Amazon.com essential video: This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example of the genre, but under the tasteful decor and high-society fashions lies a world seething in jealousy, passion, blackmail, and murder. Vincent Price costars as a blithe gigolo and David Raksin's lush theme has become a wistful romantic standard. --Sean Axmaker
Verry, Verry Good Film! This is absolutely a good film - not a great film but wonderfully fun! It has a couple of good twists and turns! I would highly recomend it! If you love Gene Tierney and Classic films watch the Ghost and Mrs. Muere!
Laura a fantastic movie This is how movies should be written today. Drama, intelligence and good acting - even in black and white. This is an older movie, but none the less one of the best made.
Simply the best! An amazing movie and an amazing beauty, Gene Tierney.
All I could think during this movie was what a shame I entertainment has taken such a nose dive since the release of this flick.
No cursing, no nudity, no blood and gore. Just a well written, and well acted movie that relied on talent.
This movie will haunt you.........as will the Johnny Mercer score.
Thank you Gene Tierney. You were just perfect in this!
One of the best plot twists ever "Laura" is a murder mystery which contains one of the best and most surprising plot twists ever. I don't want to go into any more detail about the plot, as it might spoil it for you. I saw this film for the first time, on late night television, about 20 years ago and have seen it numerous times since. I consider it to be among my favourite films of all time. It is not just the plot twists that makes it a great film, but also the characters and the actors who play them: the arrogant and sarcastic Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), who is one of my family's favourite fictitious characters; and the enigmatic Laura (Gene Tierney) who might not be as nice as she initially appears.
"Laura" is based on a book by Vera Caspary, which I also highly recommend. The movie follows the book reasonably closely, but in a number of ways improves on the book. I see the movie as being a darker version of its source material.
This is one of the lesser known film noir films, but is by no means lesser in quality or entertainment value. I highly recommend this film to any fans of the noir genre or to fans of mysteries in general.
Good movie I had seen this movie only once many years ago. I remembered it being a lot more interesting than it is, but it's still a good movie.
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