Movie Review: Eyes of Laura Mars

Eyes of Laura Mars

Starring: Faye Dunaway, Tommy Lee Jones, Brad Dourif, Rene Auberjonois, Raul Julia, Frank Adonis, Lisa Taylor, Darlanne Fluegel, Rose Gregorio, Bill Boggs, Steve Marachuk, Meg Mundy, Marilyn Meyers, Gary Bayer, Mitchell Edmonds, Michael Tucker, Jeff Niki, Toshi Matsuo, John E. Allen, Anna Anderson, Deborah Beck, Jim Devine, Hanny Friedman, Winnie Hollman, Patty Oja, Donna Palmer, Sterling St. Jacques, Rita Tellone, Kari Page, Dallas Edward Hayes

Director: Irvin Kershner

Columbia Pictures Corporation, USA, 1978.

Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway) is a controversial fashion photographer who takes violent and sexy photographs, kind of foreseeing Benetton ad campaigns. Serial killer is inspired by Laura's art and begins to repeat the murders of the photographs using Laura's workmates as unwilling models. During the murders Laura has visions seeing through the killer's eyes. 

Laura Mars

Laura's agent Donald Phelps tells the bad news

Road rage photo shoot

Witnessing another murder Laura tries to tell about her visions to the police. Detective Lt. John Neville (Tommy Lee Jones) has a hard time believing Laura's story. Also Laura's older photos bear surprising similarity to real unpublished crime scene photos. 

Eyes of Laura Mars

Laura sees through killer's eyes, here the victim is Elaine (Rose Gregorio)

Detective John Neville

There are some suspicious characters around Laura. Chauffeur Tommy Ludlow (Brad Dourif) is a former jailbird and he carries a stiletto. Laura's no-good ex-husband Michael Reisler (Raul Julia) has also returned to city to extort money from Laura. Laura's agent Donald Phelps (Rene Auberjonois) is also not as nice guy as he first seems as he can be quite manipulative. 

Michael Reisler

Tommy Ludlow

Laura's psychic visions begin to disturb her work as the killer is coming after her. John tries to solve the murders with Laura, and the two start a romance. As the murderer kills more of Laura's friends the list of possible suspects becomes shorter. 

Laura and John start a romance

Model girl Lulu (Darlanne Fluegel)

This movie is American giallo movie following in the footsteps of Italian horror legends Dario Argento and Mario Bava. Laura's room has plenty of mirrors and the killer even wears brown leather gloves. The movie is based on John Carpenter's story and screenplay. Still the movie feels a bit tame compared to Italian gialli or to movies directed by Carpenter's himself. The producers intervened too much with the project and the excitement runs out of steam in the end. In the same year Carpenter released his own giallo-inspired "Halloween."

Irvin Kersher directed this before "Empire Strikes Back." Faye Dunaway is good as troubled artist. Young Tommy Lee Jones is at his handsomest here. Brad Dourif and Raul Julia have unbalanced and creepy characters.  Barbra Streisand sings the theme song "Prisoner". Fashion scenes are stylish and the soundtrack with hip 70s style disco-music is just great for the film's atmosphere. Despite the flaws it is recommended watching for friends of stylish thrillers.

Fashion models before the photo shoot

Could be a scene from Argento-movie

Rating: Good