OTTO PREMINGER, S / D

He's quite the antihero in DK.

I wanna read that Geoffrey O'Brien thing about him (or is it Luc Sante)

thing? about Dana Andrews?

Yeah. It's in OK You Mugs. I think C0L!n said that was the best or only thing worth reading in there.

i've been seeing that book remaindered pretty much since it came out, and every so often i'll look in the contents to see if i recognize any of the contributors' name now. i *never ever do*. subtitling it 'writers on actors' was kind of oxymoronic.

Geoffrey O'Brien, Luc Sante, Manny Farber, John Updike? Never heard of 'em

Actually I remembered that I had already read that Dana Andrews piece in Castaways On The Image Planet.

are they rly in it? obviously farber and updike i know. heard of sante.

Table Of Contents
ILX favorites Frank Kogan and Greil Marcus too.

oh klawans too huh.

Fun fact: Godard seeked out Jean Seberg to be in Breathless after seeing Saint Joan (I've only seen Bonjour Tristesse).

Carmen Jones, yes. Amazing it was made when it was.

I really love Bunny Lake is Missing. Although it's harder to watch after the spoilers of a first viewing.

Saw Bonjour Tristesse. What an odd little film. Preminger rather slyly doesn't shy away from the sexual tension between sticky-wicket Niven and Seberg. She's awkward when bantering or acting most adolescent, but she and Kerr (who's really superb and looks great in Preminger's extended great) have great chemistry.

I love the MoMA film audience. It's always like 20% Jewish 75+ psychoanalysts.

has "great" gone viral in Alfred's last line?

Its oddness is inseparable from its greatness. I wonder if Eric remembers it?

Also when I see things at MoMA someone usually starts talking to me without prompt, which I like.

whoops typo.

Carmen Jones, yes. Amazing it was made when it was.

Why? It's a beautiful film, but it's also a segregationist document in its own way.

Preminger was bold, but he was also careful and canny. He wouldn't have stepped over any boundaries if he thought there would be real repercussions.

I think he's one of the greatest Hollywood directors mind.

I've got Where The Sidewalk Ends arriving tomorrow.

I wonder if Eric remembers it?
Film criticism is the art of pretend forgetfulness.

I remember the movie, just not writing about it. No way in hell am I gonna read that piece now.

A bunch of the earliest essays I wrote for Slant's 100 are painfully earnest, I bet. The ones on trashy movies are probably a lot better.

Resaw Advise and Consent a few weeks ago: the first 90 minutes are just wonderful...then the hamhanded homo drama kicks in.

How would you prefer Kennedy-era studio films dealt with homosexuality?

With less handwringing and a better actor than Don Murray. I don't mind the gay bar scene.

Not bad, for a 23-second scene.

what'd you think of the movie overall?

Morbs could link you to my Slant review, I'm too lazy.

I think the way Preminger films the Senate chambers is as precise and fantastic as, I dunno, Bresson at his best.

Another thing I remember liking is that its purportedly central concern (i.e. Leffingwell) ends up repeatedly pushed to the back in favor of more prurient distractions. In other words, it IS politics.

apparently the Laughton character discovers Murray's body in the novel.

(I've read you being earnest without the pain, EH.)

It's certainly not as preachy a political drama as, say, Serling / Frankenheimer's Seven Days In May (which I remember liking). And it's a marvel of sophistication next to Charlie Wilson's War.

Alas, Patricia Neal is unable to intro In Harm's Way tomw night at Film Forum as planned. I will probably library-DVD it.

I never managed to make it this far into Skidoo:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xg463_skidoo-theme-song-carol-channing

(I've read you being earnest without the pain, EH.)

Yeah, I get good and weepy about John Waters.

oh, you!

Carol Channing is actually the only joyful element of Skidoo. In spite of her hard-to-watch strip scene.

Carol Channing is usually the only joyful element in anything she's in.

except Thoroughly Modern Millie.

I have avoided C.C. in most everything except her weekly appearances on PBS specials over the last 35 years singing "Diamonds" or "Hello Dolly!"

Her performance of "Diamonds" on "The Muppet Show" = best evah.

more preminger movies need to come out on dvd

Daisy Kenyon in a couple months.

Denby on Preminger. I haven't finished it.

Oy, Denby:

Preminger was perhaps too refined and modulated in his sophistication to achieve more than occasional greatness as a director. He doesn’t compare, for instance, with his fellow-émigrés Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder. It’s hard to think of a heartbreaking or truly exhilarating moment in his work. Yet, at his best, he raised civil discourse to the level of subtle entertainment: one can get caught up in the intricately choreographed give-and-take of “Advise and Consent” without caring whether the nominee gets confirmed or not

If AAC was just one of many "subtle entertainments," then isn't Preminger a great director?

I think "at his best" suggests there weren't "many." I don't know that O.P. has more than two great films.

Depends how academic we get: Laura, Fallen Angel, Anatomy of a Murder, maybe Advise & Consent as a near-great.

I've got The Cardinal in my queue.

"Can technical skill and craft, combined with worldliness and urbanity, and presented in a distinct style, rise to the level of art?"

UGH!!!!!!

I'm not yet a Hawks convert, but that argument is total idiocy

http://theband.hiof.no/band_pictures/levon_and_the_hawks_1964.html

aargh
http://theband.hiof.no/band_pictures/levon_and_the_hawks_1964.gif

I was this close to going to see Saint Joan last night but didn't make it and now I am regretting it.

i went to the screening of bunny lake w/ keir dullea. he did a funny impression of otto preminger (and confirmed once more that the man was a complete monster)

:o

A friend wd've gone if Carol Lynley had been there. He was scared shitless by Bunny as a kid.

i think denby is pretty much on the money, and i don't usually.

I was put off by that bloodlessness in the first half to 2/3 of the film, but I appreciated it by the emotional payoff at the end -- most lives destroyed by international spycraft/tradecraft are destroyed without firing a shot.

I liked The Human Factor just fine, although if I hadn't known who directed it I'd assume it was, I dunno, Ronald Neame or something. Robert Morley is as amusing as ever.

I thought in the strip-club scene that he was being poisoned, from the way his eyes were bulging.

Laura is so batshit lol. I love it. When Laura's beloved maid Bessie goes into (deserved!) hysterics after realizing she's alive, Laura says, "It's okay, Bessie, go make us eggs." *walks regally out of kitchen*

Happy birthday!

I watched two Premingers this year. Was a little disappointed in Laura, but liked Bunny Lake Is Missing a lot.

I told my Laura-related Morbius story at his memorial.

Which can found here, mostly:

The Rouben Mamoulian Poll

Scroll back one for the set-up from Alfred if you need to.

i just watched Fallen Angel last night. A pretty fine noir, and a pretty interesting story. Dana Andrews' conman character is almost on the outside looking in while the grimmer noir story runs parallel to his less-than-savory con angle. it's a pretty unpredictable story, with a bit more heart and less doom than another similar story might possess. Andrews is vv good, Alice Faye is solid as the good girl, Linda Darnell is phenomenal as the supposed femme fatale, who is really more a lonely, sad, and tragic figure who's used and ogled and cast aside by men.

Like most Linda Darnell roles.

Mistakenly thought Jane Darwell

intrigued to check out Forever Amber while it's still on the criterion channel

That’s kind of a sleeper. Remember some good stuff was in it, especially George Sanders and the dogs, haven’t seen it in ages.

Mistakenly thought Jane Darwell

Trying to fight off Rudy Vallee and Howard Hughes, just to name two.

I saw this when I was about 8 (no, not when it first came out), so I'd love to see it again

― Tom D., Tuesday, 15 January 2008 16:46 (seventeen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

... Skidoo, that is. I tried watching it last week. It's absolutely abysmal. You might think a film where Jackie Gleason goes on an acid trip, Groucho Marx plays a gangster called God and Carol Channing does a striptease would be worth watching - apart from Carol Channing doing a striptease that is - but it's not. Absolutely not. I had trouble staying awake.

The Nilsson songs are sweet though.

Just watched Bunny Lake for the first time, wow what a strange movie! Someone upthread says solid until the reveal, which I guess is my take too. But what I really like about this movie is that it's at a sort of hinge point for British cinema, marrying up the kind of stiff upper lip stuff from the 40s and 50s (personified by Olivier here, and also a wickedly perverse Noel Coward) and 60s swinging London (personified by the Zombies, that are on a TV in an old-school boozer in one scene, and on a radio in another scene). Some great scenes of mid-60s London, particularly one bit in Soho.

The little girl who plays Bunny Lake, Suky Appleby, appeared in only one other movie, a Sharon Tate film (!), and there's absolutely nothing else about her on the internet and whatever happened to her - which is quite an achievement in this day and age...

Or if Dame Judith Anderson had been on _Batman_ instead of _Star Trek_.

I'm reading Foster Hirsch's fine biography.

I saw him speak once and wasn't too impressed but might still read his books.