Laura

"The story of a love that became the most fearful thing that ever happened to a woman!"

1944 1h 28m EN

🙌

7.6

BANGER

★7.6TMDB · 947

DramaMystery

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

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

“The story of a love that became the most fearful thing that ever happened to a woman!”

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Cast

Dana Andrews
Det. Lt. Mark McPherson
Gene Tierney
Laura Hunt
Clifton Webb
Waldo Lydecker
Vincent Price
Shelby Carpenter
Judith Anderson
Ann Treadwell
Dorothy Adams
Laura's Maid Bessie Clary (uncredited)
Wally Albright
Newsboy (uncredited)
Bobby Barber
Newsboy (uncredited)

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Otto Preminger
Writers: Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Elizabeth Reinhardt
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

88 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $1.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

82 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Otto Preminger, shot by Joseph LaShelle. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by David Raksin. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Louis R. Loeffler shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "The story of a love that became the most fearful thing that ever happened to a woman!".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Otto Preminger directs. Joseph LaShelle behind the camera. David Raksin scores. Louis R. Loeffler cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

188 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.
2Shot for just $1.0M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
382 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
4Directed by Otto Preminger, shot by Joseph LaShelle. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by David Raksin. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Louis R. Loeffler shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "The story of a love that became the most fearful thing that ever happened to a woman!".
9IMDB entry: tt0037008 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 23 themes, including "jealousy", "obsession", "advertising expert", "shotgun".
11Released under 15 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Joseph LaShelle
Original score: David Raksin
Editing: Louis R. Loeffler
Costume design: Bonnie Cashin
Makeup / hair: Guy Pearce
Sound: Harry M. Leonard
Runtime: 88 min · 1h 28m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $1,020,000
Box office: $2,000,000
Return: 196% of budget
Original language: EN
IMDB: Laura (1944)

Awards

Academy Award for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Otto Preminger

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2019-06-19
★ 8/10
Yeah, dames are always pulling a switch on you. Otto Preminger's wonderfully crafted mystery has become something of a big favourite of many people over the years, and rightly so. But just what is it that makes the film so watchable after all these years? Sure the cast is solid, but I personally wouldn't say spectacular. Gene Tierney simmers and holds it together whilst Clifton Webb, Dana Andrews & Vincent Price are perfectly admirable in their roles as guys in drippy infatuation with Tierney's vibrant title character. Perhaps the success of the piece is with the screenplay? Adapted by at least "five" known writers from the novel by Vera Caspary, it is in truth delightfully bonkers! You have shades of necrophilia, potential gay suitors, and the girl the boys all court is dead, minus her face after a shotgun assault. Then there is the fact that Laura bends the conventions of the genres it can each sit in. Is it film noir, a who done it, a ghost story or just a plane old detective story? Does it matter? No, not really, because it's the ambiguity that is the films strength. As for Laura Hunt herself, well she's no femme fatale, in fact she's an ordinary woman, yet the men are in awe of her. It shouldn't work on the surface, but it does, very much so. The film had something of a troubled shoot, hires and fires and jiggled endings were abound. Preminger was originally the producer for the film but was hired after Fox head honcho Darryl Zanuck fired Rouben Mamoulian. He in turn replaced cinematographer Lucian Ballard with Joseph LaShelle (who won the Academy Award for his efforts). Regardless, what we have with the finished product is a cheeky and often twisted tale of obsession. A film where one can never be sure what is actually going to develop, right up to, and including, the final denouement. 8/10
CinemaSerf2024-11-19
★ 7/10
We know right from the outset that the eponymous character (Gene Tierney) has been killed and that investigating police officer "McPherson" (Dana Andrews) is going to have quite a task finding out just what happened. The ensuing story tries to knit together the separate threads of evidence provided by her rather odious sponge of a fiancé (Vincent Price), her maid "Bessie" (Dorothy Adams), her wealthy and rather disapproving aunt (Judith Anderson) and finally from her somewhat supercilious mentor "Waldo" (Clifton Webb) who has a penchant for writing his acerbic newspaper columns from the comfort of his hot bath. It's this latter character that provides us with a bit of extra information, via a narration, to illustrate a story of an ambitious but flawed woman who was quite susceptible to a bit of manipulation. As if poor old "McPherson" didn't have his problems to seek, the arrival of a woman onto the scene midway through his foraging for the truth really does set the cat amongst the pigeons requiring a complete reassessment of the proceedings. This is a cleverly crafted enterprise with both Tierney and Webb at their best delivering characterisations that really do get under your skin. I always felt Andrews a bit light-weight, but here he too manages to contribute effectively as the mystery deepens and the audience are invited to make their own judgements on just about every vice - real or imaginary, as avarice and envy vie with lust for top billing amongst the candidates for motive amongst a family you might sooner not be a part of! Preminger gradually merges these separate strands to create a denouement that is not what you expect at the start and the film is at the better end of the noir genre that focuses on a story, strong writing and some characterisations that make it well worth a watch.