Foster Hirsch's epic biography, "Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King" truly depicts the life and times of one of the greatest film directors Hollywood has ever known.
Hirsch's work is all encompassing and includes all the legendary tales of Preminger's career, including his numerous battles with censorship standards.
Preminger was a director actors feared, but desired to work for. While Paul Newman loathed him for their collaboration on "Exodus", he and Frank Sinatra got along splendidly.
Most importantly, Hirsch does a fantastic job in making sure Preminger's battles with censorship standards didn't effect his ability of making such important films as "The Cardinal" and "Anatomy of a Murder".
Unlike today's films which leave entirely nothing to the imagination, Preminger's films touched on important subjects at the time, but didn't offend.
Preminger's greatest film is possibly "Advise and Consent" - a top-notch political drama based on Alan Drury's 1959 Pulitizer Prize winning novel.
Despite the heat that Preminger took from studio executives, he wouldn't allow them to shape his work on "Advise and Consent" and did his best to stick to the original storyline.
Long before other directors had the guts to tackle subject such as drug abuse, homosexuality and racism, Preminger had already made his mark in such blockbuster films as "The Man with the Golden Arm" and "Anatomy of a Murder".
The sad thing about the biography is that "Carmen Jones" isn't available on DVD due to a copyright issue that Hirsch elaborates about.
1 comment:
The most interesting thing in this post is that Preminger fought against censorship of his movies. You bury this in the last graph. Put it up front and elaborate.
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