Laura

Directed by Otto Preminger. Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson Club, IFI, Dublin, 88 min, ifi.ie

There are few more jaw- dropping reversals than the one that suddenly sideswipes the plot halfway through Otto Preminger's unclassifiable Laura(1944). We'll say no more about the details, but the twist is characteristic of a film that never slips into a convenient groove or settles for easy clichés.

Based on a novel by the undervalued Vera Caspary, Laurahas the shape and flavour of a detective story, as a cop (Dana Andrews) investigates the mysterious death of an advertising executive (Gene Tierney). He soon becomes obsessed with the victim and – more than a decade before Hitchcock's Vertigo– starts to find his mind wandering to forbidden corners.

For all the narrative intrigue and noir touches, the film is best remembered for a strain of bitchy camp that puts it on the same street as All About Eve. An obvious precursor to that film's Addison DeWitt is the equally splendidly named Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), a newspaper columnist with many connections. Lydecker casts bitter aphorisms about the room like so many poison darts – "In my case, self- absorption is completely justified. I have never discovered any other subject quite so worthy of my attention."

Laurahas never gathered a following to rival that for All About Eveor Sweet Smell of Success. This might be a good thing. The best jokes – and best twists – remain largely undiluted by subsequent pastiche or quotation. An essential reissue.