Absence and Presence in “Laura”
Absence and Presence in “Laura”
Laura
1944 Director: Otto Preminger
Starring: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson
This stylish noir opens with a view of Laura’s glamorous portrait. An elegant beauty, she sits wearing a dark evening gown with her right hand at her breast as she turns to behold the spectator. She seems to glow from within, in spite of the darkened background that envelops her. Then the narrator speaks, “I shall never forget the weekend Laura died. . . .” The notion that such a young, lovely vision should be dead is tragic. We soon find that she was murdered, which only makes matters worse.
A New York City detective, Mark McPherson (Andrews), visits the narrator, Waldo Lydecker (Webb), to interview him about the crime. An important but pretentious columnist in his late 50s, Waldo tells Mark that he’s the only one who really knew her. Laura Hunt (Tierney), a talented advertising executive, received her start from Waldo, whose position and influence opened several doors for her. They formed a friendship that, one realizes, Waldo wishes had been a romance. Laura’s allure and grace charmed everyone she encountered. Waldo cultivated her like a flower. He sought to guide her, but also controlled her, offering advice about many things including which men were wrong for her. The painting, he tells Mark, was by an artist named Jacoby, who also dated her, but Waldo got rid of him and other suitors. Waldo implies that he “created” Laura just as Jacoby created her painting.
Waldo is instantly unlikeable. We encounter him in his large marble tub at his typewriter when Mark begins his investigation. He is snobbish and conceited, certainly as a veneer against his unattractiveness; he is scrawny and unappealing. . . and Laura dated handsome men. She was engaged to Shelby Carpenter (Price, who was tall and suave in his youth) but Waldo tried to break them up. Mark questions Shelby, Laura’s aunt, Ann Treadwell (Anderson), who is also carrying on with Shelby, and Laura’s faithful maid, Bessie (Dorothy Adams).
None of the suspects are easy to crack. Who could have killed Laura? Everyone loved and admired her. Mark works diligently at the investigation, night and day. At least once, on a rainy night, he searches for clues at her apartment. This difficult mystery frustrates him. Worse, he finds himself falling in love with the haunting image that Jacoby—and one suspect after another—paints as the story develops. He even puts in a bid for her portrait when her belongings will go to auction. We come to realize the power of her allure, even in her absence. And though unavailable, she apparently held a lot of worlds together. As often occurs in stories about beautiful women, she becomes what men have made her, as in the portrait. Her true identity is an illusion veiled in mere appearances.