"Dames are always pulling a switch on you..."

Long considered a noir masterpiece, “Laura” (1944) has a different kind of noir pedigree than most films of this subgenre. Parsing through these differences was part of the fun of last night’s CineVerse meeting. Here are the notes from that discussion:
HOW IS “LAURA” DIFFERENT FROM OTHER NOIR FILMS YOU’VE SEEN?

• It doesn’t always use established noir conventions or characters: 
• Typically, a noir has a femme fatale, a spider woman who seduces and leads men into peril deliberately. Laura would appear to have these qualities based on the descriptions and memories of the men and women who recall her, but she actually turns out to be rather innocent, naïve and ordinary. 
• The lead male in many of these movies is often a private eye investigator, not an actual police detective (the cops are often depicted as untrustworthy foils for or enemies of the gumshoe private eye or lead male character in many films noir). Points of view alter as the picture progresses: we get POVs from McPherson to Lydecker back to McPherson and then to Laura. 
• Arguably, the secondary actors and the characters they play steal the show here: Dana Andrews as McPherson and Gene Tierney as Laura may be attractive, intriguing as a potential romantic couple, and generate our sympathies, but it’s Clifton Webb as Lydecker, Vincent Price as Shelby, and Judith Anderson as Ann Treadwell who are the most interesting and memorable. 

“LAURA” ALSO HAS SOME QUIRKS, HOLES, AND UNEXPECTED ELEMENTS. CAN YOU CITE ANY EXAMPLES?

• Per A Sharper Focus blogger Norman Holland: “McPherson behaves as no detective would, taking first one, then two suspects along while he questions other suspects. He leaves the murder weapon overnight in a potential victim’s apartment.” 
• Ponder the fact that the narrator is actually dead—he’s telling a story in flashback, yet how is this possible if he’s been gunned down by McPherson? 
• Consider that Lydecker is suggested as gay, yet is so possessive and jealous of Laura that he kills her. 
• Roger Ebert posited: “Laura has a detective who never goes to the station; a suspect who is invited to tag along as other suspects are interrogated; a heroine who is dead for most of the film; a man insanely jealous of a woman even though he never for a moment seems heterosexual; a romantic lead who is a dull-witted Kentucky bumpkin moving in Manhattan penthouse society, and a murder weapon that is returned to its hiding place by the cop, who will “come by for it in the morning.” The only nude scene involves the jealous man and the cop.” 
• Additionally, the dead woman comes back to life a little over halfway in the movie, and herself becomes a murder suspect—very unusual. 
• We also get Vincent Price in a memorable non-horror role, also unusual; Price said this was probably the best film he ever acted in. 

THEMES BUILT INTO “LAURA”:

• Necrophilia: an unhealthy attraction for a dead woman 
• Being controlled by fantasy or illusion: McPherson and Lydecker build up Laura in their minds as a kind of idealized form of female perfection; in reality, she’s not a femme fatale who purposely leads men into danger or an unapproachable sexual dynamo ice queen beauty; she’s rather normal and innocent. 
• Pygmalionism: being in love with an object of one’s own creation, and the objectification of people into objects of art. 
• Consider all the objets d’art littered throughout the film: the clock, sculptures, paintings, vases, and décor. These objects are beautiful but inanimate, exquisite but lifeless, like the supposedly dead Laura is. 
• Holland wrote: “In creating Laura, Lydecker becomes Pygmalion, the sculptor-creator of classical myth. A worshipper of Venus (beauty), Pygmalion sculpted a Galatea so beautiful and wonderful that he himself fell in love with her. Venus graciously gave the statue life…Laura is Lydecker’s creation—a beautiful objet d’art. The thought of another man’s handling her drives him crazy.” 

MOVIES OR WORKS OF LITERATURE THAT “LAURA” MAKES US THINK OF:

• Vertigo (also about a man who falls in love with a beautiful dead woman or illusion) 
• Rebecca (also featuring characters haunted by a beautiful dead woman) 
• Sunset Boulevard (also including a voiceover narration by a dead man) 
• Pygmalion (a man crafting a woman to his idealized vision) 
• Several classic films noir, including The Big Sleep, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Fallen Angel, the Maltese Falcon, and others 

OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY OTTO PREMINGER

• Anatomy of a Murder 
• Carmen Jones 
• The Man With the Golden Arm 
• Angel Face 
• Fallen Angel 
• Daisy Kenyon