OTTO Preminger has created an ode to pathological love and an authentic magnetic beauty admired by all men in a hypnotic noir ,on one end Laura is a celebrated social beauty who owes her successful career to an old wizened famed writer Clifton Webb but is engaged to Vincent price, a rich aristocrat ,but the old writer thinks of her as his intellectual creation and he loves her with intense malevolent possessiveness ,its dressed as a murder mystery and Laura is murdered by a buckshot gun fired in her face but it is actually a very profound and dark love story ,this is one of the best constructed thrillers ever and no one can be disappointed by the ingenious plot and twists and turns , Dana Andrews is the handsome muscular cop in charge of the case and he falls in love with the corpse of a beauty ,all the three men are insanely in love with Laura, ,a magnetic beauty ,this works as the three men quibble and quarrel and cross swords over her, the dialogues between the three men are absolutely a treat both bitter and caustic and you can feel their hate for each other and all over a dead woman and they are extremely negative ,its really gene Tierney alone who is the very picture of gentle innocence which enhances her beauty to a mystic almost iconic height , the script builds her character into someone who no one can resist and Tierney is exactly that ,the director has lit her and framed her to create a screen icon ,he has given attention to every trivial detail from her hats to her modulated voice ,i think Laura is played by gene Tierney but created by Preminger on screen ,she is his brain child and its a masterpiece ,the murder investigation is scrupulously meticulous but Laura overwhelms it all .the atmosphere is heightened by chiming antique clocks and guns and rueful music .Clifton Webb is the brain here ,his voiceover is haunting , dana Andrews is the moody muscle man and Laura is the heart as gene Tierney , who is in her most authentic role ever ,. the concept of love where you must destroy what you cannot have is ancient but here it is given a masterly new treatment with svelte style and supreme class and sophistication and its all by a director who has his finger on the very pulse of this great movie in every frame