First Thoughts on "Laura"

When we talk about the Citizen Kane influence, we’re usually talking about technique rather than structure. (Usually.) So when I was watching Laura for the first time this week, to prep for Justin Chang’s appearance on the show, what might have been most immediately striking about it was the extent to which it was clearly a post-Kane screenplay. The script—credited to Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Betty Reinhardt, with uncredited contributions by Ring Lardner Jr., adapting Vera Casparay’s novel—begins with its title character dead, and a voice-over haunted by her spirit. “I shall never forget the weekend that Laura died,” he intones, further explaining that “I, Waldo Lydecker, was the only one that really knew her.”

Lydecker is played by the great stage actor Clifton Webb, a famed columnist (reportedly modeled on Alexander Wolcott, though there’s a fair amount of Walter Winchell in there too) first seen typing in the bathtub, Trumbo-style. He’s being questioned by Det. Lt. Mark McPherson, who is investigating the death of Laura (Gene Tierney), a beautiful ad executive who was Lydecker’s… well, who knows, really?