Question: Very last scene after they turn the car around and you see the back of their heads, to me it doesn't look like Cary Grant or Joan Fontaine? Is it them or their doubles?
Answer: Hitchcock had a different ending on the movie, but the studio and test audiences hated it. Grant ends up splitting up with Fontaine. Hitchcock was pressured into a happy ending, but weeks had passed since the end of filming and the two popular stars were off on other projects. Two actors were hired to as stand-ins for the added footage of the car turning around and the two going happily home together.
Question: Am I missing something? How is it possible for McPherson to fall in love with Laura?
Answer: While investigating her supposed murder, McPherson interviews many people who knew Laura and gave their personal accounts about her. The more McPherson learns about the beautiful woman, the more intrigued he becomes, eventually almost to the point of obsession. He was more infatuated and physically attracted than actually being in love with her.
Question: At the end, Orson Welles is wounded and flees up a ladder out onto the face of the church clock. The clock contains an automata of statues that move in front of the clock face. One statue holds a sword which impales Orson Welles. We have a distance shot in which the sword is sticking out of Orson Welles' back. Orson Welles presses against the statue to withdraw the sword and falls to his death. Is such an end feasible? Surely, for a sword to fully pierce a human body it would have to be very sharp and be driven with incredible force and speed. Would the statue be moving with anything remotely approaching such force and speed? And surely a statue on a clock would not carry a real sword, but a facsimile, meant to look like a weapon from a distance? And, if somebody was pierced completely through with a sword, could they press their body forward to fully withdraw the weapon? (01:34:45)
Answer: It could have been body doubles, who are often used for filler scenes like this, but there's no way to know for sure.
raywest ★