Otto Preminger

[Fierias]

Could someone give me, someone who has never seen anything by Preminger, advice on what to see at the Cinematheque Ontario retro? Preferably harder-to-find films and must-sees-in-the-theatre rather than necessarily his 'better' or more famous films. I already have tickets to the following:

Advise and Consent
Bunny Lake is Missing
Laura
Anatomy Of A Murder
The Man With The Golden Arm

any help is appreciated.

[domino harvey]

Exodus was stuffed onto a non-anamorphic MGM disc, I would kill to see it in the theatre on the big screen. The 13th Letter has never been released on VHS or DVD, so it should be high on your list (It's one of only two Preminger titles in the retro I haven't seen, the other being Such Good Friends). Whirlpool and Angel Face are personal favorites, but readily available. I enjoyed the rarer Forever Amber and the Moon is Blue (you can read my thoughts on them a page back). Margin For Error is the only truly avoidable film in the retro. I think a lot of the board is quite taken with Bonjour Tristesse as well, though it ranks somewhere in a lower tier for me.

[justeleblanc]

As for Exodus, I'm crossing my fingers for an MGM set of new transfers of all five of their Preminger films: The Moon is Blue, Saint Joan, Exodus, Rosebud, and The Human Factor.

[reno dakota]

For those who have access to TCM, you can catch these Preminger films in the next few months (perhaps helping you decide what to see at the retrospective):

Anatomy of a Murder: May 20 at 6:30am / Jun. 23 at 3:15pm
Angel Face: Jun. 23 at 11:30am
Bonjour Tristesse: Jun. 23 at 6:00am / Jul. 11 at 11:30pm
Bunny Lake is Missing: Jun. 23 6:00pm / Jul. 23 at 6:00pm
Carmen Jones: Jul. 02 at 3:45pm / Jul. 18 at 10:15pm
Exodus: Jun. 23 at 8:00am
A Royal Scandal: Jun. 23 at 1:15pm / Jul. 08 at 8:00pm

[jojo]

Lineup here-- Why anyone wouldn't be circling the rarer films on their calendar before readily available ones is a mystery to me

In theory I pretty much agree with you, although I have an uncontrollable predilection for singling out widescreen/scope films for big screen viewing, regardless of whether they are rare or not. I can't help it!

[Gregory]

Fierias, I adore all the ones you've chosen so far except for Man With the Golden Arm, which to me is a decidedly minor work. Additionally, I would -love- to have the chance to see Angel Face, Bonjour Tristesse, In Harm's Way, Daisy Kenyon, and Whirlpool on film (but if forced to choose among these to see in the theater, I'd probably go with the first two). If you're deciding based on DVD availability, of course, the choice is very straightforward. Like domino, I haven't seen 13th Letter or Such Good Friends.

[Vic Pardo]

Could someone give me, someone who has never seen anything by Preminger, advice on what to see at the Cinematheque Ontario retro? Preferably harder-to-find films and must-sees-in-the-theatre rather than necessarily his 'better' or more famous films. I already have tickets to the following:

Advise and Consent
Bunny Lake is Missing
Laura
Anatomy Of A Murder
The Man With The Golden Arm

any help is appreciated.

Good list, but I would add WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, easily one of his best films, a gritty New York cop thriller, and FOREVER AMBER, a big-budget Technicolor costume picture based on a famously sexy novel that everyone said could never be filmed, but Fox managed to do it anyway. Not a great movie, but a fascinating one, like so many studio-era Hollywood movies with troubled histories.

[domino harvey]

Depending on whether Fox struck a new print, Forever Amber's hyper-lush Technicolor would probably look gorgeous on the big screen.

[jojo]

I missed Anatomy of a Murder. Just curious--if anyone here went to catch the screening in Toronto last Sunday, can anyone comment on the aspect ratio? Was the print shown widescreen (approximate ratios) 2.35:1, 1.85:1, or 1.33:1? It's been a long running controversy around the web.

[Fierias]

I missed Anatomy of a Murder. Just curious--if anyone here went to catch the screening in Toronto last Sunday, can anyone comment on the aspect ratio? Was the print shown widescreen (approximate ratios) 2.35:1, 1.85:1, or 1.33:1? It's been a long running controversy around the web.

it was 1.85:1

[domino harvey]

Can I get a mod to kindly update the first post with the following information:

Margin For Error (BFI R2)
A Royal Scandal (BFI R2)
Daisy Kenyon (Fox R1)
The Fan (BFI R2)
the Moon is Blue (Warners Archive R1)
the Man With the Golden Arm (Warners R1)
The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (Needs a disclaimer about not being in the original aspect ratio)

[doghouse reilly]

Something I found interesting in the Bunny Lake trailer is how prominent The Zombies are featured. All the performance footage seen in the film is in the trailer and I believe Preminger even implicates them as possible suspects in the disappearance. So when I finally saw the film, I was a little surprised at how meager and pointless their role was.

A few months later, I caught Advise and Consent (weak) on Turner and a similar thing is done with Sinatra. His music is in the trailer and his name is in the opening credits, but his entire involvement in the film consists of a song played over the silly gay club scene. I think it was that same sort of hey-look-who's-in-my-movie exhibitionism that led Preminger to offer a role to Martin Luther King, Jr.

I don't know what point I'm trying to make, other than I wish The Zombies had abducted Bunny Lake.

[domino harvey]

It's a great day in America, as I just got ahold of four rare Preminger titles, plugging quite a few of my gaps.

First up is the surprising In the Meantime, Darling, a minor little film which certainly exceeded low expectations. Preminger starts off the picture like a (not particularly funny) homefront comedy before taking a left turn into its gradual theme: the ineffectual humbling of a college educated woman by other army wives. Preminger's film, while never undermining the military, more or less refuses to change Jeanne Crain's selfishness any more than just enough to squeak the film past the studio. The whole film is spent waiting for a comeuppance that really never comes-- even though the narrative is constructed under the assumption that it does! The film stands proudly the Affairs of Dobie Gillis as some of the best, most unapologetic paeans to selfishness ever filmed. Couple all this with Eugene Pallette's easily-flummoxed businessman father and the absurdly attractive Gail Robbins bedding down with Stanley Prager's Kevin James-prototype and this whole thing went down real nice.

It's really too bad Preminger fired Pallette midshoot for being a racist Nazi sympathizer, because his amusing part is relegated to more or less a cameo-- though he still got off at least one classic Pallette moment: After a soldier falls asleep on his shoulder and angrily decries being awoken by the large man, Pallette incredulously replies:


"WAR-- The great leveler!"

[souvenir]

I don't think anyone's mentioned (and domino didn't have it in his updates list) that Rosebud was released in the UK by Optimum earlier this year. DVD Times reviewed it.

[domino harvey]

I havent watched this yet but indeed Chris Fujiwara thinks a lot of it too in his excellent Preminger book. I assume you've read this? If not you must.

I've actually been putting it off until I can polish off as much of my unseen Premingers as possible. And subsequently, my only regret as I work my way deeper and deeper into Preminger's works is that I will have fewer and fewer opportunities to see his films for the first time.

And I moved one step closer to the end today with Preminger's first musical, 1946's Centennial Summer. The film outwardly appears to dabble in Meet Me in St. Louis-type nostalgia for a bit before Preminger pulls the rug out in the last third. That's when the bawdy jokes (!) and the comedy tag team of Cornell Wilde (as a Frenchman!) and Walter Brennan take over and the film steamrolls to an immensely satisfying finish. For a musical, Preminger is rarely interested in his numbers, and in fact seems to shove them along as quickly as possible, despite having some very catchy tunes at his disposal. But undoubtedly the finest moment comes with the completely superfluous, showstopping "Cinderella Sue" number, performed by Avon Long and backed by an all-black cast of dancing ragamuffins. The number's interjection, in the midst of the film's most dramatic moments, is jarring in its total spontaneity and lack of connection to anything else in the film-- and it works completely.

Though there's a somewhat wayward quality to the middle of the film, it does open strong with another of Preminger's intense long takes, and this one's clever to boot. A lengthy crane shot of Pres. Hayes speaking to a crowd of hundreds in 1876 Philadelphia moves from his place on the podium out into the furthest reaches of the massive crowd. The reverse shot then picks up Brennan crying out for the President to speak up so he can hear him. The camera stays with Brennan as he picks a fight and, in what I'm sure amused Preminger to no end, pejoratively accuses his sparring partner of being a Republican! The camera then follows Brennan as he drags his family through the thick crowd and this is how Preminger introduces his two starlets, Darnell and Crain: By shoving them through a throng of people with only a brief glimpse allotted for the audience. And then the scene ends, with no coverage and no introductory close-ups. Total genius.

[domino harvey]

And now, with That Lady in Ermine, comes the other side of the coin. I was (and am) one of the few defenders of the other Preminger-rescued Lubitsch project, A Royal Scandal, but I have nothing good to say about this total disaster. I'm not sure the surprisingly lifeless Samson Raphaelson script could have been salvaged by Lubitsch at the throne, but Preminger is less interested in making his own movie from someone else's material (as he was in the previous project) than sort of guessing what Lubitsch might have done and poorly treating the final product with a reverence it doesn't deserve. As a result the film feels like nothing at all. For a comedy, there's really no jokes and the dialog is banal save one good line, which I will repeat in a spoiler so that no one will ever have to waste an hour and a half on this pic, should it ever reach a wider release:

SpoilerShow

Betty Grable: "Oh I don't care if you shoot him, or shoot yourself, or slightly injure me!"

[reno dakota]

I was (and am) one of the few defenders of the other Preminger-rescued Lubitsch project, A Royal Scandal

I loved every moment of this one, and can't remember when I've laughed as much at such clever word-play, so it surprises me to hear that it has few defenders. Is it possible that it just has few viewers?

[igorarbizu]

Which is the aspect ratio of the human Factor ? Anyone can confirm that is 2.35?
I don't find much info about it on the web, I've just bought the dvd edition that comes in 1.33 and I'm afraid it's useless if that's not the original format.

[igorarbizu]

Yes it should be Scope

The current Oz TV print is happily in that OAR.

So, does it mean I can get the theatrical format zooming to widescreen?
I¡m not an expert but my understanding is that a matte instead of anamorphic process was used to film and the 1.33 version was printed opening the matte.
is that right?

[Perkins Cobb]

David, are you sure it's Scope and not 1.85? Rosebud is definitely 2.35, but I saw The Human Factor letterboxed on TCM years ago and don't remember it being that wide. Plus my Maltin guide does not list it a widescreen process as it typically does for Scope films. I have the Fujiwara book at home and will consult it tonight.

[domino harvey]

Caught up with a couple more Premingers this weekend:

First was Danger-- Love at Work, one of Fox's entries into the Screwball Comedy lotto of the 30s. It's hard to say much about it from an auteurist standpoint, as it has little in common with Preminger's work from the 40s on, though one good extended take gag involving a train does seem to prophesy his later affinity. The film has a solid consistency of forced eccentricity, though most of the actors are quite good (particularly John Carradine as a tortured artist) save the insufferable Jack Haley as the eyelash-curled male lead. Edward Everett Horton has fun as something of an aggressor (!). The film's biggest sin is probably falling somewhere between My Man Godfrey and You Can't Take It With You, both in quality and chronology. As I write this I'm humming the catchy titular song, which I suspect will be the only thing I really take away from the film in future recollection.

Slightly more in character but still not particularly a high note was Rosebud, Preminger's trip back to the well of Israel-Palestinian conflict that served him so well in Exodus. Working on a smaller landscape but still tackling pretty huge concepts like Black September and the actions of the PLA, the film makes a nice bookend to the earlier epic. The film works best when it reveals the layers of intrigue and deception inherent in so much of the terroristic mechanics, but the need for a Hollywood finish makes Attenborough's trap at the end like something from another movie. The film doesn't pretend to play it impartial and certainly those who disagree with its message will find little to suffer, but Preminger does seem bemused by the wheel-spinning on either side, with the last scene in particular being one of his more pronounced thumbed noses to the audience. O'Toole plays a cipher among many, second-billed Richard Attenborough has maybe three minutes of screentime, and apparently Peter Lawford was in this one too but damned if I recognized him. Rosebud is ultimately a minor, enjoyable film that nonetheless lacks the keen eye and vitality of Preminger's best work.

[Perkins Cobb]

So I was *cough, cough* correct above.

I like The Human Factor a lot. It's such an anti-thriller, in the deadness of Preminger's mise-en-scene and the lethargy of Nicol Williamson's very non-movie star turn, that it's of a piece with the revisionist genre movement of the 70s. Not a bad one for Preminger to go out on given the tone-deaf, out-of-touch quality of a lot of his films from the preceding two decades.

[domino harvey]

David, I haven't seen Human Condition yet, but could you elaborate on why you found In the Meantime, Darling to be Preminger's worst film? I thought it was kinda subversive fun myself

[domino harvey]

Didn't he disown every film he made before Laura? I wonder if he had a cut-off for his later films as well

[Svevan]

Is the Region 2 version of Bonjour Tristesse identical to the Region 1, other than PAL speedup?