporting actor already had some memorable roles (most notably as one of the doomed men in 1943’s The Ox-Bow Incident) and there was something in his eyes that suggested a sense of loss or longing. He was itching to become a leading man. His cool demeanor also translated well to the detective/crime genre which was gaining momentum as the war pressed on and the country turned to grimmer fare.

The cast was rounded out by the prestigious English actress Judith Anderson (not yet a Dame) who would be playing Laura’s rich society aunt Ann Treadwell and a relative newcomer to the screen named Vincent Price as Shelby Carpenter, the smarmy playboy fiancé of Laura. “A male beauty in distress”, as Waldo sardonically refers to him. Price would later gain international fame as a horror film icon (albeit often campy) in William Castle and Roger Corman productions.

To direct the picture Zanuck opted for Rouben Mamoulian, a well established name in the industry who had shot Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932), Queen Christina (1934), 1935’s Becky Sharp (the first film to use technicolor), The Mark Of Zorro (1940) and Blood And Sand (1941). He had a unique flair for the melding of sound, light and imagery which made his films lush, almost decorated. This would be essential in capturing the ethereal quality of Laura and her surroundings.

Something went wrong. Upon seeing the first rushes, Zanuck blew up in one of his trademark tirades and fired Mamoulian on the spot. With much time and effort already invested in the production Zanuck reluctantly agreed to allow Preminger to finish the film. Mamoulian would later claim to having filmed almost 75% of the picture. While interesting for controversy, film historians and those familiar with Preminger’s look and style would undeniably agree that the stamp of the film is purely Preminger’s.

As a film, Laura defies quick categorization. It has its roots in the crime drama. It is at once a murder mystery/whodunit and mannered melodrama. And certainly, in a filmic sense, it falls easily into the style of film noir. Overall it is an amalgam of all these qualities which make it an exceptional picture.

A successful career woman and socialite (Laura Hunt) is found shotgunned to death inside her posh New York apartment. She had been the societal protégée of an infamous newspaper columnist (Waldo Lydecker) and the fiancé of an ingratiating playboy (Shelby Carpenter), both key suspects in her murder. Her jaded, rich aunt (Ann Treadwell) is rather shifty in the proceedings as well, being hopelessly infatuated with Shelby herself and bankrolling his rather dubious lifestyle.

Enter cynical, crude Police Detective Mark McPherson who is pointedly unimpressed with all of these well-to-do miscreants. He takes to bullying and badgering all of them in order to get to the bottom of the killing. In the film’s pivotal scene he takes to lingering in Laura’s apartment for a curious length of time. He takes off his coat, loosens his tie, stares obsessively at her portrait (a central thematic prop in the film), drinks her whiskey, listens to her music (David Raksin’s haunting theme), reads her mail, drinks a little more of her whiskey, rummages through her bureau and garments, smells her perfume and drinks more of her whiskey. He appears to be getting an unhealthy crush.

Waldo finds him there and quickly surmises the oddness of the situation. He sarcastically asks McPherson if he has sublet the apartment, then with a brief reference to the psychiatric ward Waldo warns him, “I don’t think they’ve ever had a patient who fell in love with a corpse”.

The two men’s obsession with Laura is tangible throughout the film and it is in the duality of their characters and perception of her that we too become drawn to her allure. Both are alienated by their surroundings; McPherson by the elitist culture above his station and Waldo by McPherson’s gruff manner and the nasty business of a murder and its fallout.

To Waldo, Laura was his work in progress, a living testament to his refined taste and appreciation of beauty. He had sculpted her into art and she became his most prized possession. His hyperbolic narration exposes this:

                                  “She had poise and charm of manner.

                                   Warmth, vitality, authentic magnetism.

                                   Men admired her. Women envied her.

                                   She became as well known as Waldo

                                   Lydecker’s walking stick and white

                                   carnation. The way she listened was

                                   more elegant than speech”.

It is with this narration and a brief flashback montage in the film’s early stages that we learn of the enigmatic Laura. She is portrayed through Waldo’s tinted lens as aloof, mysterious and desirable. Only in the films second half, when McPherson’s harsher, more analytic procedures take precedence do Laura’s shortcomings and the grim reality of the brutal slaying begin to release her supernatural hold.

The characters are all deliciously flawed. Each of them marked with some emotional affliction; Laura’s abysmal taste in men (and hats), Waldo’s unbridled egoism, McPherson’s sadistic nature, Aunt Ann’s iciness and Shelby’s shameless parasitism. Surprisingly, none of these people are wholly dislikable.

This moral ambiguity would become a trademark of Preminger’s oeuvre. His legal background (he had a law degree) and experience in the theater lent to his style an objectivity (or, at least, as objective as film can be) wherein the use of long, continuous takes (tracking shots, two shots, pans), minimal cuts and use of location were key in the development of his characters. Through this style he allowed the audience to determine trust or disdain for a particular character instead of spoon feeding them manipulative reaction shots. Preminger honed this technique in Laura and the results are significant. Suspicion and guilt bounce around between the principals and allegiances are continually broken, mended or permanently unconsidered. As James Stewart’s character says in Preminger’s 1959 Anatomy of a Murder, “I’ve had to learn people aren’t just good or just bad. People are many things”.

Cinematographer Joseph LaShelle’s camera provides a depth and fluidness to the film’s rich surroundings. His Oscar winning work utilizes the noir look but has taken the shadows from the street and placed them in the parlors and great rooms of high society. Matched with art direction from the celebrated Lyle Wheeler (Oscar nominated), Laura is given a lushness and grandeur not found in typical crime dramas of the period. The sets are intricate, near delicate and provide an illuminating contrast to the dark, grisly business of a murder investigation.

Laura remains one of the truly memorable works of film noir. It represents the end of the Zanuck/Preminger feud (the director would work ten more years at Fox) and is arguably Preminger’s best picture in a long and prodigious career. It made stars of Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb (Oscar nominated for Waldo) and none of them would ever shine quite so brightly again. Tierney succumbed to depression and madness, Andrews to alcoholism and Webb to regrettable typecasting. Laura survives to this day. It seeps a suspenseful eeriness out of its core and contains one of cinema’s greatest mid-film reveals. Tiptoeing in elegance and wallowing in psychological obsession and perversity, it reminds us why we enjoy sitting in the darker recesses of the cinema.