Cinematheque: Laura (Preminger, 1944)

Over the next month I’ll be attending roughly a dozen films in the Cinematheque Ontario retrospective for Mr. Preminger, a man with whom I’ve been unacquainted for far too long. Well, I’m impressed. This is such a nice, tight police procedural. I’d known that the film was notoriously homaged in Twin Peaks, naming the series’ late beauty after the deceased subject of this film. Fortunately, it is a slight nod rather than a full-blown reproduction, and nothing in this film is spoiled by Lynch’s opus.

The film, save for obvious territory such as necrophilia, doppelgangers, and investigation, boils down to a somewhat Buñuelian critique of societal norms. Laura is/was on her way to a life with a much older man, Waldo, at least acted by a homosexual, Clifton Webb, if not one himself, perhaps desperate to adapt to the hetero-normativity of his friends and colleagues. A bourgeois social gathering presents a climatic meet-and-greet of Laura‘s players and puzzle pieces with enough subtle snootiness and backstabbing in the air to be noteworthy. No burning kitchens, wandering cows, or prolonged stays (save for one), but I had the feeling that Preminger couldn’t stand every character in this film.