Laura

About 30 years ago, my parents , who sadly are both gone now, recommended Otto Preminger's "Laura" to me. At that time, I had only seen the notoriously bad made-for-TV version starring Lee Radziwill(!) and George Sanders. When I saw the 1944 version, I was hooked. "Laura" is one of those perfect films that draws you in every time. Now when I mean "perfect", that doesn't necessarily mean believable. "Laura" is an elegant, film noir fairy tale. I'm not really sure that Laura would end up with a rough-edged detective, but who cares? That's the magic of movies! The fact that you believe it... more

Amazon Verified Purchase ( What's this? ) The theme from "Laura" is one of the most haunting ever written, by David Raksin, relatively unknown, but forever memorialized through this melody. Gene Tierney is at her peak of beauty, and she really is breathtaking in the most literal sense of the word. When I grew up this was always one of my favorite movies, and then when I re-discovered this movie as an adult, I was always mesmerized by her and by the entire cast, the score and the story, all prime examples of how great film noir can be when it's done with this amount of style and class.... more

A film noir classic comes to DVD for the first time packed full of more extras than expected, "Laura" tells the story of a society beauty (Gene Tierney in a career defining performance) murdered for no apparent reason. Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews in a hardboiled strong performance) investigates her murder questioning the men in her life beginning with a witty critic Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb in a deliciously droll performance and in a major come back) and playboy Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price). Seen in flashback, we discover Laura's background and how she rises from the... more