RESTORED 35MM PRINT!

“Everybody’s favourite chic murder mystery” (Pauline Kael), which qualifies as “Preminger’s Citizen Kane” (Andrew Sarris), Laura can’t be seen too many times, so profuse, perverse, and profound are its pleasures. Dana Andrews plays the necro-romantic detective Mark McPherson, who becomes fixated on the portrait of the woman whose death he is investigating. She is Laura (Gene Tierney), a vivacious beauty courted by two men, either of whom may have killed her: Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), an acidulous newspaper critic who “created” Laura, and Shelby Carpenter (Vincent Price) the sycophantic playboy to whom she was engaged. Preminger takes great pleasure in suggesting both suitors are gay – Waldo bathes as if he were auditioning for Spartacus – and mixes into their murderous ménage Judith Anderson as Laura’s vicious socialite aunt. A plush, deviant  noir, Laura seems to unmake the genre as it glides towards its finale, which turns a swish Manhattan cocktail soirée into a “Clue” game that unmasks the murderer.  “The sleekest noir ever made” (Elliott Stein, The Village Voice).

Rated PG.