Laura (1944)

A woman always makes men go mad when they fall in love with her, huh?

This movie looks like your usual Murder Mystery - a crime of passion with an unusual detective and a twist that is supposed to leave your mouth open and head blown.

But that is not exactly what it is... Otto Preminger's movie based on a novel from Vera Caspary is one of the strangest love stories I have ever seen.

Laura (1944)

Detective Mark McPherson comes home to ask a few questions about the murdered woman that had a very close relationship with Waldo Lydecker. He tells the detective what he knows and insist that he will join him during the investigation, as he is a murder enthusiast. 

        

Together, they prepare an introduction to all our main characters, the murdered Laura, her fiancé Shelby Carpenter, his dear friend Ann Treadwell and later we meet Laura's maid Bessie and even the mistress/lover Diane.

Waldo reveals that he is in love with Laura, and that he sabotaged all her other possible relationship. All but one - with Shelby. But he has a plan even for him, as he is meeting a woman named Diane who is allegedly in love with him.

And not only that. Ann is in love with Shelby as well.

    

So who killed Laura? And why?

Each of them are... rather peculiar people, and of course, each of them would have a motive for the murder. Slowly their characters are revealing and we are getting deeper and deeper into a story of a ambitious woman who twisted the minds of every men that got to know her better.

    

Then, in the middle of a movie, a twist happens. 

[The eyerolls!! I love when they roll their eyes so hard!]

The murdered woman was not Laura, but Diane. That's the only explanation, since Laura suddenly came back, very much alive and well.

As it appears, she has no idea about the death that occurred during her absence. She brings a whole new light to the case and detective Mark does not know anything for sure anymore... nothing but just one thing. That he is in love with Laura.

Not even those feelings stop the detective from cracking the case. But the last revelation is fateful for a certain fellow...

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Some extra screenshots:

    

[When you try to be edgy.]

    

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Laura was a strange movie. I was very excited to watch it, but it was nothing that Letterbox's description promised.

Still, it was a rather good movie and I think it is worth seeing.

I was not a fan of Laura's and Mark's love story, it seemed redundant and went nowhere, except for showing us that everyone will fall for Laura. But they barely worked with it and the love came out of nowhere.

Mark just... suddenly realized it and Laura suddenly started calling him by his first name. Later they kissed in the doors. So much for their love.

BUT. The action in the last scene was great, and the music they used when Mark was alone in Laura's apartment was rather chilly and made me feel uneasy.

Those were very well done!

The twists movie offered were not ground-breaking, but they worked well and seemed well thought out for the movie/novel. So I have no issues with the writing at all.

As for actors, none of them really stood out to me enough to fall in love or prioritize their other movies in the future. However, Gene Tierney is a beautiful woman that is very pleasing to look at and Clifton Webb was great in his role of Waldo.

But with the runtime of 1:28 hours is easy to understand that... there is not all that much to talk about.

⭐⭐⭐⭐✩