Word: laura
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...first scene, Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) of the New York Police Department is investigating the murder of Laura, the woman in the portrait. McPherson rounds up a delicious list of suspects. There is Laura's fiance Shelby, a Southern gigolo played by a very young and dapper Vincent Price. There is also Laura's aunt, who is having an affair with Shelby. And lastly, there's Waldo Lydeker (Clifton Webb), an acid-tongued newspaper columnist whose pen, in his own words, is dipped in poison...
...investigation force McPherson to spend a great deal of time in Laura's apartment, prying into every aspect of her life. He peruses her letters and reads her diary. He goes through her clothes and smells her perfume. He drinks her Scotch while staring at her portrait in the living room. Hard-boiled detective Mark McPherson has fallen in love with a dead woman...
...what has got to be one of cinema's most striking scenes, Laura comes back to life. Well, sort of. Mark had fallen asleep staring at Laura's portrait, and wakes up to find Laura entering the apartment. The look on his face is one of absolutely sublime confusion. Andrews' face registers shock, amazement, and hesitant bliss' he isn't sure whether he is dreaming, or whether Laura has indeed risen from the dead...
Events prove much more mundane, but events aren't the issue. That instant of confusion says as much about love as anything that has ever been put on film. As it happens, Laura was not murdered but was away for the weekend; the dead girl turns out to be a model from the ad agency which employs Laura. The confusion came about because the victim was wearing Laura's clothes when she had her face blown...
...performers, especially Webb and Andrews, are excellent. The script is fantastic, full of acerbic wit and deadpan humor. The cinematography is suitably noir, but punctuated by bursts of radiance. And the music--ahhh, the music--is like a lover blowing in one's ear. But what really counts in "Laura" is love--from tender affection to sweeping passion. Mark's love for Laura has a desperate edge to it; thinking her lost forever, he determines never to lose her again after her miraculous resurrection...