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

A previous post took 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,” she says that early in her career, she was the ghostwriter for a correspondence course on the art of the photoplay.

I didn’t expect much from a 92-year-old book on writing for the movies by someone who had never done it and the first chapter is not promising. It’s loaded with irrelevant material to pad out the lesson. And yet I was curious enough to keep reading on the chance that there might be glimmers of the future author in what promised to be a dreadful book. Can one learn anything about a 1940s film from a somewhat iffy text written 22 years earlier?

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In case you just tuned in, prompted by Louella Parsons’ May 15 post that Rouben Mamoulian had asked to be released as director of “Laura” (later accounts will say that he was fired), I’m looking at the making of the movie, one of the classics of film noir, no matter how you define this nebulous but popular genre.

The behind-the-scenes intrigue at 20th Century-Fox involving in “Laura” is familiar to anyone who has read much about the film. The books about studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck, producer/director Otto Preminger and ousted director Rouben Mamoulian tend to repeat the same stories. I think it’s more valuable to begin by examining the creative process behind “Laura,” starting with what occurred before the camera rolled or the scripts were written.

And for that, we must turn to the novel’s author, Vera Caspary.

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