Laura

Saw Laura, a noir about an advertising bigshot who is murdered in her own home. Her friends are rounded up and interrogated, and they spill great gobs of expository backstory. Her friends are an aging and effete columnist, a rich woman looking for a mate, and a southern dandy played by a very young Vincent Price. The film never lays it out explicitly, but I believe their weird daintiness is supposed to strike the viewer as decadent and creepy. In stark contrast to this is the cool, sexy, macho detective who never smiles and who is always several steps ahead. In some noirs, I feel the detective is being toyed with in a frustrating way by the sinister conspirators but in this one he's always got the upper hand.

The film is a ripping mystery, full of surprises but for me the most interesting part was the barely subliminal evil homosexuality afoot. The columnist is first seen sitting in the bath, typing away on a typewriter. Someone asks him if he writes with a certain brand of pen "No," he hisses, "I write with a goose quill dipped in poison." Later, when he talks of Laura, he tells how he guided her toward more becoming clothing and hairstyles. This is a sort of wink, I think. That scene was cut from the film until 1990, if I'm understanding the trivia right. Like Peter Lorre in the Maltese Falcon, this is the sort of queer representation that existed only for those who had eyes to see. Interesting (to me anyway.)

Anyway, the film itself is fairly standard noire. It's not bad in any way. The shots are nicely chiaroscuro-ed, making good use of inky shadows, the characters are realistic but also clearly sinister, the central story is kinky and mysterious. It didn't exactly grab me but perhaps I just wasn't in the mood. In any case I can't of any specific thing that bothered me about it. The gay undertones were fun to spot and the rest of the film was a decent noir.