Subject: Laura
From: Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU
Date: 1990-05-10, 06:46
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

I saw ``Laura'', the Otto Preminger film that Twin Peaks refers to,
recently.  Here's some of the references:

The killer in ``Laura'' is Waldo Lydecker -- Cooper says ``The bird who
killed Laura Palmer is a client of this clinic.''   The bird turns out
to be named Waldo, the clinic Lydecker.

The detective in ``Laura'' finds and reads Laura's diary; her maid is
terribly upset by this invasion of her privacy; remember Truman's
surprise that Cooper would just break open the diary?

There's a reference to ``documentary proof of his dreams'' in ``Laura'';
funny, considering we saw one of Cooper's dreams.

Laura's lover is seeing other women, like Bobby.

The detective falls in love with the real (he thinks dead) Laura.  He
falls asleep in her apartment.  When she turns up, he at first thinks
he's still dreaming.  Cooper saw Laura in a dream.  We still haven't
seen Cooper's reaction to Maddie; should be interesting.

Other observations; maybe clues in Twin Peaks:

In ``Laura'' the dead woman is not related to the real Laura; she's in
Laura's apartment with their common lover (played by a suave young
Vincent Price), and when she answers the door the killer shoots her
close up with a shotgun in the dark, not recognizing her.  Her mangled
body is identified incorrectly by the maid.  But the police later figure
out who she really was.  There's none of the identical cousin stuff from
``Twin Peaks''.

In ``Laura'' the first person the detective encounters is Waldo
Lydecker, just as Cooper encountered Truman first.  I consider this
something of a clue, pointing towards Truman's (and Josie`s) involvement
in Laura Palmer's murder.  Lydecker travels around with the detective;
he's a suspect, but the detective lets him come along to observe him.

The killer in ``Laura'' is Laura`s mentor, who helps her succeed in
advertising.  He's jealous of her plans to marry her lover.  He hides
the shotgun in a large clock he gave her that's in her apartment.

There are some interesting similarities between the detective in
``Laura'' and Cooper.  Both have that heavily greased hair that was so
obvious when Cooper called Truman after his dream.  The detective plays
a handheld ``put the balls in the holes'' baseball game, in order to
make the killer nervous.  Reminds me of Cooper`s odd, obsessive
behavior.  Does he suspect Truman, and is he trying to get him to let
his guard down?

-- J