The 3-Act Paradigm at Work: Laura

written by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein & Betty Reinhardt


Laura is a short film with twists and turns so often that a structural analysis looks like a roller-coaster ride. With great efficiency, and much suspense, a story of love-and-obsession is woven with no wasted moments.

Structural Analysis

  1. Hook (1 min.)
    • We open with a voice-over, the voice of a stuffy, arrogant writer who will play a major role in the story, and we learn from the get-go that a woman named Laura has been murdered, dying a "horrible death." "Another of those detectives came to see me," says the writer - and our story begins.
  2. Complication (3 min.)
    • The detective has made the writer/narrator himself a suspect.
  3. Call to Action (6 min., 15 min.)
      Who is the hero? The murder case is investigated by the detective (6 min.). But the story is narrated by the writer. It is the latter who serves as the protagonist here (a dark one, as we shall learn), and his call to action is when he first meets Laura, telling the story to the detective, which we see as an extended flashback (14-34 min.). The writer falls in love with her.
  4. Act One Plot Point (30 min.)
    • Laura tells the writer that she is engaged to marry another man, someone the writer considers beneath her.
  5. Midpoint Plot Point (47 min.)
    • The detective snoops around Laura's apartment, starts falling for her via a large portrait on the wall, and falls asleep in a chair. He is awakened when Laura herself returns. She isn't dead!
  6. Act Two Plot Point (78 min.)
    • The fiancee and another woman were at Laura's apartment when the doorbell rang - and the other woman answered the door wearing Laura's nightgown and was murdered. Who did it? The investigation continues amidst more twists and turns, but the plot point is when Laura tells the writer that she'll never see him again. The writer's quest to win Laura is the story driving the emotional level of the story, against which the murder investigation takes place amidst considerable suspense.
  7. Resolution (80-8 min.)
    • The detective finds the writer's gun in a clock, proving that he did it. He thought he had killed Laura, not the other woman with whom the fiancee was cheating (in Laura's own apartment). But before the writer can be arrested, he lets himself into Laura's apartment to kill her - and almost does before the detective comes to the rescue in the nick of time, shooting the writer, whose parting words are to Laura, "I love you."

    Notes

    What keeps Laura moving with great suspense are a long series of deceptions and plot twists. For example:

    • The narrator talks about the horrible death of Laura: a device that ends up being a lie. But after experiencing the movie, we forget how we got into it and forgive this.
    • The fiancee's alibi of a concert is false because the program was changed at the last minute, and he didn't know this.
    • A strange brand of Scotch ends up on Laura's liquor shelves.
    • Laura changes her story about marrying the fiancee - originally she went out of town to think about it, decided against it, but later tells the detective it is on again. She can't believe the fiancee could have done it and so is protecting him.
    • The detective arrests Laura for the murder - knowing, or believing, she didn't do it.
    • And many more.

    Laura, less than an hour and a half in length, is written with great scene economy. There is not a wasted moment in this movie.


    MODULE 4: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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