Laura

I need a drink.

Could you pass me a cigarette?

I'm not saying that I'm a freaking Sherlock Holmes genius, but I have a hard time watching murder mystery movies because I can usually figure how 'who done it' before they inform the audience.

Let's all have a drink.

Laura, the 1944 murder mystery staring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, however, had me thinking the entire time. Andrews, who also starred in the recently viewed The Best Years of Our Lives, is Detective Lt. Mark McPherson, a serious, accusatory, and sometimes flippant man who's been put on the case to find out who killed Laura Hunt.

I need a light.

Tierney, who played Laura, was murdered and now there are suspects everywhere. The movie starts with the current time, then flashes back to build up to the murder.

Would you like a cigarette?

Tierney, who in real life died of emphysema (image that), is a beautiful cosmopolitan/socialite who is set to be married to Shelby Carpenter, who is played by Vincent Price, the evil voice of The Thriller and who died of lung cancer and emphysema (image that). However, Laura's also good friends with Waldo Lydecker who is played by Clifton Webb, who one would have called a dandy in 1944. He also starred in the original Cheaper By the Dozen and the Mr. Belvedere movies from the late 40's and early 50's.

Pour me a drink, please.

As the movie progresses back to the current time period, Lt. McPherson is interrogating everyone while he has a drink and a smoke. Nobody likes him very much. McPherson, moreover, begins to act very strange while in Laura's house and is accused of fallen in love with her, even though she's dead.

The plot takes a major turn and all suspicions are thrown out the window. The movie ends in typical 1940's style - with a kiss and a cigarette.

I liked this movie, though I had never heard of it. I picked it up off of the shelf at the library. It is only 88 minutes long, so it's one you can easily squeeze in before you go to bed on nights when American Idol is on and you don't really want to watch it.

So have a drink and watch the movie.

I give this movie 4 stars. It kept my thinking throughout the movie. Plus Gene Tierney is easy on the eyes.

The Best Years of Our Lives

I picked up this movie at the library solely for the purpose that it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1946. I had never heard of the movie. I did not know any of the actors in the movie. And the DVD cover looked more like a soap opera cover.

The basic premise of the movie is 3 men are returning home from World War II and they must readjust to the world they left. All 3 hitch a ride on a B-17 as it crosses the country. One man, Harold Russell, is from the Navy. He had his hands blown off in a non-combat incident. Originally written as a seaman who lost his hands in a combat mission, the part was rewritten for Russell who really did lose his hands to a non-combat incident. Another is a captain, Dana Andrews, in the Army and the third, Fredric March, is a Sergeant.

Ironically, the high ranking captain returns to the drugstore where he worked only to find his position gone, but does get a job working at the perfume counter. The Sergeant, on the other hand, is a high ranking banker who easily gets his job back. The seaman, however, spends little time on his career, if at all, but focuses on his girlfriend and the challenges of being in a world without hands.

In another subplot, Andrews returns to his wife that he married just before he shipped off. He doesn't seem to love her as much as he thought he did. On the other hand, he met the Sergeant's daughter, Peggy Stevenson, who's probably in her 20's, and they think may be falling in love with each other.

In typical 1940's post-World War II fashion, in the end everything is all hunky-dory. However, the movie was the first to deal with the problems that many soldiers faced after the war. The movie was met with much acclimation and after the Korean War in the early 1950's it was re-released.

The movie itself, in my opinion, was not that great. However, it was very relevant for the time and often that is what makes a movie important. I gave this movie 3 stars from a movie viewing perspective. If you are searching for movies of importance, then I would view this as a 5 star movie.