“THE QUINTESSENTIAL MAVERICK. OTTO PREMINGER BELONGS TO FILM HISTORY. The fact remains that Preminger’s is a body of work that holds up to most any in American film… He’s first and foremost an apotheosis of cinematic style.”
– Nick Pinkerton, The Village Voice. Click here to read feature

“The big O gets a well-deserved retro!” –Time Out New York

“Otto Preminger is still the most maligned, misjudged, misunderstood and misperceived American filmmaker. His films have stood up better stylistically, thematically and subtextually than I ever imagined they would.”
– Andrew Sarris

“Preminger’s camera almost never stops moving — propelled along tracks or flown from a crane — as he encircles his characters, examining them and the stories that contain them from every available point of view… an impeccable sense of mise-en-scène through which he expressed himself most eloquently.”
– Dave Kehr, The New York Times. Click here to read feature

“A bounty of nuanced rhythms, cultivated dialogue, and gracefully gliding cameras —
not to mention a sophisticated moral dimension that eschews easy definitions of good and evil.”
– Steve Dollar, The New York Sun

“AN UNIMPEACHABLY CURATED RETROSPECTIVE. Film Forum’s program testifies to the little-acknowledged diversity of Preminger's Fox résumé, with rarely screened one-offs that include a Joan Crawford melodrama (Daisy Kenyon), a Restoration period piece (Forever Amber), and an Oscar Wilde adaptation (The Fan).”
– Nick Pinkerton, The Village Voice

“Audiences can expect to revel in several movies that both exemplify classical Hollywood craftsmanship and stubbornly subvert happy endings and easy interpretation.”
– Tom Beer, Time Out New York

“Watching the nearly two dozen Preminger films on display at Film Forum will be like taking a post-graduate course in the subtleties of filmmaking, as taught by an unsung master.”
– George Robinson, The Jewish Week. Click here to read feature

“Equally essential to the Preminger aesthetic was his collaboration with New York designer Saul Bass, whom the filmmaker introduced to the cinema. Bass’s indelible, logo-like title sequences and posters—the jagged Golden Arm, the geometrically vivisected Anatomy of a Murder figure—which he made for nearly every Preminger production from the mid-’50s on, lent the films an air of signature modernity as inextricable from the texts as Alvin Lustig’s covers for New Directions paperbacks.”
– Nick Pinkerton, The Village Voice

Beyond his colorfully accented public persona, through appearances as Stroheim-like Nazis, Batman’s Mr. Freeze, and himself, Jewish Viennese expatriate Otto Preminger (1905-1986) was Hollywood’s first truly independent producer/ director, breaking the censorship of the MPAA Production Code, the Legion of Decency and the blacklist. With the objectivity of his close-up-less long take camera, Preminger examined issues as daring and different as drug addiction, virginity, homosexuality, and Washington corruption, but in his long career also created some of Hollywood’s most enduring Noirs and the undeniably entertaining pop classics of his later years.

OTTO PREMINGER: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, Foster Hirsch’s new biography of the director, is published by Alfred A. Knopf. For sale at our concession during the run of the series.

PREMINGER AT POSTERITATI
To coincide with the Film Forum series, an exhibition of Preminger film posters, spotlighting the innovative graphics of Saul Bass, will run at Posteritati (239 Centre Street; 212- 226-2207), January 2-31.

SPECIAL THANKS TO FOSTER HIRSCH; SCHAWN BELSTON, CAITLIN ROBERTSON (20TH CENTURY FOX); VICKY WILSON (KNOPF); SUZANNE LEROY, GROVER CRISP (SONY PICTURES); MIKE POGORZELSKI, BRIAN MEACHAM (ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURE ARTS & SCIENCES); MELANIE VALERA, BARRY ALLEN (PARAMOUNT); ROSS KLEIN (MGM); MARILEE WOMACK (WARNER BROS.); MARTIN SCORSESE, MARK MCELHATTEN (SIKELIA PRODUCTIONS); HOPE AND VICKY PREMINGER.

Available at Amazon:

OTTO PREMINGER: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
by Foster Hirsch

JANUARY 2/3 WED/THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

LAURA

(1944) “I shall never forget the weekend Laura died.” Clifton Webb’s elitist critic Waldo Lydecker acidly narrates, as detective Dana Andrews, on the brink of necrophilia, falls in love with portrait of murdered Manhattan smart-setter Gene Tierney, in the classic romantic Noir.
2:55, 6:30, 10:05

“One of the most perverse noirs of the ‘40s; not many directors of the time were daring enough to hint at necrophilia, but Otto was da man.”
– Time Out New York

“Ripe with perverse sexual undertones.” – Foster Hirsch

“Introduced a gallery of perverse types, as well as the most hauntingly romantic theme of the decade.” – J. Hoberman

“Preminger’s Citizen Kane.” – Andrew Sarris

DAISY KENYON

(1947) Eternal triangle time: designer Joan Crawford messes up two marriages as only she can, with super-laid-back ex- Sergeant Henry Fonda waiting out her tormented affair with married Dana Andrews.
1:00, 4:35, 8:10

“A fearsome pitch of emotional conflict and psychic crisis. Rarely have love and madness seemed so fruitfully allied.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“Long dismissed as another 'women’s picture’, Daisy Kenyon now plays as a bristling mass of ambiguity.”
– Dave Kehr, The New York Times

“Preminger transforms a routine melodrama into a probing study of postwar sexual politics.”
– American Film Institute

“The camera style is implacably objective, observant of such detail, that even Crawford is made touching.”
– David Shipman

“A stately soap opera with some of the ambience of a Film Noir.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum

“Preminger and his first-rate cinematographer (Leon Shamroy) give the romantic melodrama a moody Film Noir undertow.”
– Hirsch

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JANUARY 4/5 FRI/SAT

“Both filmed in crisp black-and-white with terrific ensemble casts and Preminger’s skillful mise-en-scène,
long takes and ultrasmooth tracking shots.”
– Tom Beer, Time Out New York

ANATOMY OF A MURDER

(1959) Courtroom drama at its peak, with both emotional pyrotechnics and nervous comedy relief, as smalltown ex-Prosecutor James Stewart (in a subtly ambiguous performance) defends Ben Gazzara for the murder of wife Lee Remick’s rapist — with lace-trimmed panties the key. With George C. Scott (in his first major role) as the prosecutor, McCarthy silencer Joseph N. Welch as the judge, Eve Arden as Stewart’s knowing gal Friday, and a Duke Ellington (onscreen as “Pie-Eye”) score.
1:30, 4:30, 7:30

Click here to watch Saul Bass's opening credit sequence for Anatomy of a Murder

“Dig those Saul Bass titles, that Duke Ellington score and Jimmy Stewart’s small-town lawyer!”
– Time Out New York

“Preminger’s best and most personal film,
with undiminished power and astonishing freshness.”
– Peter Bogdanovich

“A prime contender for Otto Preminger's greatest film-- a superb courtroom drama packed with humor and character that shows every actor at his or her best. As an entertaining look at legal process, this is spellbinding, infused by an ambiguity about human personality and motivation that is Preminger's trademark, and the location shooting is superb.”
- Jonathan Rosenbaum

“The sharpest probe into our complacency that Preminger has ever launched.”
– David Shipman

“Coolly absorbing, nonchalantly cynical...cloaks itself in smartly tailored ambiguity and irresolution.
Preminger refuses all the standard payoffs of the courtroom thriller.”
- Time Out (London)

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JANUARY 6 SUN (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

“Two great films noirs!” – Dave Kehr, The New York Times

ANGEL FACE

(1952) The Postman Always Rings Twice meets The Case of the Deadly Gearshift as chauffeur Robert Mitchum fends off murderous heiress Jean Simmons (“loaded with venom underneath a lacquered surface, one of the most poisonous femmes fatales in Noir.” – Hirsch) until late-arriving mouthpiece Leon Ames steals the show. Jean-Luc Godard listed it as one of the top 10 sound films of all time.
2:50, 6:25, 10:00

“His noirs are knotty with thwarted sex, characterized by patient characterizations, ellipses of solitude, and the precision-haloed nocturnal photography of Joseph La Shelle. The culmination of this period is 1952’s Angel Face, a dyspeptic terror that open-ends onto the abyss.”
– Nick Pinkerton, The Village Voice

“Like the best of Preminger’s work, it is cool, understated and unsettling.”
– Tom Beer, Time Out New York

“A Superb Freudian crime thriller.” – Geoff Andrews, Time Out (London)

“The most enigmatic and haunting of his works after Laura.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum

“The one lyrical nightmare in the cinema.” – Ian Cameron

“One of the masterpieces of the American cinéma maudit.” – Hirsch

FALLEN ANGEL

(1945) Drifter Dana Andrews chases waitress Linda Darnell but marries heiress Alice Faye (in a rare dramatic role just before retirement) — then must shake cop Charles Bickford when one of the ladies turns up dead. Vintage Noir features Preminger’s longestever takes.
1:00, 4:35, 8:10

“Preminger's visual storytelling—his staging, his camera movement—reaches staggering heights of beauty here.”
– Glenn Kenny, Premiere

“This darkly beautiful film elicits post-war Hollywood, when good and bad were temporary character definitions.”
– American Film Institute

“Treats melodrama with an extraordinary lack of hysteria.”
– David Shipman.

“‘Elegant’ seems a feeble word to describe Preminger’s visual mastery in this film.” – Dave Kehr

“Preminger’s command of Noir’s visual idiom is apparent... The narrative is riddled with suggestions of pathology.” – Hirsch

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JANUARY 7 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

(1955) The eternal quadrangle: ex-addict, jazz drummer and card sharp Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra) is torn between love for girlfriend Kim Novak, loyalty to crippled wife Eleanor Parker and desperation for the wares of sleazy dealer Darren McGavin. Preminger boldly broke the Production Code for the second time (see below) with this first American film about drug addiction. With two other memorable firsts: Elmer Bernstein’s moody jazz score and Saul Bass’s seductive opening titles. Restored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in 2004 with the support of the Film Foundation.
3:10, 7:20

Click here to watch Saul Bass's opening credit sequence for The Man With the Golden Arm

“STILL GRIPPING! The first straightforward depiction of heroin addiction in a Hollywood movie. Viewing this film may result in a lifelong craving for elegant Saul Bass title sequences and propulsive Elmer Bernstein film scores.”
–Time Out New York

“Everything Sinatra does here is electrically nuanced, as if Preminger had hot-wired the star’s eyes, vocal cords,
and facial muscles to the circuitry of Frankie Machine’s brain... he never gave a better performance.”
– New Yorker

“Sinatra’s performance is pure gold.” – Pauline Kael

THE MOON IS BLUE

(1953) William Holden romances actress Maggie McNamara with interruptions by her fiancée and super-suave David Niven. Preminger’s first independent production caused a major furor (it was banned from theaters and widely condemned) because he dared to use the words “mistress” and “virgin” in the script. Restored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in 2006 with the support of the Andrew J. Kuehn Foundation.
1:15, 5:25, 9:35
Listen to our podcast: Author FOSTER HIRSCH comments on THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM & THE MOON IS BLUE

“A more personal and ambiguous work than it initially appears to be.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum

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JANUARY 8 TUE

IN HARM’S WAY

(1965) Preminger-style war in the Pacific starts with Pearl Harbor — then builds to superb surface battles done with 60-foot models — as Bull Halsey-type John Wayne romances Patricia Neal and pounds the Japanese amid a monstrous cast including Henry Fonda as “Nimitz” and Kirk Douglas as a rapist/hero grappling with feelings for already-taken nurse Jill Haworth.
1:00, 4:30, 8:00
Listen to our podcast: Author FOSTER HIRSCH introduces IN HARM’S WAY

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JANUARY 9 WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

BONJOUR TRISTESSE

(1958) Swinging widower David Niven’s daughter Jean Seberg can’t complain when he gets serious about Deborah Kerr, but when Kerr starts acting like a mom, it’s time to bring back a Niven ex-mistress to restore the balance of power, with tragic results. With Geoffrey Horne. Based on the bestseller de scandal by teenage novelist Françoise Sagan.
3:35, 7:30

Click here to watch Saul Bass's opening credit sequence for Bonjour Tristesse

“A SUPERNAL MASTERPIECE… One is tempted to imagine Edison or Lumière greeting Preminger at the gate of the hereafter to commend him for showing us, with Bonjour Tristesse, how well the shadows can dance. It puts the azur back into the Côte d’Azur [and] yields as many pleasures as there are grains of sand.”
– Ioannis Mookas, Gay City News

“One of that decade’s great underappreciated films.” – Nick Pinkerton, The Village Voice

“BEWITCHING! [Seberg’s] screen presence is irresistible.” – Tom Beer, Time Out New York

“Transformed by Preminger’s color/black-and-white duality into a tragedy of time and illusion.” – Andrew Sarris

“When Seberg is on the screen, you can’t look at anything else... It is Preminger’s love poem to her.” – François Truffaut

SAINT JOAN

(1957) Graham Greene’s screen version of Shaw’s classic martyr play features an all-star cast — Richard Widmark, Anton Walbrook, Richard Todd, John Gielgud, et al. — in support of debuting 18-year old Jean Seberg, chosen after a casting hunt rivaling Scarlett O’Hara’s. Seberg was almost burned at the stake — for real.
1:30, 5:25*, 9:20
Listen to our podcast: Author FOSTER HIRSCH and Lionel Larner, Casting Director for Saint Joan, introduce Saint Joan.

“Still a fascinating cult object.” –Time Out New York

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JANUARY 10 THU

BUNNY LAKE
IS MISSING

(1965) Carol Lynley’s suspenseful search for her missing daughter — but does she exist? — aided by doubting brother Keir Dullea and inspector Laurence Olivier (in perhaps his last non-character part). London location shooting and a memorable study-in-perversion cameo by Noel Coward — and The Zombies!
1:00, 3:10, 5:20, 7:30, 10:00
Listen to our podcast: Author FOSTER HIRSCH introduces BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING and then does a Q & A with actor KEIR DULLEA (Recorded January 10, 2008)

Click here to watch Saul Bass's opening credit sequence for Bunny Lake is Missing

“Preminger’s most underrated film, and a masterpiece of ambiguity.”
– Dave Kehr

“The cast alone is worth the price of admission.” – Leslie Halliwell

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JANUARY 11 FRI (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

CARMEN JONES

(1954) Oscar Hammerstein’s all- Black, down-South version of the Bizet classic, with Dorothy Dandridge (“fiery and petulant, with whiplash hips in a hot pink skirt” – Pauline Kael) giving an electrifying performance that earned her a Best Actress Oscar nomination (the first for a person of color), with Marilyn Horne’s equally-electrifying singing voice incarnating her character. With Harry Belafonte acting (and Le Vern Hutcherson singing) “Don José/Joe.”
1:00, 4:45, 8:30

Click here to watch Saul Bass's opening credit sequence for Carmen Jones

“Bizet couldn’t ask for a better adaptation of his famed opera in which Dorothy Dandridge plays the title role with such panache that one is forced to assume that it was only her race that prevented her from becoming the era’s biggest female star.”
– Time Out New York

"The epitome of racial exclusion and doomed glamour, Dorothy Dandridge began as a child in vaudeville and finally erupted into stardom as the eponymous bombshell in this widescreen spectacular, released the same year the Supreme Court desegregated American schools."
– J. Hoberman

“Dandridge brings the African-American woman into the modern age.” – Donald Bogle

RIVER OF NO RETURN

(1954) In Preminger’s only Western and his first picture in Scope, Robert Mitchum contends with gambler Rory Calhoun, son Tommy (Lassie) Rettig, hostile Indians, rafting through rapids and undressing Marilyn Monroe.
3:00, 6:45, 10:30

“If you think it’d be fun to watch Robert Mitchum and Marilyn Monroe float around on a draft looking insanely beautiful, make a beeline!”
– Time Out New York

“Directing Marilyn Monroe was like directing Lassie.” – Preminger

“Excellent... One of the first films to discover the potential of CinemaScope and a fine example of Preminger's rational approach to the mysteries of personal morality.”
– Dave Kehr

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JANUARY 12 SAT

ADVISE & CONSENT

(1962) Notorious for the first depiction of a gay bar in an American film — and one of Preminger’s greatest works. Henry Fonda and Burgess Meredith re-create Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers, amid lengthy single-take shots, most notably with President Franchot Tone on a destroyer. With George Grizzard as a conniving blackmailer and Charles Laughton’s last great performance, as an impeccably-accented Southern senator. Restored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences with the support of the Andrew J. Kuehn Foundation.
1:20, 4:00, 6:40, 9:20*
*9:20 SHOW INTRODUCED BY FOSTER HIRSCH.

"A prophetic vision of movie stars running the country."
– J. Hoberman

“A celluloid closet landmark!” – Ioannis Mookas, Gay City News

“The best-selling mixture of sophistication and evasion characteristic of Preminger... still grips like a vice thanks to the skill with which Preminger’s stunning mise en scene absorbs the documentary detail.”
– Tom Milne

“A model of Preminger’s technique, the movie creates its own system of checks and balances.” – Dave Kehr

“Absolutely the best film ever made about American politics.” – Glenn Kenny, Premiere

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JANUARY 13 SUN

EXODUS

(1960) The birth of Israel, as refugees aboard the Exodus determine to break the British embargo. Filmed on location in Israel, with the celebrated breakout from the Acre prison shot at the actual site. The enormous cast includes Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Lee J. Cobb, and Preminger discovery Jill Haworth. The screenplay credit for Dalton Trumbo, one of the Hollywood Ten, was the first to break the blacklist.
2:00*, 7:00
*2:00 SHOW INTRODUCED BY FOSTER HIRSCH.

Click here to watch Saul Bass's opening credit sequence for Exodus

“As good a modern epic movie as has ever been made.”
– Peter Bogdanovich

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JANUARY 14 MON (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

DUE TO A SHIPPING ERROR, IN THE MEANTIME, DARLING WILL NOT BE SHOWING.
PLEASE NOTE REVISED SHOWTIMES FOR MARGIN FOR ERROR & UNDER YOUR SPELL.

MARGIN FOR ERROR

NEW 35mm PRINT! (1943) Uncle Miltie meets the Nazis. New York cop Moe Finkelstein’s (Milton Berle) plum assignment: protect the German consul. Preminger’s return to filmmaking after a five-year hiatus; asked to repeat the villain’s role in his Broadway success, he refused unless he could direct.
NOTE REVISED SHOWTIMES: 2:20, 5:10, 8:00

“This early Preminger joint is a helluva ride!” – Time Out New York

"The most intriguing of Preminger's early Hollywood films." – Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

UNDER YOUR SPELL

(1936) Boy, opera star Lawrence Tibbett can’t get any peace: even holed up in a remote cabin in flight from manager Gregory Ratoff’s screwy publicity stunts, he gets an airborne visit from socialite Wendy Barrie, still burning about her private party gig he’s blown off, as temperamental outbursts, songs, and romance ensue.
NOTE REVISED SHOWTIMES: 1:00, 3:50, 6:40, 9:30

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JANUARY 15/16 TUE/WED (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE FAN

(1949) Epigram meets Epigram, as Dorothy Parker co-adapts Oscar Wilde’s classic comedy of manners, Lady Windermere’s Fan. With Madeleine Carroll, George Sanders as the acidulous Lord Darlington, Jeanne Crain as Lady W.
TUE 3:35, 7:30*
WED 3:35
Listen to our podcast: Author FOSTER HIRSCH introduces THE FAN (Recorded January 15, 2008)

“Preminger’s most underrated film, richly deserving of reassessment.”
– Hirsch

FOREVER AMBER

(1947) Slut’s progress, as peasant girl Linda Darnell advances from highwayman to lord to George Sanders’ Charles II. Somewhat bowdlerized version of one of the hottest books of the decade.
TUE 1:00, 5:10, 9:05
WED 1:00, 5:10

“Confirms Preminger as a maestro of mise-en-scène ... he assembled a procession of images that have the rhetorical power of master paintings.
His Old World formality is exactly what the material needs — his direction achieves genuine epic sweep.”
– Hirsch

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JANUARY 16 WED (SEPARATE ADMISSION)

THE CARDINAL

(1963) Fictionalized Spellman bio — decried by its subject — as Tom Tryon rises through the hierarchy, while contending with religious doubts, mixed marriages, abortions, the KKK, Nazis, Romy Schneider and tough mentor John Huston, in a sensational full-fledged acting debut. Preminger’s browbeating turned Tryon from acting to bestsellerdom.
7:45*
Listen to our podcast: Author FOSTER HIRSCH introduces THE CARDINAL (Recorded January 16, 2008)

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JANUARY 17 THU (2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS

(1950) Tough NYC cop Dana Andrews, on the trail of kingpin Gary Merrill, escalates from police brutality to manslaughter, with Gene Tierney as the victim’s widow and cameo by her then-hubby Oleg Cassini, the pic’s costume designer. Screenplay by Ben Hecht.
2:50, 6:30, 10:10

“A weatherbeated Andrews gives one of his finest performances in Preminger’s superior noir,
boasting hardboiled and sardonic dialogue, courtesy Ben Hecht, and a surprising strain of pathos.”
– Geoffrey Macnab, Time Out (London)

“Preminger transforms Times Square into a setting twitching with menace,
something of a dress rehearsal for Sweet Smell of Success, a neon playground of frenetic movement.”
– Hirsch

WHIRLPOOL

(1949) Klepto Gene Tierney seeks cure from hypnotist José Ferrer, then unwittingly provides the setup for the Ultimate Unshakable Alibi en route to a memorably haywire bloodsoaked finale. Pseudonymously written by Ben Hecht.
1:00, 4:40, 8:20

“Elegant, suggestive cinematography and a pleasingly idiosyncratic cast.” – Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly

“A sleek thriller. . . gilded with many visual pleasures.” – Hirsch

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