“I shall never forget the weekend Laura died,” utters Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) in the classic opening line of this black and white mystery. Waldo, a sophisticated Gotham columnist, is paid a visit by Detective Mark McPherson (Dana Stevens), a cop investigating the murder of Waldo’s close friend, Laura Hunt, blasted in the face with a shotgun in her apartment.

In the first half of the picture, Waldo recounts to McPherson how he met Laura (Gene Tierney), a young advertising executive, was beguiled by her beauty and glamour and helped advance her career. Waldo suspects that Laura’s fiance – a scheming fop played by a young Vincent Price – is responsible for her murder, while Laura’s aunt (Judith Anderson) and doting housekeeper (Dorothy Adams) are also suspects.

During the course of McPherson’s investigation, in which he spends time alone in Laura’s apartment, reading through her diary and looking up at her portrait, the enigmatic cop also becomes obsessed with the woman’s allure. He falls asleep and is awakened by Laura as she comes through the door. After a long reclusive weekend in the country, she’s surprised to learn that she’s been murdered.

The rest of the film involves McPherson falling for the dame who was originally his murder victim, now a suspect in the shooting of the real corpse, a model from the advertising agency who shares Laura’s build.

Laura is like Casablanca in the respect that both started out as B-pictures. John Hodiak was set to play McPherson, with Jennifer Jones or Hedy Lamarr as Laura, and Rouben Moumoulian directing. Otto Preminger, a house producer and sometimes actor-director for Fox, fired Moumoulian due to creative differences and hired himself as director, even though filming was well underway. He replaced Lucien Ballard with Joseph LaShelle as cameraman and somehow, the film ended up an Academy Award winner and one of the more memorable film noirs of the period.

Adapted by Jay Dratler and Samuel Hoffenstein & Betty Reinhardt, based on the novel by Vera Caspary, part of the film’s effect was the decision to shroud the story in a dreamlike fog. A scripted ending actually revealed Laura’s resurrection to be a dream, but this was scrapped by Preminger. Still, there are hints that the characters have a tenuous hold on reality throughout that elevates this flick above standard issue pulp fiction.

Clifton Webb, a Broadway singer and dancer, appeared in his first talking picture and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Gene Tierney, best known for her title role here, is pretty good, but given all the spells her character is casting on men right and left, I imagined someone like Rita Hayworth might have been better.

The movie starts off slow, with the pompous Webb writing his column in a bathtub and Andrews residing in some type of haze, but it eventually gets going, with Tierney’s resurrection a big curveball. Give credit to Hoffenstein & Reinhardt’s script for not only bringing sophisticated dialogue to what could have been a B-flick, but adapting a haunting romance, and a pretty good murder mystery from the source material as well.

The well-known music was composed by David Raskin, but like the rest of the move, I never really felt I was seeing or hearing anything quite as elegant as Casablanca or The Big Sleep. On its own, it’s pretty good.