Subject: Re: Laura [spoilers!]
From: boyajian@ruby.dec.com (Cisco's Buddy)
Date: 1990-05-15, 03:15
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <EaGL2r_00juk0oh1BW@cs.cmu.edu>, Jon.Webb@CS.CMU.EDU writes...

} I saw ``Laura'', the Otto Preminger film that Twin Peaks refers to,
} recently.

So did I (just bought the laserdisc not long ago).

} Here's some of the references:

Look, it *really* is rather uncool to reveal the identity of the killer
without including a spoiler warning. Especially when this revelation is
halfway down the first screen's worth of article. I'm adding a form feed
here.

} 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.

One other name link: the artist who painted Laura's portrait in the film
was named Jacoby (though it was pronounced "Jack'-o-bee"), like the TP
psychiatrist (pronounced "Ja-ko'-bee"). 

} 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?

Except that I don't think that Harry was bothered by Coop *opening* the
diary with regard to invading Laura's privacy. After all, why else did
they bring the diary along to the station if not to look through it for
clues?  Harry was surprised by the fact that Coop just broke open the
diary instead of waiting until the key was found. On the other hand,
Leland Palmer was a bit upset about the police taking the diary -- he
was obviously bothered by the implicit invasion of Laura's privacy.

} 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''.

The identification is also a different situation than in TWIN PEAKS. As
you say, in LAURA, the face was blown away, and it was just *assumed*
that it was Laura Hunt. In TWIN PEAKS, the body is quite "whole", and
everyone can see that it's Laura.

} 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.

But there's a big difference between Waldo Lydecker and Harry Truman.
Lydecker was conceited enough to believe that he was the intellectual
superior to Detective McPherson, and thus he could not imagine that
McPherson would ever figure out that he was the perp. Truman can easily
see that Cooper is a phenomenally intuitive detective, and has on a
few occasions expressed great surprise at Coop's Holmesian abilities.
I can't imagine that if Truman has a part in the murder that he could
believe that Coop wouldn't find him out.

} The killer in ``Laura'' is Laura`s mentor, who helps her succeed in
} advertising.  He's jealous of her plans to marry her lover.

Not so much jealous (though, yes, he does have romantic inclinations of
his own) as feeling that she's too good for anyone else but him. He felt
that he put in a lot of work making Laura what she was, and he didn't
want to see it "wasted" on riff-raff.

TWIN PEAKS has a few interesting allusions to LAURA, but I suspect that
that's all they are -- allusions -- and not meant to be clues to the
mystery at hand.

-- "I never use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped in venom." --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, "The Mill", Maynard, MA) UUCP: ...!decwrl!ruby.enet.dec.com!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%ruby.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM