I love darkness and heavy shadows in film and perhaps the best -and earliest- examples of this sort of expressionism was found in the early German cinema of the 1920’s and into the 30’s.  Here then is Conrad Veidt as the killer somnambulist in the classic film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari…

The German cinema heavily influenced another cinematic movement which came a few years later: Film noir.  Boasting similar visuals (at least when it came to heavy shadows) and stories often involving crime and desperation usually centered around a “big city”, there are quite literally hundreds of great films noir movies out there worth checking out.

Here then is my interpretation of a still from one of the more memorable ones, Laura (1944).  Featuring Gene Tierney as the mysterious “victim” of murder -or was she?- and Dana Andrews as the cop investigating this strange case, Laura also featured a young Vincent Price and was directed by Otto Preminger.  The plot of the movie was essentially lifted by author William Diehl for his novel, then subsequent movie, Sharky’s Machine (1981).

Here though is the original, with too-cool Gene Tierney’s Laura being interrogated by Dana Andrew’s cop.