Laura

Wow! Laura is probably one of my favorites! I really have no idea how to write about it. Well to start it was made after the book Laura and was nominated for 5 academy awards. My favorite thing about it is the music by David Raskin. It's phenomenal (not just a bunch of dead violins like in some old movies)! It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews , Clifton Webb and Vincent Price. They all do a pretty decent job I guess. I'm not sure how good a judge I am of acting, especially when the music is so good like in this movie. But they say it's the ultimate film noir of the 1940's. I've always wondered why this movie isn't as well known. I loved it! So there's this girl named Laura who's very intelligent and enchanting and pretty much everyone she meets falls in love with her. Including this possessive," acid tongued" writer(Clifton Webb) and some playboy who she becomes engaged to(Vincent Price). Anyway the first line of the movie totally draws you in with, "I shall never forget the weekend Laura died..." And then it shows this beautiful set and everything. It's clutch cuz ya know the person you think is going to be the main character is apparently dead from the start. So you kind of have to live off of other peoples impressions of... Laura. Then this detective dude comes in (Dana Andrews) and starts digging into Laura's personal letters and stuff and ends up falling in love with her even though she's dead. Then one night he's sittin there mulling over her case by himself at her apartment, staring at this huge portrait of her hanging on the wall when suddenly who walks in? Nobody but Gene Tierney ofcourse (Laura herself).Yeah anyway I don't want to ruin this movie . It gets ,"soo good." So yeah . I really like it. I strongly recommend it. And it doesn't swear or get too violent or anything so it's really nice. I also like the costuming. Yes, contrary to popular belief, even the floppy hats. But what really got me glued to this movie was the biography of Gene Tierney in the DVD special features. I'd never seen her in any movies before and this movie got me attached to her. She'll never out due Audrey Hepburn ofcourse, but she had such a sad fascinating life, I had to start trying out more of her movies. GENE TIERNEY So from what I can remember, Gene Tierney was born into a pretty rich family. Her dad was some kind of bossy business man and her family was pretty tight. Then one day her dad's business was having some problems so he sent the family out on vacation to California so it would appear like nothing bad was happening. While they were touring through Hollywood, some movie guy saw Gene and thought she was really beautiful. So just for fun they had her do a screen test and were surprised at how good she was at mimicry. Anyway they offered her a job, but her dad didn't really approve of Hollywood people so instead he let her try things out on Broadway which was apparently more sophisticated. She got her first role there carrying a bucket of water across the stage, and someone famous said,"she was the most beautiful water carrier I'd ever seen." So anyway yeah things went from there. Then she met this designer dude who was kind of risque and she wanted to marry him. But her dad didn't like him so he wouldn't let her. But then one day Gene made a surprise visit to her dad in Chicago and found out her dad wasn't being that loyal to her mom, which was quite a shock for her. So then her dad divorced her mom and she started living with her mom, but then she discovers that her dad had used up her life's savings so she had nothing! Ouch! So then she decides to marry the designer and does some movies with him designing her clothes. Laura was her first big role and made her huge. Then she got nominated for an Oscar in Leave her to Heaven and some other stuff that I have yet to see. So yeah she does pretty good with the designer guy, but then suddenly WW2 breaks out and he goes off somewhere to fight and she goes and tries to promote women workers or something. Anyway at the time she was expecting her first child which she was pretty excited about. But then this stupid fan of her's who's been quarantined for German measles sneaks away from her quarantine..ation to go see her. So Gene gets German measles from this fan and because of that her baby is born deaf and blind and mentally handicapped. They say she never recovered from the tragedy. Then to top that off years later she meets this same fan who had the measles and that just rubs things in to her that because of her own success she had to face such a trial. Wow this is going to be a really long blog. Anyway then eventually she has another child who's healthy but then she has some marriage problems forever and she almost marries a young JFK, but gets denied. Then she finally gets a divorce with her husband and then she marries some rich guy and he dies and another guy and he dies too. Anyway all this time....(gosh there's something else I can't remember...oh well) she's facing some kind of stress I can't remember why and pretty much she has a mental breakdown. Then years later after recovering from her mental problems she can't really get back into acting...even with the help of Henry Fonda. So yeah she just dies an old lady of some kind of cancer I think maybe. Anyway. I thought her life was pretty interesting so I thought I'd write about it. They also had a biography on Vincent Price. He had a much happier life, even though he's like the king of Sci-fi horror movies. And he really liked art. Well there you go. That was really long. I don't think my movie reviews will be this long in the future, I really don't have time for this. But someone aught to watch this movie. It's quite a hidden treasure.