Preminger Biographed

Posted by Peter Smith

At the peak of his fame, Otto Preminger was one of the few directors of his day whose name was familiar to American moviegoers. Though he had made a couple of decent pictures in his day and even one enduring classic (the 1944 Laura), this had a lot less to do with the quality of his big, expensive, titillating epics (Exodus, Advise and Consent, The Cardinal, In Harm's Way) than it did his gift for self-publicity. Preminger, who played the commandant of a German P.O.W. camp in Billy Wilder's Stalag 17, wasn't above using his Austrian accent, bald head, and commanding personality to remind people of Erich von Stroheim, and he kept the public reminded of his existence by such stunts as getting himself cast as Mr. Freeze for a special guest villain gig on Batman. Foster Hirsch's new biography The Man Who Would Be King is intended sympathetically, but by now Preminger's name has been kept alive largely by all the stories about what a red-faced screaming pain he was to work with, and it may end up selling largely on the basis of its gossip about "Otto the Ogre"'s vile tirades and abuse of his casts and crews. Reviewing the book for the New York Times, Richard Schickel notes that "Someone once asked a much less famous director, Alexander Mackendrick, how to get an actor to do what you need him to do. 'You don't,' Mackendrick said. 'What you do is try to get the actor to want what you need.' This is the sort of seductiveness Preminger never managed." Of course, Mackendrick, who just wanted to make movies, not court gossip columnists, and who, as the director of Whisky Galore, The Man in the White Suit, and The Ladykillers, was pretty much lost adrift when Ealing Studios ceased production, still managed to direct the classic Sweet Smell of Success before giving it all up in disgust and spending his last years teaching at Cal Arts. So where's his biography? — Phil Nugent

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Posted Nov 21 2007, 04:00 PM

Filed under: phil nugent, new york times, advise and consent, the ladykillers, otto preminger, in harm's way, foster hirsch, whisky galore, the cardinal, the man in the white suit, stalag 17, alexander mackendrick, exodus, batman, laura, richard schickel, sweet smell of success

Comments

sean said:

just want to say, this blog is excellent. you are the opposite of pat graham's abysmal detritus over at the reader. thank you these fantastic posts.

November 21, 2007 5:05 PM