Otto Preminger was a hugely successful director of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s who seems to have faded into obscurity in recent years. Does anyone still look at “Exodus” (1960) or “In Harm’s Way” (1965) or “Advise and Consent” (1962) these days?
A master of publicity — second only to Alfred Hitchcock in terms of making himself as famous as his movies — Preminger battled censors in the 1950s, tackled important social issues in the early 1960s, but went into eclipse in the late 1960s when young directors and young audiences took over Hollywood.
Like Hitchcock — who caused a revolution in the treatment of movie violence in the 1960 “Psycho” and then quickly lost his touch — Preminger broke new ground in the early 1960s but wasn’t able to keep up with the drastic changes of the late 1960s. By the time of “Hurry Sundown” (1967) and “Skidoo” (1968), the director was mocked by the press and the small audiences that turned out for his creaky final films.
What has kept interest in Preminger alive is the aura around the man himself, a legendary tyrant on the set who reduced actors to tears and fired technicians at the drop of the hat.
The Preminger story is much more interesting, and much more entertaining, than most of the movies the Vienna-born director made between 1931 and 1979. There have been two biographies of Preminger over the past year, the gossipy “Otto Preminger” by Foster Hirsch (Knopf) and the more scholarly “The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger” by Chris Fujiwara, which has just been issued in paperback by Faber and Faber.
Fujiwara is still in thrall to the long takes and self-conscious “cinematic” touches that made Preminger a movie buff favorite in the 1960s — the director’s personal style was always evident in his movies, something that seemed to matter more to cineastes a half-century ago than it does now. Preminger was not so good with actors who wouldn’t bend to his will, so the performances in his ’60s and ’70s epics don’t hold up and the “shocking” elements that got so much press back when the movies first came out now seem passe.
But, it cannot be denied that Preminger was a pivotal figure in bringing adult themes to Hollywood when it was still under the thumb of an industry-wide “production code” and susceptible to pressure from movie lobbying groups such as the Legion of Decency run by the American Catholic Church.
Preminger shook things up by releasing “The Moon is Blue” without a production code seal in 1953 — because the romantic comedy used such then verboten terms as “virgin” — and by dealing with drug addiction with unprecedented frankness in the 1955 “The Man with the Golden Arm.”
The director also fueled his legend by battling with stars such as Marilyn Monroe in the 1950s and Dyan Cannon on the set of “Such Good Friends” in 1971. Some famously contentious directors like William Wyler got great results from pushing his stars to the breaking point, but Preminger’s tactic rarely brought out the best in any actor.
It now seems a little lunatic for the filmmaker to hire the mediocre actor Tom Tryon to star in the 1963 epic “The Cardinal” and then treat the performer abominably on the set for his inadequacies. Preminger believed actors must do as they are told, so he became increasingly out of step with the new stars of the 1960s who wouldn’t sit back and take his abuse (Faye Dunaway on “Hurry Sundown” and Keir Dullea on “Bunny Lake is Missing” in 1965 both rebelled against Preminger’s dictatorial style and by 1970, none of the new stars of that decade would put up with his behavior).
Fujiwara does a masterful job of taking us through the making of each film and then giving us his critical assessment of what ended up on the screen. The author didn’t make me want to see “Hurry Sundown” again, but I enjoyed this thoughtful combination of biography and film criticism.
