"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on
February 1, 1954 with Gene Tierney reprising her film role.
"Lux Radio Theater" broadcast a 60 minute radio adaptation of the movie on
Februray 5, 1945 with Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney reprising their film roles.
"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on August 20, 1945 with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb reprising their film roles.
"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on February 23, 1950 with Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb reprising their film roles.
Darryl F. Zanuck was opposed to casting Clifton Webb because of Webb's well-known (in Hollywood) homosexuality, but producer/director Otto Preminger prevailed and the 54-year-old Webb, making his first screen appearance since the silent era, was nominated for an Oscar.
Gene Tierney originally did not want to make this film but did it anyway under contract obligations.
David Raksin ended up scoring the film only after Alfred Newman determined he did not have time to score it, and Bernard Herrmann subsequently turned the project down.
Vera Caspary first wrote her story as a play, "Ring Twice for Lora", in 1939, then adapted the play into a novel entitled "Laura". The novel was serialized in Collier's (17 October-28 November 1942), under the title "Ring Twice for Laura." In a 1971 article in Saturday Review (of Literature), Caspary recalls that Otto Preminger read the manuscript of the novel and expressed interest in collaborating with her on a revised version of the play, which he would then produce. They did not agree on the dramatization, however, and Caspary reworked the play with George Sklar in 1942. This stage version opened in London in 1945, and on Broadway on June 26, 1947. Preminger first worked on the screenplay with Jay Dratler, then brought in the team of poet Samuel Hoffenstein and Elizabeth Reinhardt.
Vera Caspary's novel "Laura" falls into five sections and five separate voices, telling its story from the viewpoint of each of its principal characters. It was too cumbersome a structure for a 1940s mystery, so the script (by Jay Dratler and others) simplifies and concentrates the narrative for director Otto Preminger to play with.
One of the film's most durable legacies was its theme song "Laura," composed over one weekend by David Raksin. Otto Preminger had originally wanted to use Duke Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady." According to Preminger biographer Gerald Pratley, Preminger tried to get the rights to George Gershwin's "Summertime" but was unable to.
Ranked #4 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Mystery" in June 2008.
Stars Gene Tierney, Judith Anderson, Dana Andrews and Vincent Price all died within three years of each other.
The character of Waldo Lydecker appears to be based on the columnist, broadcaster, and "New Yorker" theater critic Alexander Woollcott, a famous wit who, like Waldo, was fascinated by murder. Woollcott always dined at the Algonquin Hotel, where Laura first approaches Waldo.
The famous theme song David Raksin wrote for the film was originally entitled "Judy" in honor of Judy Garland.
The film was begun by Rouben Mamoulian, but Otto Preminger, who initiated the project as producer and took over the direction, brought on a new cameraman and scrapped all of Mamoulian's footage.
The first cut of the film included a sequence in which Vincent Price sings a song and accompanies himself on the piano. Twentieth Century-Fox's PR department planted stories declaring that Price (who sang with the Yale Glee Club and had a song in The House of the Seven Gables) would become the next Perry Como. The number was cut, however, and Price's singing "career" never happened.
The haunting theme melody was inspired by a "Dear David" letter that composer David Raksin received from his wife. The lyrics were added later by Johnny Mercer. Otto Preminger is on record as saying he dislikes the lyrics.
The original choice for the role of Laura was Jennifer Jones, who turned it down
The portrait of Gene Tierney as Laura appeared in On the Riviera (in color) co-starring Danny Kaye, then later in Woman's World starring Clifton Webb, the frustrated Waldo Lydecker of "Laura". In "Woman's World" the painting hung on a wall amid portraits of several other women who were supposed to have been former romantic interests of Webb's character.