Otto Preminger

Otto Preminger (19051986), 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 Wilders Stalag 17 and as the diabolical Mr. Freeze in televisions Batman. He is remembered, too, for drastically transforming Hollywoods industrial practices. With Exodus, Preminger broke the Hollywood blacklist, controversially granting screen credit to Dalton Trumbo, one of the exiled "Hollywood Ten." Preminger, a committed liberal, consistently shattered Hollywoods conventions. He routinely tackled socially progressive yet risqu subject matter, pressing the Production Codes limits of permissibility. He mounted Black-cast musicals at a period of intense racial unrest. And he embraced a string of other taboo topicsheroin addiction, rape, incest, homosexualitythat established his reputation as a trailblazer of adult-centered storytelling, an enemy of Hollywood puritanism, and a crusader against censorship. Otto Preminger: Interviews compiles nineteen interviews from across Premingers career, providing fascinating insights into the methods and mindset of a wildly polarizing filmmaker. With remarkable candor, Preminger discusses his filmmaking practices, his distinctive film style, his battles against censorship and the Hollywood blacklist, his clashes with film critics, and his turbulent relationships with a host of well-known stars, from Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra to Jane Fonda and John Wayne.