Film noir, a genre characterized by dark lighting, seedy characters and raging sexuality, became an American movie mainstay in the early 1940s.
Influenced by the stylized cinema of the German Expressionists and the white-hot violence of 1930s pulp magazines like “Black Mask,” film noir would leave an indelible mark on film. Ruthless criminals, private eyes and crazed women were the characters that made up the noir universe. In 1944, famed director Otto Preminger made one of the greatest works to come from the movement – “Laura,” a film playing at the Egyptian Theatre on Sunday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWomDZHWYnE
It starts with a murder. A young woman is brutally killed in her apartment. The corpse is soon identified as that of Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), an ad executive. Coquettish, dark and altogether enigmatic, Laura is your classic film noir seductress. Dana Andrews stars as Mark McPherson, a police officer fresh on the case. He’s the kind of wise-talking hardboiled detective-type made famous by Raymond Chandler. He’s got the lingo – the signature “dame” and “doll.” He’s got the slicked back hair and the fedora, always lowered over his brow.
McPherson begins interviewing a slew of characters that knew the dead girl. Slowly but surely, his drive to solve the murder consumes him; Laura’s portrait, dark and mysterious, haunts him. What initially looks like a simple case of murder, however, soon becomes a tangled web of deception, false identity and obsession when the police detective finds out that the corpse in Laura’s apartment isn’t even Laura.
“Laura” has a signature story found in popular crime fiction. It’s a tale torn from the pages of a 10-cent detective magazine: twists and turns, everything mixed up. You’re constantly left wondering where the story will go next, while few of the characters are really who they say they are.
The film set the bar for the many police procedural movies that came after it, from the mid-’40s and beyond. Its influence on select films and pop culture is indelible. Most notably, David Lynch’s cult television program “Twin Peaks,” was inspired by Preminger’s masterpiece.
From the real-life murder of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, to movies, like “Vertigo” and, yes, “Laura,” dead women seem to haunt the popular imagination and the many characters in our world’s fictions. Exactly why we are so engrossed with these cases and stories and so enamored by the women is unclear, but the public fascination is unmistakable. These women, who take their secrets to the grave, mystify us. “Laura” plays on this mystification. It’s what eats up McPherson and the other characters trying to piece together the fragments of a woman’s life and supposed death.
“Laura” holds up remarkably well. It isn’t just one of the greatest detective movies ever made, it’s also one of the greatest films ever made. It perfectly captures the essence of classic noir: violent, cryptic and provocative. It’s a sensuous, atmospheric trip into a dark and foggy noir wonderland.