Preminger, Otto Ludwig b. December 5, 1906;Vienna,Austria d.April 23, 1986; New York City
Austrian-born U.S. film director, actor, and producer. Preminger grew up in a Viennese Jewish family. After receiving his PhD in law in 1926, he found his way as a stage actor to Max Reinhardt’s theater in Berlin.
He soon became an assistant and later stage director and teacher in theater arts. His first directing experience and the only film he made in Austria was a melodrama shot in Vienna, Die Groβe Liebe (1931), released the following year in the United States as The Great Love. In 1933 Preminger was named the head of the prestigious Josefstadt Theater, taking Max Reinhardt’s place.Preminger emigrated to the United States in 1935 to work as a stage director on Broadway, where he also appeared as an actor, even twice accepting the role of Nazi characters. In 1936 he accepted Twentieth Century Fox’s offer to work in Hollywood, either as a director, actor, or producer. His first important film (the fifth in his career) was Laura (1944), a “film noir” that soon became his classic.
Preminger’s style is remembered for its unusual, provocative themes: sex, abortion, drugs, and African American relations with whites. For instance, The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) was the first major Hollywood film to deal overtly with the theme of addiction to narcotics. While in Hollywood, Preminger teamed with Ernst Lubitsch for a story set in Russia, A Royal Scandal (1945); Preminger also finished Lubitsch’s last, unfinished project, That Lady in Ermine (1948). Shot in Quebec City, Canada, Preminger’s The 13th Letter (1951) was a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic thriller, Le Corbeau (1941). A funny Broadway play with racy dialogue, The Moon Is Blue (1953), became a scandal when Preminger adapted it for screen because it joked about female virginity. A German-language version directed by him was released the following year in Europe, Die Jungfrau auf dem Dach (1953). A versatile director, Preminger adapted to all genres: dramas; a Western with Marilyn Monroe, River of No Return (1954); and even musicals.
In a recognition of European and African heritage, the film Carmen Jones (1954) was an americanized version of the famous opera Carmen, created by French composer Georges Bizet, with new lyrics by
Oscar Hammerstein. For the first time in Hollywood, this film featured an all-black cast. A fine musical, Carmen Jones was a hit and featured African American actress Dorothy Dandridge (whose voice was dubbed by Marilyn Horne for the singing parts) and Harry Belafonte. Preminger’s best-remembered film from the fifties remains Anatomy of a Murder (1959), a courtroom drama involving rape.
Always interested in the Atlantic triangle, Preminger adapted George and Ira Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess (1959) for the cinema. Oddly, the film version was a failure, although it featured Dorothy Dandridge, Sidney Poitier, and Sammy Davis Jr. Faithful to his own roots, Preminger directed a flamboyant, epic three-and-a-half- hour film, Exodus (I960), telling the story of the Jewish people returning to Israel after 1947.
Preminger continued his career during the sixties and seventies. His Rosebud (1975) was about Middle Eastern terrorists taking hostages in New York City. His last film was The Human Factor (1979). As an actor, Preminger played various roles on Broadway and is best remembered for the German Colonel von Scherbach in Billy Wilder’s war film, Stalag 17 (1953).
Yves Laberge
See also Hammerstein, Oscar, I; Lubitsch, Ernst; Reinhardt, Max; Wilder, Billy
References and Further Reading
Bachler, Odile. Laura. Otto Preminger. Paris: Nathan, 1995.