Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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moira finnie
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Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

Post by moira finnie »

Having just finished a massive bio of the director and sometime actor, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King (Knopf) by Foster Hirsch, I have Otto on the brain.
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I've always loved Anatomy of a Murder, and Exodus, and have discovered the Fox films that Preminger directed in the '40s in recent years. Laura, Fallen Angel, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Daisy Kenyon, Whirlpool, and The Thirteenth Letter really made me an Ottomaniac. Now comes a flurry of Otto books, as his career achievements are reassessed.

When I was growing up, I didn't realize that I was living through the period when Preminger was fast becoming passé, in no small part due to changing critical tastes and Otto's terrible efforts to remain hip--leading him to make ghastly movies such as Skidoo, Such Good Friends and Rosebud.
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The sublime Anatomy of a Murder, with wonderful performances from a fine ensemble of actors, led by Jimmy Stewart at his best. Perhaps because Otto was so steeped in and entranced by the legal process shown in this film, it was probably his happiest production for all parties.

Thank goodness my parents used to go out of their way to have us see such interesting films as were then broadcast, the aforementioned Anatomy, Exodus and Advise and Consent, as well as Porgy and Bess (which was shown on WPIX in NYC in the '70s).

Those films were memorable because they caught in deep focus the unfolding of events and took a cool look at the institutions and conventions that shaped American lives (and Israeli-Arab lives in Exodus). What interested me in Hirsch's book was the Austrian background of Preminger's family, Otto's legal education (no wonder Anatomy of a Murder may have been his best movie) his extensive theatrical training in Vienna, his somewhat hardscrabble, con artist experiences trying to get a foothold in the American theater, (he directed John Barrymore in his last Broadway appearance in the notoriously chaotic My Dear Children) and his efforts to break into films once he left Austria with his family following the Anschluss in '38.
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Otto's baptism of fire directing John Barrymore at the end (seen spanking his then wife, Elaine).

Most interesting was the way that Otto applied his legal mind to remaining at a distance from his best cinematic creations, his curious blend of heartfelt American patriotism and gift for publicity that led him to challenge the Production Code, the McCarthy era Blacklist, and most self-destructively, perhaps, many of the actors and crews he worked with during his career--though he gave many young actors a great chance (i.e. George C. Scott, Dorothy Dandridge, Jean Seberg, and many more who gave some fine performances in his movies).

This last feature is among the most puzzling. The tales of his terrible fits of temper with everyone from Gene Tierney to tough yet contrary Dyan Cannon are horrendous. He seemed to know exactly how he wanted a scene or a character to appear in the movie he imagined, but if an actor had difficulty or wished to bring their own thoughts to a role, he might dress them down to the point of bringing on a nervous breakdown, literally. The list of actors and especially actresses who had mental and emotional breakdowns and even committed suicide after working with him is pretty awful. Gene Tierney, Jean Seberg, Maggie McNamara, Dorothy Dandridge, Romy Schneider, Tom Tyron, and Keir Dullea are among the most prominent of those who were marked in part by working with Otto. While actors may be more vulnerable and prone to mental upsets than the general population, it does give one pause. It also gets awfully repetitious as reading matter at times. Though Hirsch doesn't dwell on psychoanalyzing his subject, he does drop the information near the end of the book that Preminger is reported to have taken Drexedine, a powerful stimulant, popular from the 50s-'60s especially, that sometimes causes powerful mood swings. I also suspect that it was because he seems to have been overindulged as a boy by his loving parents, who maybe, should have said "no" a few times to the boy.
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Dana Andrews, an actor Preminger loved, with Gene Tierney, an actress who could not stand up to him. They were two actors he cherished, used, cared for and employed long after Laura.

Btw, in several cases, after people had gone through some personal difficulty, he was often exceptionally kind and generous to them, (i.e. Gene Tierney on Advise and Consent, former sometime date and actress Patricia Neal, for whom he tried to set up a fund after her stroke, and Dana Andrews on In Harm's Way).

Overall, a great, compelling read, and though I'm sure that he would have intimidated me, I liked Preminger by the end of the book.

Others, among them Dana Andrews, David Niven, Gary Cooper, John Wayne and James Stewart--all of whom had a tendency to underplay--got along beautifully with Preminger. Most trying for the somewhat inarticulate, autocratic director were those actors who were steeped in The Method. Boy, internal searches for meaning and motivations were not up Otto's alley at all. He had run-ins with Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, and Marilyn Monroe that were pretty funny, awful and understandable simultaneously.
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An unhappy looking Paul Newman, with the director of Exodus.

At the end of the day, it seems that, while Preminger had a gift as a story editor, and for painting on a large cinematic canvas in an intelligent way--he just could not communicate all that well with actors. Quite a challenge for a director, wouldn't you say?
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Otto, trying to make a point during production.

The descriptions of the creative and logistical process behind his movies was truly interesting. He tended to use writers like kleenex, but he had many loyal and fraught with familial tension relationships with much of his crew. The most interesting descriptions of his movies were the detailed battle plan that went into creating Exodus and the off and on the set drama surrounding the overlong Hurry Sundown. For Hurry, Sundown the Louisiana setting, the life of the cast and crew and the interactions of the production with the very tense segregationist southern area during the making of the film were far more intriguing and dramatic than anything Preminger got on film.

Hirsch does a good job of making a comprehensive 500 page+ portrait of a complex man, though he at times seems to take on the unnecessary role of a cheerleader for Otto over his contemporary Billy Wilder, (who is characterized as vulgar and "having poor table manners"). I do think that people are becoming more aware of the quality of the majority of his movies today, but it isn't really necessary to compare two such different directors, just because both are products of the Austro-Hungarian empire and one is a critic's darling and the other ruined his reputation pretty badly toward the end of his career with many very big, very bad movies. Also, there are a few goofs in the book that should have been edited out, such as the statement that William Wyler was born in Berlin, (he was born in Alsace-Lorraine).

Overall, by the finish of the book, I think I would have liked knowing Otto, as long as I stood up to him or laughed at his outrageousness, (always a sure fire way to win him over).

I like Otto because: He wanted to make good movies, he liked to try new things, (sometimes successful, sometimes pretty awful), he was very good to his family, he loathed the Nazis, even when it was inconvenient, (and even though he could be such a fascist on the set) and most of all, because he loved being a showman more than any of the money that went with being a director, (though he certainly wasn't allergic to it either).

We could use another Otto Preminger, though, because he was a product of his time and place, we will never see his like again.
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Post by MissGoddess »

Exceptional review, Moira, and now you have convinced me that I
really must go ahead and get the book. I've read other bios in the past
because I am a long time fan of Otto and have always liked him. I think
I posted elsewhere that Mr Hirsch spoke at a screening of The Man with
the Golden Arm
and appeared, though just in the audience, for
Daisy Kenyon. While he did not reveal anything new, he obviously is a champion of
the director and I appreciated his enthusiasm.

Seeing Daisy Kenyon, The Man with the Golden Arm, Laura and
Anatomy of a Murder on the big screen was a new way to appreciate
Otto's finesse with the camera and a story.

Thanks for sharing your opinion of the book, I was literally "on the fence"
about getting it.
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Post by moira finnie »

Thanks, Miss G.,
I'm glad you don't mind my attempt to put my reaction to the Preminger bio into words here. Next up is Chris Fujiwara's new book, The World and its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger. Have you read that one?

How cool that you got to hear Foster Hirsch in person at an Otto fest. Have you ever seen the Saint Joan (1957)with Jean Seberg?

It sounds like one of those "Otto's reach exceeded his grasp" attempts to:
a.) Adapt a Shaw play to film, (good luck, pal, the only time it really worked best may have been My Fair Lady, though the Leslie Howard-Wendy Hiller Pygmalion is a close second).
b.) Play star-maker, a hobby that Otto adopted as he got older. Oy, what a mistake, and poor Ms. Seberg was pretty overwhelmed by the experience, though I do think she became a better actress later in Preminger's Bonjour, Tristesse, and Godard's Breathless.
c.) Whip up a heckuva flurry of puffery and publicity about his work, which also helped to earn him the disdain of many influential critics (Pauline Kael) and would-be critics (Rex Reed).

I've recently seen Bunny Lake Is Missing and loved Olivier's understated performance and the Dickenesque London settings via places such as the school, the hospital, the house, and the characters, such as Martita Hunt's eccentric school founder and Finlay Currie's doll hospital "director"

I'd also love to see Preminger's last and thankfully, from all reports, decent movie, The Human Factor (1979). Has anyone seen that? I think I could watch it, even though I usually loathe Nicol Williamson whenever I see him. He makes my flesh creep.
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

Post by ken123 »

[quote="moirafinnie"] I have Otto on the brain.

Well that's more than President Bush . :wink:
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Post by MissGoddess »

Hi Moira,

The World and its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger is another new one I haven't even looked at. When I was reading up on him I was just about 20 years old and I no longer have them (the biographies) with me. I wouldn't be surprised if they were more patronizing toward him than these new ones are.

Have you ever seen the Saint Joan (1957)with Jean Seberg?

I saw about 15 minutes of it a long time ago and shut it off. The story has never interested me and can't even recall what I disliked about it. I think it may have seemed pretentious to me.

I've recently seen Bunny Lake Is Missing and loved Olivier's understated performance and the Dickenesque London settings via places such as the school, the hospital, the house, and the characters, such as Martita Hunt's eccentric school founder and Finlay Currie's doll hospital "director"

Aren't they wonderful? There are some really good moments in that film. And I must confess to having a bit of a "crush" on Olivier's detective character.

I've never seen The Human Factor but your comments about Nicol Williamson broke me up. I actually got to see him do his one-man show as John Barrymore and thought he was remarkably good, but other than Excalibur (he was in that, right?) I have seen him in nothing else. Maybe Otto shared his stories about the tragic actor and it inspired Nicol?
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Post by Ann Harding »

I read Otto Preminger's autobiography years ago. I remember that the image I formed of him through this reading was not very endearing: an autocrat sure of his own talent. The antithesis of a King Vidor...
I have always admired greatly his early films noirs at XXth century Fox: Laura, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Angel Face (that's a RKO feature) etc... But, I have never taken completely his later films which I always felt were far too long. Some of his 'daring pictures' like The Moon is Blue are terribly dated. I find Anatomy of a Murder a bit too demonstrative and overlong.

As for his relationship with actors, I read about it in various memoirs. It's just scary....he sounds as awful as Fritz Lang. Shelley Winters recalls watching Marilyn being totally destroyed and humiliated during the shooting of River of No Return. Some of the technicians present were ready to rebel against the director....John Huston who played a small part in The Cardinal couldn't believe the way Otto treated the young actor in the lead (and told him so!)....The poor guy was virtually suicidal...
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Post by myrnaloyisdope »

I can't believe we've gone this far and no mention of his performance as Mr. Freeze on the Batman TV series.

Shameful.
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Otto Preminger

Post by ChiO »

Just finished The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger (Chris Fujiwara, 2008). Like his Jacques Tourneur: The Cinema of Nightfall from ten years before, Fujiwara provides a relatively standard, but well-written, biography up to the point of the subject becoming a director. At that stage, he weaves biography into a chronological critique of Preminger's films, blending the biographical material with pre-production, production, and post-production information and stories, and analysis of each film, including how it is tied to previous films and presages future work. Given the far greater public life and forceful personality of Preminger as compared to Tourneur and, therefore, having more source material to use, it is more enjoyable to read as biography. As a work of critical film analysis, they are both superb.

There are several entertaining stories that go with each movie, often demonstrating Preminger's wit (which usually shows his warmth and cruelty in equal portions). Three from EXODUS that made me laugh:

Once, Preminger objected that Trumbo had written a scene that fell short of the writer's standard. Trumbo defended himself: "If each scene in this film is of uniform brilliance, we will have a lot of monotony." Preminger thought about this for a moment and then replied, "Make them all brilliant and I will direct unevenly."

Larry Frisch, a second assistant director on Exodus, recalled that when Newman offered some suggestions on Ari's final speech, Preminger cut him short with: "If you want to compare which of us is more intelligent, I'll save you the trouble."

Speaking most memorably for those who thought Exodus too long, comedian Mort Sahl got up during a preview, turned toward Preminger, and implored, "Otto, let my people go."
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Re: Otto Preminger

Post by jdb1 »

Chito, I recently read Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would be King, by Foster Hirsch, which is more bio and less critique than you describe here. I came away from the book rather liking Preminger, although I'm not sure the author did.

I'd like to read Fujiwara's book, although I frankly don't know that all of Preminger's films deserve the detailed analysis one might make of the films of a more well-regarded director.

Nevertheless, I would have liked to have sat down to dinner with Otto -- I'm always intrigued by smart, accomplished and "difficult" men.

[That's why I'm so fond of the menfolk here :wink: ]
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Re: Otto Preminger

Post by Ann Harding »

The only book about Otto I have ever read is his own autobiography. Reading it, he comes out as a very self-centered, autocratic man. I have a special fondness for autobiographies of directors. I think they usually speak volume about their personality between the lines. Even when you lie about yourself, your own personality comes through. But I should make the effort to read a proper bio one day.
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Re: Otto Preminger

Post by moira finnie »

That's funny, Christine! I never really looked at an autobiography as a pack of lies while reading it, but you have a good point. I thought that one of the worst autobiographies I read was by Otto Preminger years ago, but now I see that he was simply reinforcing his "brand" as an autocratic martinet. Having read the Foster Hirsch bio a couple of years ago, which I wrote about in the first post of this thread, I think I'd like to re-read Otto's tome now.

Btw, most of the movies that Otto expressed some disdain for in his book are among my favorites: Laura, A Royal Scandal (even though it is a mess), Fallen Angel, Daisy Kenyon, Whirlpool, The 13th Letter, and Bonjour Tristesse. For various reasons detailed blithely by the perfectionist were, according to Herr Preminger's legal mind, a felony committed against cinema.
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Re: Otto Preminger

Post by Mr. Arkadin »

Autobiographies are kind of a mixed bag in the sense that you are reading about the subject's perception of themselves, which is often inaccurate. However, these are the only people who can give you a revelation of what they were thinking or how they felt when they created or accomplished something.

A straight bio will give you the more critical view and perhaps the more honest one (as long as the writer does not have an axe to grind). I've always believed multiple sources--while they might not provide all the facts--can bring you to a closer estimation of what they might be.
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

Post by moira finnie »

Mention of Otto Preminger's films in another thread yesterday reminded me that I recently found a pretty good print of The 13th Letter (1951) on youtube. As many people know, this is a remake of Clouzot's Le Corbeau (1943), which Preminger transferred to Quebec in this movie. Interesting to see Otto working with Charles Boyer as a character actor. Boyer gives a fine spin to the arc of his troubled character's development, though I can't help wondering if there were some crucial scenes excised from his role. I'm never sure how I feel about Linda Darnell's somewhat agoraphobic character in this one. Perhaps it is because my tender psyche was imprinted at an early age with his unforgettable character of "Carpenter" in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), but I kept expecting Michael Rennie's "new boy in town" to murmur "Klaatu barada nikto" whenever Darnell made a pass at him. Despite this, I liked the clammy atmosphere of small town life in the back of the beyond conveyed by the film, (was Preminger practicing for Anatomy of a Murder?), though more of an effort could have been given to endow the townspeople with some individuality, rather than the emphasis on a kind of weird romance. See what you think, will ya?:

[youtube][/youtube]
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

Post by JackFavell »

ooh, goodie, Moira! another Boyer I've never seen.

Thanks for bumping up this thread, it's a great read. I just remember Preminger from the countless TV talk shows he did when I was growing up, he was always a riot and I made sure to watch Merv or Mike when he made an appearance, because I thought he was hilarious as he shredded them to ribbons.
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

Post by Konway »

My favorite film from Otto Preminger is Laura (1944), because of its strong depth. I think Laura would have been a disaster if it was directed under Rouben Mamoulian. Preminger brought in Samuel Hoffenstein and Betty Reinhardt to do the screenplay after he worked with Jay Dratler on the first draft of the film. That is one of the strongest points behind the success of Laura (1944). With Raksin's beautiful score, the film became far more stronger.

I also admire Preminger for helping Lubitsch with shooting A Royal Scandal based on Lubitsch's directions and storyboards. Gene Tierney had a deep admiration for Otto Preminger for his strong support during her miserable days.

Gene Tierney always considered Preminger as a true friend.
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