101- Laura - Director: Otto Preminger - Cast:Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price,and Judith Anderson.

"Unquestionably the most beautiful woman in movie history "

-Darryl Zanuck-on his star Gene Tierney

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"People very often say to me that Laura was my first picture. Well, it's the first one they saw, which is why they think that.There's a curious little thing about that: Everybody thinks the song 'Laura' was from the picture. It was not. There was no such song written at the time.

This was directed by Otto Preminger; it was started by Rouben Mamoulian. This is the second time this has happened. Since this is not for publication, I think it's a very interesting little sidelight, because this happened to me and it's one of the things that I know for sure and not hearsay. I have great admiration for Mr. Preminger, but this is a true incident. Mr. Preminger was the producer of this picture, and Mr. Mamoulian was the director. I think Mr. Preminger wanted to be a producer-director. (This is my own opinion, that he wanted to.) In any case, he became one on this picture. I talked to Mr. Preminger and Mr. Mamoulian for some time about the character, and they wanted to do this in a different way. What conversations they'd had between themselves, I don't know, but they were in agreement in talking to me that they wanted this character played as though he were a student of criminology from Yale or Harvard or something like that, and not at all the hard-boiled detective that you generally see. But this was something that I think Mr. Preminger wanted to be different, in this respect--to blaze a trail. This was very interesting to me, too. I didn't know how it would come out, but I knew what they meant and, having been a college man, I had some idea of how college men conducted themselves.

So this is the way the part was played, more or less, for the first two weeks, and we shot, at some expense, two weeks on the film. All of a sudden, Mr. Zanuck, who was out of town, came back into town, and a great commotion was heard. He saw the rushes of what had been shot, and suddenly in the middle of the afternoon the picture was stopped, and the director and the producer were over with Mr. Zanuck. And the word came to us that they were going to take Mamoulian off the picture.

This I didn't know for sure, but at any rate I got a call to go to Mr. Zanuck's office. I went to his office and there sat Mr. Preminger and Mr. Mamoulian, and Mr. Zanuck was sort of presiding. He proceeded to tell me how he thought the character should be played--Zanuck did. Gene Tierney and I were the leads, and Clifton Webb. This was his first picture, by the way. He'd never done a picture before. He'd been under contract to MGM for 18 months and never done a foot of film--never had seen himself on the screen.

They were sitting and listening while Mr. Zanuck told me how he thought the character should be played.What he had in mind was something I was used to--the right-down-the-alley type of detective that you'd seen. As a matter of fact, he said, "Like Pat O'Brien." It was not particularly interesting. He named some picture, Broadway, I think, in which Pat O'Brien played a detective. They are still doing this: it's one of the things it takes you time to get used to, that everything has to be explained within the frame of something they know. I guess it is the only way it can be done succinctly and laconically, so that everybody understands what they're talking about. You can at least start from that.Anyway, this description by Mr. Zanuck was made, and Otto came up and said, "Why, that's what I was telling Rouben." Rouben became livid and said, 'That's a lie. You did not! You explained to me that you wanted this man played in the other way'.
I saw that a big fight was going on here, and I didn't want to be in the middle, because I didn't know how it was going to come out, and there wasn't anything I could do about it anyway. So I said to Mr. Zanuck, 'I think I understand what you mean, and I don't want to get mixed up in this, so if it's all right with you, I would like to retire.' He smiled and said, 'I understand. All right, go ahead.'

So I left the conference. The next morning, Mr. Mamoulian was out, and Mr. Preminger was the producer-director of the picture. A very curious little thing, this. Of course it upset everybody in the picture, because we were very fond of Rouben. He's a very fine gentleman. We were really upset. As a matter of fact, I think the whole cast, including the principals, got together and bemoaned the fact that he was taken off the picture, and didn't quite understand why. Judith Anderson practically refused to act. She made her appearance, technically, but wouldn't take Mr. Preminger's direction. He said, "Miss Anderson, you know that you're capable of ..." She'd answer, "I just don't see it that way," or something like that. This of course was rather childish, but it was her way of rebelling at the change that had come about. But she got over this very quickly, and in a couple of days he had everyone won over. This was designing and it was ambitious; but he did a wonderful job.

My relationship with Mr. Preminger is about as close as actor and director usually get in Hollywood, I guess. I've done a number of pictures with him. At one point in Laura, we more or less disagreed on a certain point of direction he'd given, and I said, 'I don't understand, Otto, why this man would do this,' and he said, 'You are not expected to understand. You just do what I tell you, and it'll be all right.' I said, 'I can't do it that way, just take direction that says, 'Turn your finger here ...' .He said, 'Don't bother me,' or some such irritating phrase.I said, 'Look, I can stay here as long as you can.'He said, 'Can you? We shall see. Sit down.'

So I sat down. We sat there for two hours or more. Nothing happened. My wife chose this day to visit the set, and she said, 'What's going on?' I said, 'We're having a little disagreement.' So I sat chatting with friends, and finally Mr. Preminger came over and said, 'Dah-na'--he never was able to say, 'Dana'--'we are acting like children.'

I said, 'I quite agree with you.' "

-Dana Andrews-

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"Men are wonderful. I adore them. They always give you the benefit of the doubt.

-Gene Tierney-

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"Everyone should see Hollywood once, I think, through the eyes of a teenage girl who has just passed a screen test."

-Gene Tierney-