Since I'm on the roll with the old black & movies, I decided to treat myself with one of the best known film noir masterpieces and see "Laura" for the very first time.
It was orgasmic. Wonderful. What a script.I am in love in this movie. Everything about it is just perfect - camera, black & white shadows, beautiful lead actress , her portrait on the wall, great Dana Andrews whom I really liked in "The best years of our lives". .. and the best of all Clifton Webb in a role of impeccably elegant,cynical journalist with such sharp and witty lines that I have to control myself not to use them next time somebody annoys me. He plays sort of pygmalion to Laura from the title and introduces her to high society proudly displaying his beautiful creation to everybody and spends evenings with her in the restaurants, dining and reading his articles. It's all wonderful to him but Laura eventually start noticing other, younger, broad-shouldered men who have other qualities and Webb does everything to shame and disqualify them in her eyes. Somewhere along the way you actually start feeling sorry for him because he must be terribly lonely in his elegant apartment full of antique furniture and books.
Than of course there is a murder, lot of people involved and everybody is a possible suspect. Laura's own aunt (Judith Anderson) appears cold blooded enough to be a murderess herself and she certainly have eye on Laura's hunky boyfriend, although she is perfectly aware that the guy is just a gigolo but she would do anything to get him for herself. Hunky boyfriend is actually very young Vincent Price before he became horror movie star and for me he is actually the weakest link in the movie because I find his acting wooden and unconvincing - but than again, he is supposed to be bird brained and potential suspect so perhaps he is right for this. And a wonderful Dana Andrews as the jaw clenching detective who can't compete with Clifton Webb in polite behavior or social finesse but still finds himself falling in love for this strange woman everybody is talking about.
There is a wink towards famous Hitchcock's "Rebecca" made four years earlier - Laura is a woman everybody is obsessed with and she is murdered - friends and colleagues talk about her in her apartment, her portrait hangs on the wall, the music is all about her (famous song "Laura") and naturally detective can't help but falling for a ghost. The script and dialogues are so good I could watch this again and again.
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