Dead Woman Walking: Laura (1944)
The film prefers the fantasy over the humanity of the modern woman
Noir features the dark underside of civilized society — backalleys, dingy bars, seedy criminals and anyone else lurking in the shadows. But can a film be noir even when those elements aren’t there? Laura (1944) takes place in high society, in exquisitely decorated apartments and expensive restaurants, rather than the mean streets of the city. Everyone seems to be making money; there’s little sense of the quiet, frustrated desperation found in most noir films. With that said, the film still uses the conventions of noir to tell a story that is essentially a romance.
The Story
Society columnist Waldo Lydecker narrates the story of his protegee Laura, the glamorous society girl and advertising executive found shot dead in her apartment the night before. He meets Mark McPherson, the police detective assigned to the case, and relates how he met Laura and transformed her into a sophisticate. McPherson also investigates Shelby Carpenter, Laura’s fiance, who is a companion to Laura’s infatuated aunt Ann Treadwell. Through his investigation of her possessions and history, McPherson becomes infatuated with Laura, but denies it when Lydecker confronts him. He also learns that Lydecker often drove Laura’s suitors away by mocking them in his column. One night, staying in her apartment, McPherson is confronted with the reality that Laura is still alive — and perhaps still in danger.
The Adaptation
In 1942, Ring Twice For Laura was published in Colliers magazine as a seven part series, then republished as a novel a year later. The novel is split up into five parts, each narrated by Lydecker, McPherson or Laura. One chapter is an interview at the police station; another is a mixed of police reports and personal memory. All three characters describe events were they are not present, hint at a past which is not revealed, or leave feelings and emotions out of their narrative. As a result, the suspense builds because the reader is never told the whole story.
Caspery specialized in psychological thrillers, driven by characters who are plagued with self doubt. The shifting narratives also fill the reader with doubts as who to trust. There are some noir elements in the novel, such as a quest for identity and self. Laura is single woman who makes her own money, who travels in the highest echelons of society but knows that she keeps her true self hidden. As the novel progresses, she not only literally comes back to life, but becomes more whole and self-aware
Otto Preminger was immediately interested in adapting the novel to screen, his disagreements with the Caspery stalled the project. The production was a troubled one from the start, as studio executives quarrelled over the casting and, after many difficulties on set, Preminger became director as well as producer.The film’s final cast included Dana Andrews as Mark McPherson, Gene Tierney as Laura Hunt and Clifton Webb as Waldo Lydecker. The result is a movie in keeping with the ideals of the studio era — formal, elegant, but full of surprising plot twists and a memorable score. The film received an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and became Tierney’s most iconic role.
The core of the movie, however, can be reduced to the portrait of Laura. Preminger replaced the “mediocre” and “flat” painting in the novel with an oil-brushed studio still of Tierney, so that is unclear whether Tierney or Laura is the unattainable fantasy. Gene Tierney’s face alone seduces the audience; her perfect beauty is enough to make her a fantasy figure, and with the aura of death around her, she ceases to be an ordinary woman to the audience.
Caspery made no secret of her disapproval of Preminger’s depiction of Laura. In print, Laura has a voice and a narrative, she has doubts and an internal life, as well as a past filled with lovers. Preminger’s Laura is simply a gorgeous blank slate; men project their own fantasies onto her when presented with her beauty. This is the sum total of Tierney’s performance, which makes it clear that Preminger himself was one of those men.
McPherson is similarly changed. Caspery mocks traditional noir detectives in her novel — either “hardboiled” and “talking out of the sides of their mouths” or “the cold, dry scientific kind.” In the novel McPherson is neither; he has sensitivity and passion, but Dana Andrews portrayed him as the stereotypical hard-boiled detective of the silver screen. Similarly, Webb’s Lydecker is less of a melodramatic raconteur than in the novel and more of an cynical urbane wit.
There are more noir elements in the movie than in the novel — it begins with Lydecker’s flashback to tell us about Laura — a film noir trope used effectively to add the mystery that surrounds the dead. The characters all struggle with the conflict between perception and illusion, some of Preminger’s favorite themes. And though the title character does not act as the typical femme fatale of film noir — she has no calculation or dark desires — she is worshipped as one by both the men in the movie and the audience. Despite Preminger’s reduction of her into a fantasy, it’s still an excellent adaptation, and retains the original’s atmosphere of suspenseful romance.
