Last week I attended my first film festival outside the U.S.—the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) in the Czech Republic. Classic movie lovers will be pleased to know that the KVIFF paid tribute to Hollywood director Otto Preminger by including seven of his best films in addition to Valerie Robins’s 1991 documentary, Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker.
THIS DOC IS AS AN EXTRA ON THE DVD OF ‘THE CARDINAL.’
Poor Otto is not appreciated or recognized on the same level as other European-born directors who worked in Hollywood, including Billy Wilder, Frtiz Lang, or even Edgar Ulmer. Preminger is rarely discussed in my film history texts; if he is, it is because he challenged the Production Code during the 1950s by daring to release his films without the all-important Code Seal. Because these films became hits at the box office, the Production Code Administration (PCA) decided to re-think their guidelines on controversial topics. But, Robins’s documentary made me realize there was more to the content of Preminger’s films than flaunting the Code.
During the 1950s, when middle-class America had grown fat and soft on postwar prosperity, tensions and abrasions were festering beneath the surface of society. Preminger consistently brought these issues to the forefront in his entertaining genre films or star-driven dramas, which can reveal and criticize America’s sore points without overtly preaching. In the films shown at Karlovy Vary, Preminger addressed corrupt politics and homophobia (Advise and Consent), the judicial system (Anatomy of a Murder), the Arab-Israeli conflict (Exodus), drug addiction (The Man with the Golden Arm), and unwed mothers (The Moon Is Blue). The documentary listed other controversial topics he took on during the 1950s and 1960s, including racism (Carmen Jones; Hurry Sundown) and the corruption of religion as an institution (The Cardinal; Saint Joan). At a time when viewers expected movies to support the status quo and America’s social institutions, Preminger consistently exposed, revealed, and criticized—like a nagging conscience that reminds us we can do better.
IN ‘PREMINGER,’ GRAPHIC DESIGNER SAUL BASS IS INTERVIEWED ABOUT HIS TITLE DESIGNS FOR OP’s FILMS.
WILLIAM HOLDEN, MAGGIE McNAMARA, AND DAVID NIVEN IN ‘THE MOON IS BLUE,’ OP’s FIRST FILM AS AN INDEPENDENT.
Preminger was able to take on these topics because he became one of the first independent producers during the fallout from the antitrust decree. In 1948, the Supreme Court forced the major studios to divest themselves of exhibition outlets and to alter distribution practices, creating cash flow problems. The big studios scrambled for ways to cut costs. Studio moguls were suddenly keen to make deals with stars, directors, and other talent to reduce the length and costs of long-term contracts. Eager for creative freedom, Preminger took advantage of the situation to negotiate a new contract. Joseph Schenck had signed Otto to 20th Century Fox in 1934, but the young director frequently clashed with production chief Darryl F. Zanuck. Preminger referred to his time as a studio director as “life in the sausage factory.” His new contract allowed him six months a year to pursue his own projects, which at first included directing plays in New York, including The Moon Is Blue. He was required to deliver only one studio-based film per year at Zanuck’s behest.
PREMINGER PREFERRED A MOBILE CAMERA TO DEPICT SCENES. IN ‘GOLDEN ARM,’ THE CAMERA TRACKS WITH KIM NOVAK FROM THE CLUB IN THE BACKGROUND TO HER APARTMENT BUILDING BEFORE MOVING THROUGH A WINDOW TO PICK UP THE INTERIOR ACTION.
In 1952, after fulfilling his studio obligation with Angel Face, which airs on TCM on August 30, Preminger directed a film version of The Moon Is Blue. Movie lovers know this comedy of manners as the first in a series of high-profile battles between the director and the Code office. Preminger retained certain words from the stage production for the film that ran afoul of the Code, including “pregnant” and “virgin.” Stories that make the Code seem ridiculous are always entertaining, but they sometimes detract from other, more significant factors. The Moon Is Blue was also Preminger’s first effort as an independent producer, which meant that he had the autonomy to make all of the creative decisions, a power not afforded producers and directors since the silent era. As Karel Och, the artistic director of the KVIFF, noted in the festival catalogue, Preminger had the creative control that resulted in “a series of progressive decisions and positions that led him to broach a number of taboo themes, thereby significantly influencing the development of the American film industry.”
PREMINGER WAS KNOWN TO PICK A WHIPPING BOY ON EACH FILM AND BROWBEAT HIM/HER IN FRONT OF EVERYONE. ON ‘THE CARDINAL,’ IT WAS TOM TRYON; ON ‘HURRY SUNDOWN,’ IT WAS FAYE DUNAWAY.
Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker is 25 years old, meaning most of the stars interviewed—Vincent Price, Jimmy Stewart, George C. Scott, Patricia Neal, Sinatra—died long ago. Listening to them reminisce, recall, and ruminate on their experiences reminded me that today’s youthful stars who populate the summer blockbusters pale in comparison. Whether it was Price explaining Preminger’s direction of theatrical legend Laurette Taylor or Sinatra recalling his chilling experiences at a mental hospital watching a real-life junkie go cold turkey, they had a gravitas and charisma that comes with maturity and life experience.
BASS’S TITLE DESIGN FOR ‘ANATOMY OF A MURDER’
One of Preminger’s strengths was his casting, which he had control over because he was his own producer. He often used charismatic movie stars to anchor the narrative and stage-trained actors for the supporting roles. For example, in Anatomy of a Murder, he cast beloved Jimmy Stewart with his moral, everyman image to play a small-town defense attorney who takes on a controversial rape case. Newcomers George C. Scott, Lee Remick, and Ben Gazzara played unsympathetic characters who served as foils at different points in the story. Preminger had trained as a lawyer, and he was drawn to the material, which examined and exposed the judicial system. However, a specific bit of casting turned out to be his most pointed piece of social criticism. According to the KVIFF catalogue, onetime U.S. Army special counsel Joseph N. Welch played the judge in the trial. If you don’t recognize the name, you will recognize his words. In 1954, during a hearing, he put Joseph McCarthy in his place with this rhetorical question: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” Considering Preminger would later hire blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo to adapt Exodus, insisting that he be credited under his real name, the casting of Welch seems an expression of contempt by the director for Hollywood’s role in the McCarthy era.
PREMINGER HAD GREAT INSTINCTS FOR CASTING. WALSH, STEWART, AND SCOTT IN ‘ANATOMY OF A MURDER.’
OTTO HAMS IT UP AS MR. FREEZE.
I couldn’t help but wonder why Preminger was selected as the subject for a tribute and why young European movie lovers eagerly attended the screenings. Artistic director Och offered a clue to the first question in the festival catalogue. He listed Preminger as part of a contingent of European directors from the 1920s-1930s who “fundamentally influenced the character of local [Hollywood] film production.” It is typical to think of classic movies from the Golden Age as quintessentially American, but dozens of European directors had integrated into the studio system, leaving their mark on certain genres and specific visual techniques.
As for the audiences’ interest in Preminger, I don’t really have an answer. But, something I overheard after the screening of Preminger: Anatomy of a Filmmaker may be a clue. As I was walking behind a young couple down the cobblestone street, I could hear them talking in Czech. Of course, I couldn’t make out a word they were saying—except for “Mr. Freeze” and “Batman,” a reference to Preminger’s guest stint as an arch-villain on the old Batman TV series. The couple laughed as they strolled away, singing the series’ iconic theme song.