TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Drama, Romance, Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Film Noir, Comedy, Crime, Romantic Drama, Melodrama, Historical Film, Courtroom Drama, Political Drama
Key Collaborators: Louis Loeffler (Editor), Lyle Wheeler (Production Designer), Sam Leavitt (Cinematographer), Joseph LaShelle (Cinematographer), Dana Andrews (Leading Actor), Leon Shamroy (Cinematographer), David Raksin (Composer), Gene Tierney (Leading Actress), Burgess Meredith (Character Actor), Linda Darnell (Leading Actress), Charles Bickford (Leading Actor), Wendell Mayes (Screenwriter)

"The public persona of Austrian-born Otto Preminger has epitomized for many the typical Hollywood movie director: an accented, autocratic, European-born disciplinarian who terrorized his actors, bullied his subordinates, and spent millions of dollars to ensure that his films be produced properly, although economically. Before the Cahiers du Cinéma critics began to praise Preminger, it may have been this public persona, more than anything else, which impeded an appreciation of Preminger's extraordinarily subtle style or thematic consistencies." - Charles Derry (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 1991)

"In the 60s, Preminger made a comfortable transition to the wide-screen format, which seemed to agree with his preference for long takes and camera movement over cutting and reaction shots. Although no consistent theme is discernible in his pictures, there are some basic ingredients that are common to most, such as the objective camera viewpoint and a fascination with the duality and ambiguity of character." - The MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994

"Preminger's was an uneven career, but at its best, his probing scepticism served to undermine initial prejudices about characters and ethics; no one was without reasons for his behaviour, no issue open-and-shut. Reflecting this refusal to condone easy judgements, his camera style was mostly subtle and discreet, balancing conflicting characters within the frame, observing gestures and glances without emphasis." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)

"Preminger is an increasingly attractive figure. He represents the beauty, arrogance, and mystique of classical American cinema and embodies its highest values of craftsmanship and respect for the audience. He also represents – at a high level of formal complexity – a configuration of power, the visual, and loss that still defines cinematic seduction." - Chris Fujiwara (Senses of Cinema, 2002)

"His films boldly tackled controversial themes such as drug addiction, rape, Jewish repatriation, homosexuality and racism." - Chambers Film Factfinder, 2006

"As a director and producer, Otto Preminger enjoyed—in all senses of the word—a monstrous reputation. On the few occasions he appeared before the camera, he was often cast as a Nazi officer, an association that only cemented the volatile persona the press ascribed to him in reports that he terrorized his actors… A master promoter and an extraordinarily diverse artist, Preminger was equally gifted with film noir obsessiveness (Laura), forlorn romance (Bonjour Tristesse), CinemaScope musicals (Carmen Jones), and all-star adaptations of national bestsellers (Advise and Consent, Exodus), among other, quasi-unclassifiable genres (Skidoo)." - The Museum of Modern Art, 2006

"Preminger turned the postwar Fox thriller away from urban neo-realism to an interest in people under pressure and a series of fascinating character studies: in Whirlpool, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and The 13th Letter; our pre-disposition to take sides is undercut by the all-round picture of people… Just as the thrillers defy expectations, so his two women's pictures - Fallen Angel and Daisy Kenyon - treat melodrama with an extraordinary lack of hysteria. Alone among Hollywood directors, Preminger triumphs in that genre by deflecting it." - David Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)

"A transplant from Viennese theater, Preminger proffered an overarching vision that found its way into almost every genre, whether it be mystery, melodrama, biopic, comedy, musical, or historical saga. From his earliest triumphs, a string of taut noirs like Laura, Fallen Angel, and Whirlpool, through his feisty indie films of the fifties, Saint Joan, The Man with the Golden Arm, and others, to his politically inflected epics like Exodus and Advise and Consent, Preminger promoted a cool take on human nature that simultaneously savored cinema's expansive visual spaces; over time his eloquent way with the camera grew complex and sensuous." - BAMPFA, 2009

"The best films of Otto Preminger, made in the US from 1935, are moody crime melodramas, using a cool, interrogatory method." - Ronald Bergan (Film - Eyewitness Companions, 2006)

"A filmmaker of epic tales and low-key suspense dramas which examine relationships between people while they solve crimes, Preminger is at his apex with middle-budget psychological stories fraught with complex violence." - William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978)

"I do not welcome advice from actors, they are here to act." - Otto Preminger