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...

Otto Preminger (1905–1986), whose Hollywood career spanned the 1930s through the 1970s, is popularly remembered for the acclaimed films he directed, among which are the classic film noir Laura, the social-realist melodrama The Man with the Golden Arm, the CinemaScope musical Carmen Jones, and the riveting courtroom drama Anatomy of a Murder. As a screen actor, he forged an indelible impression as a sadistic Nazi in Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17 and a...

A biography of the celebrated and controversial Academy Award–nominated director."A major contribution to what we know about Preminger—substantially surpassing former efforts." — CineasteOtto Preminger was one of Hollywood's first truly independent producer/directors. He sought to address the major social, political, and historical questions of his time in films designed to appeal to a wide public. Blazing a trail ...

Film noir: the name comes from the French for “black” or “dark film.” It points to the central feature of the genre: mood. There is a darkness about film noir, a somberness accompanied by a thrill of dread and ever-present danger. This aura envelops wealthy heiresses, English aristocrats, tough-guy drifters, jazz musicians, drug dealers, and respected schoolteachers—all of whom have secrets to hide and much to lose if those secrets are unveiled.These four samples f...

Une fiche de référence sur Laura, un chef-d'oeuvre d'Otto Preminger.Laura (1944), histoire criminelle complexe réalisée plus tôt, appartient à une veine plus psychologisante de son œuvre. Otto Preminger déclarait alors : « Ce qui m'intéressait, c'était de révéler au travers de cette histoire située dans un milieu, disons décadent, l'impossibilité de cerner une femme et le mystère qui s'attache à elle. »Un ouvrage conçu par des spéc...

Breaking the Code reveals the efforts of director-producer Otto Preminger to bring his aesthetic vision to the screen even if it meant challenging the Production Code, a system of self-censorship that shaped the movies during the four decades it was in force. Along the way, Preminger sent shock waves through Hollywood and a network of exhibitors, publishers, and religious leaders who had personal, and even financial, stakes in the repression of artistic freedom.The process of tellin...

Film noir: the name comes from the French for “black” or “dark film.” It points to the central feature of the genre: mood. There is a darkness about film noir, a somberness accompanied by a thrill of dread and ever-present danger. This aura envelops wealthy heiresses, English aristocrats, tough-guy drifters, jazz musicians, drug dealers, and respected schoolteachers—all of whom have secrets to hide and much to lose if those secrets are unveiled.These four samples f...