Clifton Webb, Cy Kendall, Dana Andrews

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.

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92% liked it

2,171 ratings

Critics

100% liked it

44 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 28 min.

Directed by: Otto Preminger

Release Date: January 1, 1944

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DVD Release Date: March 15, 2005

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Flixster Reviews (537)


  • November 1, 2008
    This may make me kind of a freak, but I loved this movie!! It's just so good! It's classic American noir, and I love it. :)
  • October 12, 2008
    This may have been called 'Laura' but Clifton Webb steals every scene he's in.

    "I should be sincerely sorry to see my neighbor's children devoured by wolves."
  • June 25, 2008
    Gene Tierney is Laura, an angel immortalized in a portrait, who enthralled the soul of three men, and my humble self as well. David Raksin's beautiful and haunting score and the utmost exactness of skill, both in screenplay and direction take this film up high as an enchanting lo...( read more)ve story and as a dark and complex mystery. Now I know why Otto Preminger, allegedly, destroyed all of the original director Rouben Mamoulian's footage. Another pinnacle of noir, and an obvious precursor, along with Luis Buñuel's Él, of my favorite film, Vertigo.
  • June 20, 2008
    Superb film noir with plenty of suprises in store. Dana Andrews is fantastic as the detective who falls for a murder victim. He has the right amount of bad ass copness and genuinely thoughtful romantic. Price is wonderful as ever and really accesses his unique creepy charm. It's ...( read more)wonderfully paced and a joy to sit through with an ending that is perfectly worked and not condescending in the slightest.
  • November 15, 2007
    one of the best romanticized noir pieces which foundamentalizes gene tierney's cinema status and a smooth vehicle to emit her allure of mystica. it's a story about socialite laura hunt who tantalizes all the men's covetously yearning eyes but unwisely she falls for the frivilousl...( read more)y worhless playboy that almost detonates her catastrophic doom. there's an obsessive admirer with exuberantly murderous drive and also a persistent detective heroic copper. further, it's ambushed with a twist which is not un-pleasant at all.

    the best strategy applied in this flick is its abscence of lauren hunt in the first half, and you glimpse over her while other people babblingly talk about her, your mind is guided into seeking some remnant fragrance of this deceased lovely creature. if dana andrews' copper is a necrophilia who fancies the demised lauren hunt, so are the viewers in front of silver screen....you admire her well-porportioned facial contour and her glaringly demure wardrobe which just seems so perfectly agreeable on her, and every smile of hers sublimates you into an unknown heavenly bliss.

    unlike the most noir pieces which tend to taut audience's crave for the femme fatale by enlongating the hero's anguished hunger, "laura" gratifies your secret wish by resurrecting laura hunt at its pinnacle of cynicism: while the copper stares into her portrait with agonized desire, and a cup of whiskey over his hand to mourn for his crush, with an annoying bystander commenting "i don't think i have a patient to fall in love with a corpse." just as he almost worsens into irrevocable bitterness, laura walks into the doorgate to salve him with her re-incarnation into life to grant his romantic wish.

    another clever strategy about the story is that laura hunt is never aware of the perils of her charm, and she's oblivious to her surroudings...she just gleams with the ease of her natural glamour without any deliberated trial. she even sympathesizes her attempted murderer with an redeeming mercy. it's more of a romantic story of fatal obsessions and un-requited love. clift webb gives good portrait of a poignant lonesome man who is boiled with un-fulfilled desire for love. and there's finally a flick to provide judith anderson with a chance to present her glamourized self with elegant wardrobe, and as usual she gives good performance as a nymphomaniac aging socialite who loves vincent price's playboy role. dana andrews is in the right niche of his machismo. as for vincent price, he's barely passable as the playboy with his contrived trial to deliver any glossy charm which doesn't really work.

    something worthy of a mention, there's some greek shock-cinema called "singapore slang" trying to pay its hommage to "laura" by recycling the plots of the same name, the same symbolic portrait, the same theme melody with extreme dose of perverseness by savoring it with necrophilia, bondage, sadism & maschoism, and vommiting intercourse(yuck!)...it's weird enough to take a look at it...but if you wanna have a cozy day relaxing on the couch, leave it alone!!! it's morbidly sickening to the actual literariness.

    in a nutshell, "laura" is the mostly romantic film noir ever made with feminine rosy dreaminess tuned well with masculine chivalry in a gruesome murder case.
  • November 1, 2009
    This wasn't Preminger's best film, but I still liked it.
  • October 21, 2009
    Simple yet captivating. What I loved about his movie is the acting, they were consistent and well-played all through the end, not to mention the fine lines they wrote back then..Wish hollywood got writers like they have back then today..
  • October 18, 2009
    Otto Preminger's twisty, unconventional, haunting film noir is an absorbing classic of the genre. Laura (Gene Tierney) was an eager, ambitious young advertising gal who was on the fast track to success in New York City. Then, she was murdered. "I shall never forget the weekend La...( read more)ura died," says Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), the acid-tounged and sharp-witted critic of all things cultural who fancied her. Soon, Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is on the case, questioning both Lydecker and the tall, genial Kentucky bumpkin Shelby Carpenter (a young Vincent Price), who claims he was going to be Laura's fiancee. As McPherson investigates, he peels back layer upon layer of hidden truths and deceits, falling more and more each day head over heels in love with the victim. Will he, or can he, bring Laura's killer to justice? Otto Preminger ("The Man with the Golden Arm," "Anatomy of a Murder") directs in glorious black and white, with a subtly effective camera. The screenplay, based on the novel by Vera Caspary, has a sometimes sardonically-witted tone, aided by subtly comically-tilted performances; of the film, James Naremore wrote: ''Where 'Laura' is concerned, the camp effect is at least partly intended--any movie that puts Clifton Webb, Judith Anderson, and Vincent Price in the same drawing room is inviting a mood of fey theatricality." Instead of abiding by typical standards of noir, there's no femme fatale, no MacGuffin particularly to speak of, and there's actually a genuine romantic element that doesn't end badly. Preminger was originally attached as a producer, but had to replace Rouben Mamoulian and reshoot several scenes as director. What he's come up with is a hypnotic, genre-bending effort where the point is hardly who did what to whom in the end, but rather the reasons for the characters' actions, and how they feel about them.

    NOTE: On the DVD, a slightly extended version is presented with an alternate opening.
  • August 24, 2009
    Boring at times, but still good.
  • August 17, 2009
    Jul 09 - A powerful mystery. The plot however seems artificial after 65 years which I suppose is normal.

Critic Reviews


March 17, 2005
Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

Nothing says romance like a few smokes, a bottle of liquor, and some quality alone time with the mesmerizing painting of a recently murdered dame. full review

January 26, 2002
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

The materials of a B-grade crime potboiler are redeemed by Waldo Lydecker, walking through every scene as if afraid to step in something. full review

View more Laura reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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