LAURA- IS THE FACE IN THE MISTY LIGHT

Laura- Is The Face in the Misty Light., Footsteps That You Hear Down The Hall.  Those are the first lines of " Laura" that memorable song from Otto Preminger's 1944 fim noire classic. The music was by David Raksin with lyrics added by Johnny Mercer after the film had been released.
The film deals with the killing of Laura Hunt ( played by Gene Tierney) being investigated by a hard boiled detective played by Dana Andrews. Alone in her apartment, Andrews looks for clues to her life reading some letters and diaries as well as looking at her stunning portrait on the wall. He gradually becomes under her spell as does Clifton Webb playing an ascerbic columnist who helped launch Laura's successful career in the advertising business. However , when we learn that Laura is still alive, the romance between Tierney and Andrews becomes real- for she is no longer a dream.
In the 1970's, I had a chance to ask Raksin how the song came about when he was composing music for the CBC's History of the Modern Olympics. He was given a deadline of the weekend to come up with a suitable theme for Laura or they would use Duke Ellington's " Sophisticated Lady" . He tried quite a number of themes but none were deemed useful or appropriate..
Raksin had received a letter from his wife in New York and he put it on the piano and started to read it. She was telling him that their marriage was over, something that shook him to the core. As he tells it, despite the emotional upheaval caused the significance of the letter, he stumbled onto the theme, the 32  bars of music that we now know as the song " Laura."
It is a fairly complex piece of music that has received hundreds of recordings both instrumental and vocal but Mercer's evocative lyrics did account for much of its subsequent and continued popularity.
The vocal version is by Carly Simon, done in a live concert version filmed in the style of a black and white film noire version of the 1944 film.

There is also a symphonic instrumental version that demonstrates how the theme was modified for different scenes in the movie.

LINK SIMON VERSION. http://youtu.be/Baj5Q7H5q6s

LINK SYMPHONIC VERSION http://youtu.be/LmRwt9AE9AA