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The first full-scale life of the controversial, greatly admired yet often underrated director/producer who was known as “Otto the Terrible.”
Nothing about Otto Preminger was small, trivial, or self-denying, from his privileged upbringing in Vienna as the son of an improbably successful Jewish lawyer to his work in film and theater in Europe and, later, in America.
His range as a director was remarkable: romantic comedies (The Moon Is Blue); musicals (Carmen Jones; Porgy and Bess); courtroom dramas (The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell; Anatomy of a Murder); adaptations of classic plays (Shaw's Saint Joan, screenplay by Graham Greene); political melodrama (Advise and Consent); war films (In Harm's Way); film noir (Laura; Angel Face; Bunny Lake Is Missing). He directed sweeping sagas (from The Cardinal and Exodus to Hurry Sundown) and small-scale pictures, adapting Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse with Arthur Laurents and Nelson Algren's The Man with the Golden Arm.
Foster Hirsch shows us Preminger battling studio head Darryl F. Zanuck; defying and undermining the Production Code of the Motion Picture Association of America and the Catholic Legion of Decency, first in 1953 by refusing to remove the words "virgin" and "pregnant" from the dialogue of The Moon Is Blue (he released the film without a Production Code Seal of Approval) and then, two yeras later, when he dared to make The Man with the Golden Arm, about the then-taboo subject of drug addiction. When he made Anatomy of a Murder in 1959, the censors objected to the use of the words "rape," "sperm," "sexual climax," and "penetration." Preminger made one concession (substituting "violation" for "penetration"); the picture was released with the seal, and marked the beginning of the end of the Code.
Hirsch writes about how Preminger was a master of the "invisible" studio-bred approach to filmmaking, the so-called classical Hollywood style (lengthy takes; deep focus; long shots of groups of characters rather than close-ups and reaction shots).
He shows us Preminger, in the 1950s, becoming the industry's leading employer of black performers—his all-black Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess remain landmarks in the history of racial representation on the American screen—and breaking another barrier by shooting a scene in a gay bar for Advise and Consent, a first in American film.
Hirsch tells how Preminger broke the Hollywood blacklist when, in 1960, he credited the screenplay of Exodus to Dalton Trumbo, the most renowed of the Hollywood Ten, and hired more blacklisted talent than anyone else.
We see Preminger's balanced style and steadfast belief in his actors' underacting set against his own hot-tempered personality, and finally we see this European-born director making his magnificent films about the American criminal justice system, Anatomy of a Murder, and about the American political system, Advise and Consent.
Foster Hirsch shows us the man—enraging and endearing—and his brilliant work.
- Sales Rank: #1665357 in Books
- Published on: 2007-10-16
- Released on: 2007-10-16
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.53" h x 1.52" w x 6.52" l, 2.02 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 592 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Meticulously researched with nearly 100 new interviews with family members and co-workers, this epic biography offers a multifaceted portrait of the Viennese-born filmmaker and reappraisal of his films. Preminger's creativity was fueled by abrasion, says Hirsch, so nearly every film boasts testimony from actors who were verbally abused. His explosive rows extended to censors, crew members and studio heads. But Hirsch also reveals the gentler side of Otto the Terrible, protecting fragile stars and doting on his family. With family, Otto was like a marshmallow, and capable of great love in a primal way, says Erik, his son with Gypsy Rose Lee. Film buffs will enjoy the candid looks behind his volatile productions (including Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Hurry Sundown). Historians will appreciate Preminger's belated recognition for breaking the blacklist (he credited Dalton Trumbo for writing Exodus nine months before Kirk Douglas did the same with Spartacus) and dismantling the oppressive censorship board (he released The Moon Is Blue and Man with the Golden Arm without the Production Code's seal of approval). This is a long-overdue critical biography of the temperamental titan with a genius for self-promotion. Photos. (Oct. 21)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Preminger (1905—1983) could not have asked for a more assiduous or generous biographer than Hirsch (Film/Brooklyn College; Kurt Weill on Stage: From Berlin to Broadway, 2002, etc.), who has visited the archives, studied the films, interviewed the principals, walked the ground and read all relevant documents. The result will endure as the definitive life of one of film's most intriguing and volcanic personalities....Executed with the conviction and meticulousness of a Preminger production.
–Kirkus Reviews (starred)
Meticulously researched with nearly 100 new interviews with family members and co-workers, this epic biography offers a multifaceted portrait of the Viennese-born filmmaker and reappraisal of his films...Film buffs will enjoy the candid looks behind his volatile productions (including Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Hurry Sundown). Historians will appreciate Preminger's belated recognition for breaking the blacklist....This is a long-overdue critical biography of the temperamental titan with a genius for self-promotion.
–Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Foster Hirsch is a professor of film at Brooklyn College and the author of sixteen books on film and theater, including The Dark Side of the Screen: Film Noir, A Method to Their Madness: The History of the Actors Studio, and Kurt Weill on Stage: From Berlin to Broadway. He lives in New York City.
Most helpful customer reviews
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
AN OUTSTANDING BIOGRAPHY OF AN OUTSTANDING IMPRESSARIO
By Laurence Jarvik
Foster Hirsch has done a masterful job putting together a study of the life and times of Otto Preminger--a "rebel with a cause," namely the expansion of individual freedom against forces opposed to it. He was a figure from a time when people were serious about arts and culture, and 'adult entertainment' did not mean xxxx-rated porno. A better producer than director of actors, that is Hirsch's main argument, but Preminger still gets points for being a masterful "Noir" auteur, as well as a decent director of social-issue films of the 50s and 60s. He broke censorship taboos, the blacklist, the color-line, and created an overtly pro-Israel classic in Exodus (though not pro-Israel enough for author Leon Uris), and dealt with the Alger Hiss case in Advise and Consent (also pulling punches, to the dismay of Alan Drury). But he made the type of films that, while familiar in the 1950s and 1960s--think of Stanley Kramer, Sam Spiegel, Elia Kazan, and so on--are all but gone today. Serious, thoughtful films, posing philosophical dilemmas in the middle of melodrama.
If Preminger's reach exceeded his grasp, Foster Hirsch makes the case that he deserves credit for trying. There's also material on Preminger's colorful personal life--his illegitimate son by stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, Dorothy Dandridge's abortion (Otto's fault per Hirsch), his temper tantrums (Dexedrine use may have been a factor), and his interesting relationship with his brother Ingo (talent agent and producer of Robert Altman's MASH) and his parents (father was former Attorney-General of Austria-Hungary). His final marriage, to Hope, seems to have worked out OK--his son became a doctor in New Jersey and his daughter a lawyer who manages the Preminger business today. His son by Gypsy Rose Lee was responsible for some of Preminger's more peculiar films, such as Skiddoo and Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon.
He directed Porgy & Bess, which was pulled from distribution, as well as Carmen Jones. Laura is his most enduring hit. But many others have withstood the test of time. Preminger's last film, The Human Factor, was written by Tom Stoppard. Foster Hirsch says it is worth another look--like many other Preminger productions.
If you are interested in movie history, America in the 1950s and 1960s, or Viennese refugees and their Kultur, this is the book.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Preminger deserves better.
By Nicholas J. Faust
Foster Hirsch has done his research and is an organized writer, but his portrait of Otto Preminger never rises above the level of chatty disclosures and sentiments that have been reiterated by others for the last fifty years. Otto the charming man and Otto the abusive director - this we know. Hirsch adds some detail to this story, but little else. The director's double sided reputation is never analyzed, never developed, or even discussed within the context of his independent producer/director position. This fact alone renders Hirsch's achievement slight. The early parts of the book, up through Preminger's years at Fox, hint at a man who's talent is matched by his confidence and vision. Once the groundwork has been set and we enter the truly interesting period of the director's career - as an maker of huge, independent films that in many ways match the studios and challenged the censors - Hirsch falls into the unfortunate formula of listing the a film, telling a little about its production and its critical reception, and that's pretty much it. He also reviews the films, showing time after time he just doesn't get Preminger's vision. I agree with Hirsch when he says that Preminger is a major twentieth century film artist, but that's about the only agreement I have with this book. Preminger deserves the kind of scrutiny that Hitchcock has been awarded; the conditions of his work and the reputation of his personality should be focused and discussed by someone who knows film, understands the industry, and can apply that knowledge to round out our understanding and appreciation of this important director. There is more to Otto than meets the eye. I'm waiting for someone to do the man and the director justice.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
A mean-spirited, feeble biography
By NY Film
Having been present at several film screenings in New York and New Jersey where Foster Hirsch has spoken during the last few years, he seemed like a scholarly and enthusiastic film historian, and so I decided to read this book. I'm not exactly of the opinion that Otto Preminger deserves a long, book-length study of his work (aside from Laura and Anatomy of a Murder, I've found most of his films to be mediocre, shallow, overblown, or a combination of all three, even when they've been entertaining), but Preminger's avid self-publicizing and his legendary bullying of the many actors he directed made me curious to read a serious bio of him. Boy, was I wrong.
In fairness to Hirsch, he does exhaustively chronicle all of Otto's bad behavior, yelling and tantrums. He doesn't offer anything approaching a critical estimation of why he was this way, but that's another matter. The problem is that Hirsch clearly idolizes or admires Preminger, and so there is no impartiality or objective analysis of either his films or his behavior (Every single Preminger film, even the unmitigated awful ones like Saint Joan and Skidoo, get some measure of flowery praise here).
Worse, the book is littered with mean, ad hominem insults directed at seemingly random people. Anne Baxter is "a phony both on-screen and off", Jose Ferrer is another "phony actor", Romy Schneider is "high-strung and arrogant" (Hirsch seems to relish mentioning that Schneider later committed suicide; this is his proof that she had issues). Frank Lloyd Wright is described as "a noted anti-semite" (This will come as news to the author of the recent, exhaustively researched book "Beth Sholom Synagogue: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern Religious Architecture", where Lloyd is described as having a "respectful attitude toward Judaism" throughout his life). These were all accomplished and well-liked people, and Hirsch doesn't even attempt to explain why he dismisses them so odiously. Their only offense was they were less than keen on Preminger, which apparently is a major sin to his number-one fan Foster Hirsch. I'm not even mentioning the numerous unpleasant character-assassinating comments from Preminger's widow (Hope) and former factotum (Martin Schute) directed towards the likes of Vera Caspary, Tom Tryon, Dyan Cannon, Kim Cattrall, Ira Levin, Paulette Goddard and (especially)Faye Dunaway that are liberally sprinkled throughout. Although these opinions aren't Hirsch's, they are referenced (particularly Hope) very frequently, and they simply work to add to Hirsch's cattiness to make the book seem more gossipy than anything else.
I was genuinely surprised at the unpleasant tone of this book, and surprised it received good notices. Show-biz biographies of quality are rare, and unfortunately this one falls squarely into the category of those written by either malicious gossips or admiring fans of the subject. Hirsch affects an avuncular, soft-spoken manner in talks and interviews, but his approach is neither scholarly, professorial or that of a legitimate biographer.
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