Line #9 Trivia/Laura


1	* BreakthroughHit: The film made Creator/OttoPreminger's career as a producer-director, though he had not only directed several previous films but produced one as well (''In the Meantime'', ''Darling'').
2	* DeletedScene:
3	** Waldo flashing back to how he made Laura a queen of glamor was cut from the initial theatrical run due to it being UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and all the expensive clothes and beauty treatments flying in the face of an audience asked to live austerely in order to give as many resources as possible to the war effort. The scene has since been restored for the home video release.
4	** An early version of the movie included a scene with Price playing the piano and singing, and the studio publicity planted stories that Price was to be the next Music/PerryComo. However, the scene was cut, and Price's singing "career" never happened.
5	* DisownedAdaptation: Not fully disowned, but Vera Caspary was ambivalent toward the film. While she praised some choices, she disagreed with director Otto Preminger's interpretations of certain characters, to the point that they got into "furious" arguments during production. She aired her disappointments in a 1971 article called ''My 'Laura' and Otto's''.
6	* TheOtherMarty: Back when Rouben Mamoulian was still the director, he cast character actor Laird Cregar as Waldo Lydecker. The hefty Cregar physically matched the novel's description of Lydecker, but Preminger was worried that, since Cregar tended to play villains, the audience would [[spoiler:correctly guess that Lydecker was the murderer]] too early in the story. After firing Mamoulian and taking over as director, Preminger brought in Creator/CliftonWebb, then an unfamiliar face to movie audiences.
7	* PlayingAgainstType: Fans of Creator/VincentPrice's horror movie career will be surprised by his role in this movie. Far from the creepy-yet-sophisticated, Mid-Atlantic-accented character of his later-career typecasting, here he plays Shelby, who one blogger has called a "philandering Southern stud". Shelby's Kentucky drawl is actually close to Price's natural accent (he was born in Saint Louis, Missouri).
8	* StarMakingRole: For Creator/GeneTierney, Creator/DanaAndrews and Creator/CliftonWebb. Webb was a veteran stage actor who hadn't been in a film for 14 years when Preminger cast him as Lydecker. He got an Oscar nomination and became a well-liked contract player for Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox afterwards.
9	* ThoseTwoActors: This was the second of four movies Creator/VincentPrice and Creator/GeneTierney did together.
10	* TroubledProduction: Creator/OttoPreminger, who had clashed with Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox president Darryl Zanuck in the past, had this project greenlighted by Fox while Zanuck was off serving in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. When Zanuck returned, he stipulated that Preminger could produce, but not direct. After some trouble finding a director, Preminger hired Rouben Mamoulian. That proved to be a mistake, because Preminger and Mamoulian clashed from the get-go, with fights over casting and directorial approach. Zanuck was angry after viewing the early footage, and called both men into a meeting where they blamed each other for the film's faults. Finally, Preminger convinced Zanuck to let him fire Mamoulian and take over as director, and Preminger essentially started over from scratch once he did. Mamoulian spent the rest of his life insisting that [[MyRealDaddy the finished film was mostly his work]], but Preminger spelled out the details in his memoirs, and others confirmed them. Bizarrely, 15 years later, when Samuel Goldwyn fired Mamoulian as the director of ''Theatre/PorgyAndBess'', Preminger replaced him once again.
11	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: As originally scripted, the ending was supposed to be a revelation that ItWasAllADream--the second half of the film was just Mark's alcohol-induced reverie, and [[spoiler:Laura is actually dead]]. While the ending was dropped, some viewers still interpret the film this way.
12	* WriteWhatYouKnow: Like heroine Laura, the book's author Vera Caspary also began her professional career as a stenographer in an advertising agency.

Context Trivia / Laura