Oh dear. Here we are at the sixth installment on the making of the film “Laura” and novelist Vera Caspary is barely out of diapers. Be assured that the actors will eventually be cast, the sets will be built, the costumes will be made and the script will be written … and rewritten … and rewritten. Gathering “Laura” material has been quite a treasure hunt and here’s a special shout-out to Mike Hawks of Larry Edmunds for a “final draft” of the heavily revised script. Comparing it to the completed film has been a revelation.

Last time, we had gotten Caspary’s work to Hollywood (she remained on the East Coast), where her play “Blind Mice” with an all-female cast had been turned into the 1931 film “Working Girls” – with the addition of male actors, including Buddy Rogers and Stu Erwin.

Caspary’s autobiography is rich in details about Depression-era New York, but it casts little light on her growth as a writer and the creative process behind “Laura,” so I’m skipping the daily drama of her life except where it touches on films.

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In case you just tuned in, I’m using the May 15 post by Louella Parsons on Rouben Mamoulian being replaced as director of “Laura” to spend some time examining the production of the film noir classic.

The previous post was a brief look at the life of author Vera Caspary, whose novel was the basis for the film. In her autobiography, “The Secrets of Grown-Ups,” we learned that early in her career, she was the ghostwriter for a correspondence course on writing photoplays.

I was mildly curious as to whether Caspary’s screenwriting course had any hidden nuggets. A cursory glance is not encouraging.

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