Tuesday 15 July 2008

Laura

Laura is one of those classic films that is worth watching more than once, and I’ve watched it again after a long gap. Directed by Otto Preminger, the movie came out in 1944, the year after publication of the novel on which it is based, written by Vera Caspary.

Caspary is not an author I know much about and Laura is the only book of hers I’ve ever read. She was a writer of suspense fiction, and never created a notable series detective, which may in part explain why her reputation has not lasted as well as that of the film based on her most successful novel.

The plot is gripping, but it is the obsessive fascination that the detective has for the (apparent) victim, the eponymous and lovely Laura, that gives the story much of its appeal. Preminger plays up the dream-like quality of the narrative with considerable skill, and this adds a good deal of depth. The haunting theme tune by David Raskin, constantly repeated throughout the film, also contributes to a memorable experience.

I looked up the main actors in Wikipedia and found that Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb, for all of whom this film was their finest achievement, seem to have had troubled personal lives (the fourth star, Vincent Price, went on to, at least arguably, greater things, appearing in countless gleeful Hammer movies as well as doing the voiceover for Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’.)

One aspect of Tierney’s tragic life story startled me. It’s said that Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side took as its key plot element the incident that caused the disability of Tierney’s child (I’m phrasing it cryptically so as not to spoil the story.) I don’t know whether Christie ever acknowledged this sad ‘inspiration’, but her novel has such a similar sequence of events that coincidence would be a very unlikely explanation.

2 comments:

Xavier said...

Vincent Price, went on to, at least arguably, greater things, appearing in countless gleeful Hammer movies as well as doing the voiceover for Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’.)


I know Vincent Price was an American International resident for most of the sixties and later had a stint at Amicus, but I have no knowledge of him ever being in a Hammer production.
Still, he was a fine actor. A pity he went astray in cheap horror movies (though some installments in the Poe cycle he did under Corman's direction are excellent) Don't fail to see him in Mankiewicz's Dragonwyck if you have the chance to find it, he's truly fabulous in there.

Elizabeth Foxwell said...

_Clues_ published in 2005 an article by A.B. Emrys that discussed the influence of Wilkie Collins on Caspary's _Laura_: For example, she took the method of narration for _Laura_ from _Woman in White_, and Lydecker is directly modeled on Count Fosco (Lydecker was fat in the book).

Caspary was also a successful screenwriter; her screenplays include Mankiewicz's _A Letter to Three Wives_ (1949).

Both Caspary's _Laura_ and _Bedelia_ have been reprinted by Feminist Press.