For it first 47 minutes, Laura is a spectacular murder mystery that is nearly allowed to verge into the quarter of film noir and that, at the very least, touches upon the concept of postmodernism. Everybody has a different story about Laura Hunt and Detective McPherson does not appear to be even close to discovering the culprit. Then he does something with almost no analogue in Hollywood murder mysteries. He falls asleep on the job.
When McPherson wakes up, he is shocked to his senses by the sight of his mystery’s victim. Laura Hunt, it seems, is alive and well. Surprisingly ignorant of the shocking news of her demise, but it was a decade before the rise of television and more than half a century away from Facebook and Twitter, so perhaps that ignorance can be forgiven.
What is less forgiving about the next 40 minutes of Laura is the fact that suddenly everything starts going right for McPherson: he not only solves the crime, but in the process jettisons his two biggest rivals for the attention of Laura from her life, thus leaving him to reap the benefit of the best thing of all to happen during the last half hour of the movie. Laura—a very alive and warm and beautiful Laura—actually falls in love with him.
The only logical explanation behind what happens in the last half of Laura is that McPherson never actually does wake up and what the viewer is privy to is his fantasy; his dream come true only in his barely consciousness imagination. The solution to the murder is almost too perfect as it removes stodgy, homosexual but nevertheless powerfully influential Waldo Lydecker from the scene for good. That leaves only Shelby Carpenter to dispense and, well, he’s hardly man enough to compete for the affections of Laura Hunt with a tough, manly, hard-boiled cop like himself.
No indication is ever given that this is, in fact, how the film is to be interpreted. Yet a close examination reveals that once he wakes up, Det. McPherson’s investigation into the murder of not-Laura suddenly kicks into high gear and he pretty quickly figures everything out. Laura is notoriously bad when it comes to her taste in men, so one might well accept that she falls for McPherson the way she fell for so many other less than deserving types. That she falls for him almost instantly seems rather strange and unlikely. But then again, who can peer into the heart of the romantic, right?
Nothing about the second half of Laura specifically points to it all being a dream, but there is much to point to it not being a realistic account of, well, reality. Compared to the first half, everything moves just a little too fast and becomes just a little too pat. Way too pat compared to the convoluted first half which seemed determined to send McPherson on his way to a cold case not to be solved by him. Just the mere re-appearance of Laura seemingly from back from the dead is enough to make one question whether what they take for granted as happening from that point really did take place.
Or is the second half of Laura every bit as false and artificial as the image of Laura with whom McPherson first falls in love with? Is she the result of the combination of his large portrait and the stories he hears about her from the suspects in her murder?
