Plot summary
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Laura is a 1968 American TV film, a remake of the 1944 film of the same name. It was directed by John Llewellyn Moxey and written by Truman Capote and Thomas Phipps. [1] David Susskind produced. [2]
The film had previously been adapted for television in 1955.
| | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2023) |
Truman Capote was friends with Lee Radziwill who wanted to act and had made her stage debut in a revival of The Philadelphia Story . He met up with David Susskind and told him, "Lee Radiziwill is going to be an actress and I think we should all put something together for her. I'm sure that she'll be so good I'll write it for her myself." [3]
Susskind thought Radziwill "wasn't very good" in her stage performance "but I thought maybe I saw a glimmer of something in her performance. The television companies had noticed the publicity, so it looked like we could set something up." [3]
Capote wrote an adaptation of The Voice of the Turtle for her but Susskind worried it would be too difficult. So he suggested they do Laura. [4]
Michael Dyne reportedly rewrote Capote's script. [5]
The show was taped in London in October 1967. Robert Stack and George Sanders reprised roles they had performed on TV in the 1955 version. [6] [3] Stack recalled in his memoirs that "the production resembled a junior high school effort." [7]
Critical reception to Radziwill's performance was hostile. [8] The Chicago Tribune called it the "worst drama" of the season in which Radziwill was "unbelievably bad". [9] Another review in The Washington Post said it was "disappointing all round." [10] The New York Times called it "so laboured and so dull that the occasion was just a laboured walk through." [11]
Calista Kay Flockhart is an American actress. She is best known for portraying the title character on the Fox television series Ally McBeal (1997–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe Award in 1998 and was thrice nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. From 2006 to 2011, she starred as Kitty Walker on the ABC drama series Brothers & Sisters, and between 2015 and 2021, Flockhart appeared as Cat Grant on the superhero drama Supergirl. In film, she is known for roles in The Birdcage (1996), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999), and Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000).
Laura is a 1944 American film noir produced and directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, along with Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, and Judith Anderson. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Betty Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel Laura by Vera Caspary. Laura received five nominations for the Academy Awards, including for Best Director, winning for Best Black and White Cinematography. In 1999, Laura was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The American Film Institute named it one of the 10 best mystery films of all time, and it also appears on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" series.
Truman Garcia Capote was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, and he is regarded as one of the founders of New Journalism, along with Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, and Tom Wolfe. His work and his life story have been adapted into and have been the subject of more than 20 films and television productions.
Lee Ann Remick was an American actress and singer. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for the film Days of Wine and Roses (1962) and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role in Wait Until Dark (1966). She also earned seven Emmy Award nominations.
Nelle Harper Lee was an American novelist whose 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and became a classic of modern American literature. She assisted her close friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). Her second and final novel, Go Set a Watchman, was an earlier draft of Mockingbird, set at a later date, that was published in July 2015 as a sequel.
Robert Stack was an American actor and television host. Known for his deep voice and commanding presence, he appeared in over forty feature films. He starred in the ABC television series The Untouchables (1959–1963), for which he won the 1960 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Series, and later hosted/narrated the true-crime series Unsolved Mysteries (1987–2002). He was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film Written on the Wind (1956). Later in his career, Stack was known for his deadpan comedy roles that lampooned his dramatic on-screen persona, most notably as Captain Rex Kramer in Airplane! (1980).
Yvette Carmen Mimieux was an American film and television actress who was a major star of the 1960s and 1970s. Her breakout role was in The Time Machine (1960). She was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards during her acting career.
Caroline Lee Radziwiłł, also previously known as Lee Canfield and Lee Ross, was an American socialite, public relations executive, and interior designer. She was the younger sister of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and sister-in-law of President John F. Kennedy.
Susan Elizabeth Strasberg was an American stage, film, and television actress. Thought to be the next Hepburn-type ingenue, she was nominated for a Tony Award at age 18, playing the title role in The Diary of Anne Frank. She appeared on the covers of LIFE and Newsweek in 1955. A close friend of Marilyn Monroe and Richard Burton, she wrote two best-selling tell-all books. Her later career primarily consisted of slasher and horror films, followed by TV roles, by the 1980s.
Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a 1968 collection of essays by Joan Didion that mainly describes her experiences in California during the 1960s. It takes its title from the poem "The Second Coming" by W. B. Yeats. The contents of this book are reprinted in Didion's We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction (2006).
Infamous is a 2006 American drama film written and directed by Douglas McGrath. It is based on George Plimpton's 1997 book, Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall His Turbulent Career and covers the period from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, during which Truman Capote researched and wrote his bestseller In Cold Blood (1965).
Capote is a 2005 American biographical drama film about American novelist Truman Capote directed by Bennett Miller, and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role. The film primarily follows the events during the writing of Capote's 1965 nonfiction book In Cold Blood. The film was based on Gerald Clarke's 1988 biography Capote. It was released on September 30, 2005, coinciding with what would have been Capote's 81st birthday.
Sam Whiskey is a 1969 American Western comedy film shot in DeLuxe Color and directed by Arnold Laven, starring Burt Reynolds, Angie Dickinson, Clint Walker and Ossie Davis. "Way ahead of its time," said Reynolds of the film. "I was playing light comedy and nobody cared."
Bella Darvi was a Polish film actress and stage performer who was active in France and the United States.
The Family Way is a 1966 British comedy-drama film produced and directed by John and Roy Boulting, respectively, and starring father and daughter John Mills and Hayley Mills. Based on Bill Naughton's play All in Good Time (1963), with screenplay by Naughton, the film began life in 1961 as the television play Honeymoon Postponed. It is about the marital difficulties of a young newlywed couple living in a crowded house with the husband's family.
The Black and White Ball was a masquerade ball held on November 28, 1966, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Hosted by author Truman Capote, the ball was in honor of The Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.
Laura is a 1955 American TV film for The 20th Century-Fox Hour. It was a remake of the 1944 film of the same name.
Medea is a 1959 American TV play. It is based on the adaptation of the play by Euripides. Judith Anderson plays the title role, which she had performed on stage since 1948.
The Power and the Glory is a 1961 American TV film based on the 1940 novel The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene. It was produced by David Susskind at Talent Associates-Paramount for CBS. The production was shot for American TV but also distributed theatrically overseas.
Ann Eden Woodward was an American socialite, showgirl, model, and radio actress. In 1940, while working as a radio actress, she was voted "The Most Beautiful Girl in Radio". Woodward became a prominent and controversial figure in New York high society after her marriage to banking heir William Woodward Jr.