Laura

Beautiful female movie stars were so thick on the ground in Hollywood in the 1940s that you couldn’t turn around without tripping over one. But was there ever one as beautiful as Gene Tierney? It’s a matter of endless debate, of course, and there are dozens of candidates for “Most Beautiful,” but she would be hard to beat. If you like film noir (and I love it) this is one of the absolute classics. Otto Preminger directed it from a script by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Elizabeth Reinhardt, and Ring Lardner, Jr., based on a novel by Vera Caspary. Dana Andrews plays the cop who falls in love with a painting of Laura. Clifton Webb is an insufferable snob, and Vincent Price is a sniveling leech. This movie is on countless lists of classics. It doesn’t quite make it to mine, but it’s a lovely film.