CITYist

Film noir is a term that’s tossed around a lot. Several recent movies have been championed as the return of the genre, but with the exception of Joseph Gordon Levitt’s brilliant high school caper Brick, we haven’t seen anything to touch the likes of Chinatown or The Big Sleep. One sometimes overlooked addition to the field is the 1944 film Laura. Directed by Otto Preminger and starring two similarly overlooked actors, Dana Andrews (a leading man also known for the excellent post-war film The Best Years of Our Lives who lost most of his career to alcoholism) and Gene Tierney (a classic beauty along the lines of Ingrid Bergman who lost most of her career to mental illness) the movie is an excellent example of the plot twists, intrigue and intense emotions of film noir.