I found the characters to be very deep and interesting, specifically Waldo Lydecker. When first see this character typing on his typewriter in the bathtub and walking around naked in front of the protagonist, Mark McPherson, it was fairly obvious to discover that this man was a tad bit off. In addition, Laura's love interest, Shelby Carpenter is also an odd character in regards to his somewhat promiscuous attitude. Even up to the moment where he plans to marry Laura, he still has another lover on the side, Ann Treadwell, who still shows romantic affection for him and also wishes to be his wife. Throughout the film, Carpenter jumps affection between these two women throughout the film even when both women are in the room.
Such odd and frankly inappropriate moral behaviors make you wonder the principles or Carpenter's character or, more importantly, what's going on through Ann and Laura's minds when they see the man they love showing affection to someone else, sometimes even right in front of them. The moral ambiguity of these characters is what keeps the mystery so intriguing to the audience.
While reading the Slant Magazine review of the film, one certain idea stuck out like a sore thumb: when the writer alluded to the concept that Waldo Lydecker was a homosexual. At first, I found such a statement to be rather preposterous statement until I looked back on Lydecker's behavior and realized the substantialness of the argument. Waldo Lydecker was never truly in love with Laura or had romantic/sexual feelings for her. He was merely Laura's mentor turned jealous, overprotective "best friend". Such jealously erupts between Lydecker and McPherson when Waldo gets extremely offended with McPherson's use of the word "dame". Lydecker is not obsessed with Laura in a romantic aspect, per se, but with the image of her as a sophisticated socialite, much like what Lydecker identifies as himself. Additionally, his clean erudite fashion style and idiosyncratic personality further emphasized why one would question his sexual orientation.
I like what you do with this analysis. You go from mentioning the almost unusually conventional visual style (oxymoronic, I know), to focusing on the interaction between characters, which the absence of overtly distracting camera work encourages us to do. Laura is remarkably stagy, in a way. You also mention the odd moral vacuity, and rightly, I think. I'd have liked to see you take that one step further though, and discuss what the movie, in the light of what you just identified, seems to be really about? And what do you make of the utterly odd visual elements that do stand out---Lydecker in the bathtub, for instance, or Laura's gigantic portrait?
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