179-447: Otto Ludwig Preminger ( / ˈ p r ɛ m ɪ n dʒ ər / PREM -in-jər ; German: [ˈɔtoː ˈpreːmɪŋɐ] ; 5 December 1905 – 23 April 1986) was an Austrian-American theatre and film director, film producer, and actor. He directed more than 35 feature films in a five-decade career after leaving the theatre. He first gained attention for film noir mysteries such as Laura (1944) and Fallen Angel (1945), while in
358-526: A libellous poem ( Il colosso ) in which he ridiculed the daughters of certain Pavian families. As a result of that incident (and/or of a visit with some schoolmates to a local brothel), he was expelled from the school and had to leave the city (1725). He studied law at Udine , and eventually took his degree at University of Modena . He was employed as a law clerk at Chioggia and Feltre , after which he returned to his native city and began practising. Educated as
537-403: A stripper . She acted mainly in very small roles in B pictures . Preminger's liaison with Lee produced a child, Erik . Lee rejected the idea of Preminger's helping to support the child and instead elicited a vow of silence from Preminger: he was not to reveal Erik's paternity to anyone, including Erik himself. Lee called the boy Erik Kirkland after her husband, Alexander Kirkland , from whom she
716-473: A "pathway" in his screenwriters taxonomy; explaining that a pathway has two parts: 1) the way the audience connects with the protagonist and 2) the trajectory the audience expects the story to follow. Other critics treat film noir as a "mood," a "series", or simply a chosen set of films they regard as belonging to the noir "canon." There is no consensus on the matter. The aesthetics of film noir were influenced by German Expressionism , an artistic movement of
895-568: A B-movie soul. Perhaps no director better displayed that spirit than the German-born Robert Siodmak , who had already made a score of films before his 1940 arrival in Hollywood. Working mostly on A features, he made eight films now regarded as classic-era noir (a figure matched only by Lang and Mann). In addition to The Killers , Burt Lancaster 's debut and a Hellinger/Universal co-production, Siodmak's other important contributions to
1074-405: A Dark Shadow (1955), directed by Lewis Gilbert . Terence Fisher directed several low-budget thrillers in a noir mode for Hammer Film Productions , including The Last Page (a.k.a. Man Bait ; 1952), Stolen Face (1952), and Murder by Proxy (a.k.a. Blackout ; 1954). Before leaving for France, Jules Dassin had been obliged by political pressure to shoot his last English-language film of
1253-488: A Hungarian woman, Marion Mill . The couple married only thirty minutes after her divorce from her first husband had been finalized. In April 1935, as Preminger was rehearsing a boulevard farce, The King with an Umbrella , he received a summons from American film producer Joseph Schenck to a five o'clock meeting at the Imperial Hotel. Schenck and partner, Darryl F. Zanuck , co-founders of Twentieth Century-Fox , were on
1432-679: A Lonely Place (1950) was Nicholas Ray 's breakthrough; his other noirs include his debut, They Live by Night (1948) and On Dangerous Ground (1952), noted for their unusually sympathetic treatment of characters alienated from the social mainstream. Orson Welles had notorious problems with financing but his three film noirs were well-budgeted: The Lady from Shanghai (1947) received top-level, "prestige" backing, while The Stranger (1946), his most conventional film, and Touch of Evil (1958), an unmistakably personal work, were funded at levels lower but still commensurate with headlining releases. Like The Stranger , Fritz Lang's The Woman in
1611-400: A Nazi once more, this time in a Bob Hope comedy, They Got Me Covered . Preminger hoped to find possible properties he could develop before Zanuck's return, one of which was Vera Caspary 's suspense novel Laura . Before production would begin on Laura , Preminger was given the green light to produce and direct Army Wives , another B-picture morale booster for a country at war. Its focus
1790-485: A born comedian, careless, light-hearted and with a happy temperament, proof against all strokes of fate, yet thoroughly respectable and honourable. Goldoni was born in Venice in 1707, the son of Margherita Salvioni (or Saioni) and Giulio Goldoni. In his memoirs, Goldoni describes his father as a physician , and claims that he was introduced to theatre by his grandfather Carlo Alessandro Goldoni. In reality, it seems that Giulio
1969-413: A certain form which I will explain to you." Goldoni thanked his critic, went back to his inn and ordered a fire, into which he threw the manuscript of his Amalasunta . His next play, Belisario , written in 1734, was more successful, though of its success he afterwards professed himself ashamed. During this period he also wrote librettos for opera seria and served for a time as literary director of
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#17328476272332148-432: A chase film as might have been imagined by Jean-Pierre Melville in an especially abstract mood. Hill was already a central figure in 1970s noir of a more straightforward manner, having written the script for director Sam Peckinpah 's The Getaway (1972), adapting a novel by pulp master Jim Thompson , as well as for two tough private eye films: an original screenplay for Hickey & Boggs (1972) and an adaptation of
2327-450: A company of strolling players and returned to Venice. In 1723 his father matriculated him into the stern Collegio Ghislieri in Pavia , which imposed the tonsure and monastic habits on its students. However, he relates in his Memoirs that a considerable part of his time was spent reading Greek and Latin comedies. He had already begun writing at this time and, in his third year, he composed
2506-461: A costume designer, who remained his spouse until his death. They had two children: twins Mark William and Victoria Elizabeth. Preminger died in his home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 1986, aged 80, from lung cancer. Some of Preminger's associates, including his son Erik, have claimed that he suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his final years, though Hope Bryce denied that Preminger
2685-428: A director and actor. Preminger took full measure of the temporary studio czar, and accepted. He completed production on schedule, although with a slightly increased budget, by November 1942. Critics were dismissive upon the film's release the following February, noting the bad timing of the release, coinciding with the war. Before his next assignment with Fox, Preminger was asked by movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn to appear as
2864-462: A divorce. Marion returned to Otto and resumed appearances as his wife, and nothing more. Preminger had begun dating Natalie Draper, a niece of Marion Davies . From 1951 to 1960, Preminger was married to model Mary Gardner. However, while filming Carmen Jones (1954), Preminger began an affair with the film's star, Dorothy Dandridge , which lasted four years. During that period he advised her on career matters, including an offer made to Dandridge for
3043-458: A drama set in the Vatican hierarchy for which Preminger received his second Best Director Academy Award nomination. Beginning in 1965, Preminger made a string of films in which he attempted to make stories that were fresh and distinctive, but the films he made, including In Harm's Way (1965) and Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970), became both critical and financial flops. One exception
3222-404: A fashion began to produce plays, he began to miss more and more classes in school. When the war came to an end, Markus formed his own law practice. He instilled in both his sons a sense of fair play as well as respect for those with opposing viewpoints. As his father's practice continued to thrive in postwar Vienna, Otto began seriously contemplating a career in the theater. In 1923, when Preminger
3401-501: A film noir, it has largely disappeared from considerations of the field. Director Jules Dassin of The Naked City (1948) pointed to the neorealists as inspiring his use of location photography with non-professional extras. This semidocumentary approach characterized a substantial number of noirs in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Along with neorealism, the style had an American precedent cited by Dassin, in director Henry Hathaway 's The House on 92nd Street (1945), which demonstrated
3580-399: A genre as determined by "conventions of narrative structure, characterization, theme, and visual design." Hirsch, as one who has taken the position that film noir is a genre, argues that these elements are present "in abundance." Hirsch notes that there are unifying features of tone, visual style and narrative sufficient to classify noir as a distinct genre. Others argue that film noir is not
3759-475: A genre. It is often associated with an urban setting, but many classic noirs take place in small towns, suburbia, rural areas, or on the open road; setting is not a determinant, as with the Western . Similarly, while the private eye and the femme fatale are stock character types conventionally identified with noir, the majority of films in the genre feature neither. Nor does film noir rely on anything as evident as
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#17328476272333938-466: A greater debt to French poetic realism than to the expressionistic American mode of noir. Examples of British noir (sometimes described as "Brit noir") from the classic period include Brighton Rock (1947), directed by John Boulting ; They Made Me a Fugitive (1947), directed by Alberto Cavalcanti ; The Small Back Room (1948), directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger ; The October Man (1950), directed by Roy Ward Baker ; and Cast
4117-600: A humid, erotically charged Florida setting. Its success confirmed the commercial viability of neo-noir at a time when the major Hollywood studios were becoming increasingly risk averse. The mainstreaming of neo-noir is evident in such films as Black Widow (1987), Shattered (1991), and Final Analysis (1992). Few neo-noirs have made more money or more wittily updated the tradition of the noir double entendre than Basic Instinct (1992), directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas . The film also demonstrates how neo-noir's polychrome palette can reproduce many of
4296-440: A lasting monument to the changes that he initiated: a dramatic revolution that had been attempted but not achieved before. Goldoni's importance lies in providing good examples rather than precepts. Goldoni says that he took for his models the plays of Molière and that whenever a piece of his own succeeded he whispered to himself: "Good, but not yet Molière". Goldoni's plays are gentler and more optimistic in tone than Molière's. It
4475-399: A lawyer, and holding lucrative positions as secretary and counsellor, he seemed, indeed, at one time to have settled down to the practice of law, but following an unexpected summons to Venice, after an absence of several years, he changed his career, and thenceforth he devoted himself to writing plays and managing theatres. His father died in 1731. In 1732, to avoid an unwanted marriage, he left
4654-568: A letter was waiting with a date for an audition which Preminger had already missed by two days. He juggled a commitment to university (attendance of which his parents insisted upon) and to his new position as a Reinhardt apprentice. The two developed a mentor-and-protege relationship, becoming both a confidant and teacher. When the theater opened, on 1 April 1924, Preminger appeared as a furniture mover in Reinhardt's comedic staging of Carlo Goldoni 's The Servant of Two Masters . His next appearance came
4833-454: A master. Goldoni's plays that were written while he was still in Italy ignore religious and ecclesiastical subjects. This may be surprising, considering his staunch Catholic upbringing. No thoughts are expressed about death or repentance in his memoirs or in his comedies. After his move to France, his position became clearer, as his plays took on a clear anti-clerical tone and often satirized
5012-410: A monstrous scale. The work of other directors in this tier of the industry, such as Felix E. Feist ( The Devil Thumbs a Ride [1947], Tomorrow Is Another Day [1951]), has become obscure. Edgar G. Ulmer spent most of his Hollywood career working at B studios and once in a while on projects that achieved intermediate status; for the most part, on unmistakable Bs. In 1945, while at PRC, he directed
5191-520: A nervous wreck, crying and jumping when the phone started ringing, incapable of walking calmly across a room." Preminger imposed an intense, constant and minute level of control over Seberg throughout their association, and her co-star Richard Widmark later characterised Preminger's behaviour towards her as "sadistic". Tom Tryon , the star of Preminger's 1963 feature The Cardinal , received similar treatment—Preminger would scream at him, zoom in on his shaking hands, and repeatedly fired and rehired him, with
5370-578: A noir cult classic, Detour . Ulmer's other noirs include Strange Illusion (1945), also for PRC; Ruthless (1948), for Eagle-Lion, which had acquired PRC the previous year and Murder Is My Beat (1955), for Allied Artists. A number of low- and modestly-budgeted noirs were made by independent, often actor-owned, companies contracting with larger studios for distribution. Serving as producer, writer, director and top-billed performer, Hugo Haas made films like Pickup (1951), The Other Woman (1954) and Jacques Tourneur, The Fearmakers (1958) . It
5549-521: A noir mode than Preminger; his other noirs include Fallen Angel (1945), Whirlpool (1949), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) (all for Fox) and Angel Face (1952). A half-decade after Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend , Billy Wilder made Sunset Boulevard (1950) and Ace in the Hole (1951), noirs that were not so much crime dramas as satires on Hollywood and the news media respectively. In
Otto Preminger - Misplaced Pages Continue
5728-612: A novel by Ross Macdonald , the leading literary descendant of Hammett and Chandler, for The Drowning Pool (1975). Some of the strongest 1970s noirs, in fact, were unwinking remakes of the classics, "neo" mostly by default: the heartbreaking Thieves Like Us (1974), directed by Altman from the same source as Ray's They Live by Night , and Farewell, My Lovely (1975), the Chandler tale made classically as Murder, My Sweet , remade here with Robert Mitchum in his last notable noir role. Detective series, prevalent on American television during
5907-496: A range of plots; common archetypical protagonists include a private investigator ( The Big Sleep ), a plainclothes police officer ( The Big Heat ), an aging boxer ( The Set-Up ), a hapless grifter ( Night and the City ), a law-abiding citizen lured into a life of crime ( Gun Crazy ), a femme fatale ( Gilda ) or simply a victim of circumstance ( D.O.A. ). Although film noir was originally associated with American productions,
6086-604: A screen test. Webb was cast and Mamoulian was fired for creative differences, which also included Preminger wanting Dana Andrews to be a more classy detective instead of a gumshoe detective. Laura started filming on 27 April 1944, with a projected budget of $ 849,000. After Preminger took over, the film continued shooting well into late June. When released, the film was an instant hit with audiences and critics alike, earning Preminger his first Academy Award nomination for direction. Preminger expected acclaim for Laura would promote him to work on better pictures, but his professional fate
6265-521: A screenplay by Graham Greene . Set in Vienna immediately after World War II, it also stars two American actors, Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles , who had appeared together in Citizen Kane . Elsewhere, Italian director Luchino Visconti adapted Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice as Ossessione (1943), regarded both as one of the great noirs and a seminal film in the development of neorealism. (This
6444-466: A small California town, where he romances a sultry waitress and a well-to-do spinster. When the waitress is found killed, the drifter, played by Dana Andrews , becomes the prime suspect. Linda Darnell played the doomed waitress. Centennial Summer (1946), Preminger's next film, would be his first shot entirely in color. The reviews and box office draw were tepid when the film was released in July 1946, but by
6623-399: A specialist in what James Naremore called "hypnotic moments of light-in-darkness". He Walked by Night (1948), shot by Alton though credited solely to Alfred Werker, directed in large part by Mann, demonstrates their technical mastery and exemplifies the late 1940s trend of " police procedural " crime dramas. It was released, like other Mann-Alton noirs, by the small Eagle-Lion company; it
6802-550: A step up the ladder, known as "intermediates" by the industry, might be treated as A or B pictures depending on the circumstances. Monogram created Allied Artists in the late 1940s to focus on this sort of production. Robert Wise ( Born to Kill [1947], The Set-Up [1949]) and Anthony Mann ( T-Men [1947] and Raw Deal [1948]) each made a series of impressive intermediates, many of them noirs, before graduating to steady work on big-budget productions. Mann did some of his most celebrated work with cinematographer John Alton ,
6981-523: A teaching position at the Yale School of Drama and began commuting twice a week to Connecticut to lecture on directing and acting. 20th Century Fox purchased the screen rights of Margin for Error for approximately $ 25,000 in the spring of 1941, and William Goetz , who was running Fox in Zanuck's absence, was soon impressed with Preminger and offered him a new seven-year contract calling on his services as both
7160-533: A trend, let alone a new genre, for many decades. Whoever went to the movies with any regularity during 1946 was caught in the midst of Hollywood's profound postwar affection for morbid drama. From January through December deep shadows, clutching hands, exploding revolvers, sadistic villains and heroines tormented with deeply rooted diseases of the mind flashed across the screen in a panting display of psychoneurosis, unsublimated sex and murder most foul. Donald Marshman, Life (August 25, 1947) Most film noirs of
7339-572: A vibrant film noir period from roughly 1946 to 1952, which was around the same time film noir was blossoming in the United States. During the classic period, there were many films produced in Europe, particularly in France, that share elements of style, theme, and sensibility with American films noir and may themselves be included in the genre's canon. In certain cases, the interrelationship with Hollywood noir
Otto Preminger - Misplaced Pages Continue
7518-537: A wealthy industrialist from Graz approached Otto with an offer to direct a film called Die große Liebe ( The Great Love ). Preminger did not have the same passion for the medium as he had for theater. He accepted the assignment nonetheless. The film premiered at the Emperor Theater in Vienna on 21 December 1931, to strong reviews and business. From 1931 to 1935, he directed twenty-six shows. On 3 August 1931, he wed
7697-550: A wholly American film style." However, although the term "film noir" was originally coined to describe Hollywood movies, it was an international phenomenon. Even before the beginning of the generally accepted classic period, there were films made far from Hollywood that can be seen in retrospect as films noir, for example, the French productions Pépé le Moko (1937), directed by Julien Duvivier , and Le Jour se lève (1939), directed by Marcel Carné . In addition, Mexico experienced
7876-533: A year in Graz, Markus Preminger claims he was summoned to Vienna and offered an eminent position (roughly equivalent to that of the United States Attorney General ), but was told that the position would be his only if he converted to Catholicism, which he refused to do. The next year, he relocated his family to Vienna, where Otto later claimed to have been born. In 1928, Preminger earned a law degree from
8055-489: Is Kiss Me Deadly (1955); based on a novel by Mickey Spillane , the best-selling of all the hardboiled authors, here the protagonist is a private eye, Mike Hammer . As described by Paul Schrader , " Robert Aldrich 's teasing direction carries noir to its sleaziest and most perversely erotic. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the 'great whatsit' [which] turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb." Orson Welles's baroquely styled Touch of Evil (1958)
8234-580: Is The Invisible Man (1933), directed by Englishman James Whale and photographed by American Arthur Edeson . Edeson later photographed The Maltese Falcon (1941), widely regarded as the first major film noir of the classic era. Josef von Sternberg was directing in Hollywood during the same period. Films of his such as Shanghai Express (1932) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935), with their hothouse eroticism and baroque visual style anticipated central elements of classic noir. The commercial and critical success of Sternberg's silent Underworld (1927)
8413-519: Is "arbitrary". Expressionism-orientated filmmakers had free stylistic rein in Universal horror pictures such as Dracula (1931), The Mummy (1932)—the former photographed and the latter directed by the Berlin-trained Karl Freund —and The Black Cat (1934), directed by Austrian émigré Edgar G. Ulmer . The Universal horror film that comes closest to noir, in story and sensibility,
8592-521: Is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylized Hollywood crime dramas , particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the "classic period" of American film noir . Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key , black-and-white visual style that has roots in German expressionist cinematography . Many of the prototypical stories and attitudes expressed in classic noir derive from
8771-461: Is among the first crime films of the sound era to join a characteristically noirish visual style with a noir-type plot, in which the protagonist is a criminal (as are his most successful pursuers). Directors such as Lang, Jacques Tourneur , Robert Siodmak and Michael Curtiz brought a dramatically shadowed lighting style and a psychologically expressive approach to visual composition ( mise-en-scène ) with them to Hollywood, where they made some of
8950-452: Is frequently cited as the last noir of the classic period. Some scholars believe film noir never really ended, but continued to transform even as the characteristic noir visual style began to seem dated and changing production conditions led Hollywood in different directions—in this view, post-1950s films in the noir tradition are seen as part of a continuity with classic noir. A majority of critics, however, regard comparable films made outside
9129-502: Is mirrored in the Warner Bros. drama I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), a forerunner of noir. Among films not considered noir, perhaps none had a greater effect on the development of the genre than Citizen Kane (1941), directed by Orson Welles . Its visual intricacy and complex, voiceover narrative structure are echoed in dozens of classic films noir. Italian neorealism of
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#17328476272339308-631: Is obvious: American-born director Jules Dassin moved to France in the early 1950s as a result of the Hollywood blacklist , and made one of the most famous French film noirs, Rififi (1955). Other well-known French films often classified as noir include Quai des Orfèvres (1947) and Les Diaboliques (1955), both directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot . Casque d'Or (1952), Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), and Le Trou (1960) directed by Jacques Becker ; and Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958), directed by Louis Malle . French director Jean-Pierre Melville
9487-503: Is oil on the property. One of the female members of the wealthy family provides the romantic interest. In November 1937, Zanuck's perennial emissary Gregory Ratoff brought Preminger the news that Zanuck had selected him to direct Kidnapped , which was to be the most expensive feature to date for Twentieth Century-Fox. Zanuck himself had adapted the Robert Louis Stevenson novel. After reading Zanuck's script, Preminger knew he
9666-501: Is said to have grabbed one nervous young actor by the shoulders and screamed in his face "Relax! Relax!" Composer Elmer Bernstein , who scored The Man with the Golden Arm recalled, "He was a scary character. I thought he was going to throw me out of the office when I told him that what I had in mind was to do a jazz-based score. But he said that that was what I had been hired for, and that was what I should go away and do." Linda Darnell
9845-547: Is set in 1930s Los Angeles, an accustomed noir locale nudged back some few years in a way that makes the pivotal loss of innocence in the story even crueler. Where Polanski and Towne raised noir to a black apogee by turning rearward, director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader brought the noir attitude crashing into the present day with Taxi Driver (1976), a crackling, bloody-minded gloss on bicentennial America. In 1978, Walter Hill wrote and directed The Driver ,
10024-610: Is the comic play Servant of Two Masters , which has been translated and adapted internationally numerous times. In 1966 it was adapted into an opera buffa by the American composer Vittorio Giannini . In 2011, Richard Bean adapted the play for the National Theatre of Great Britain as One Man, Two Guvnors . Its popularity led to a transfer to the West End and in 2012 to Broadway . The film Carlo Goldoni – Venice, Grand Theatre of
10203-449: Is the pursuer rather than the pursued. A woman invariably joins him at a critical juncture, when he is most vulnerable. [Her] eventual betrayal of him (or herself) is as ambiguous as her feelings about him. Nicholas Christopher , Somewhere in the Night (1997) While many critics refer to film noir as a genre itself, others argue that it can be no such thing. Foster Hirsch defines
10382-530: Is widely recognized for his tragic, minimalist films noir— Bob le flambeur (1955), from the classic period, was followed by Le Doulos (1962), Le deuxième souffle 1966), Le Samouraï (1967), and Le Cercle rouge (1970). In the 1960s, Greek films noir " The Secret of the Red Mantle " and " The Fear " allowed audience for an anti-ableist reading which challenged stereotypes of disability. . Scholar Andrew Spicer argues that British film noir evidences
10561-534: The Nouvelle vague' s deeper waters), and Alan J. Pakula (1971's Klute ) directed films that knowingly related themselves to the original films noir, inviting audiences in on the game. A manifest affiliation with noir traditions—which, by its nature, allows different sorts of commentary on them to be inferred—can also provide the basis for explicit critiques of those traditions. In 1973, director Robert Altman flipped off noir piety with The Long Goodbye . Based on
10740-595: The Academy Award for Best Picture . As the producer of the film, he received the nomination. He was twice nominated for Best Director : for Laura and for The Cardinal . He won the Bronze Berlin Bear award for the film Carmen Jones at the 5th Berlin International Film Festival . Journals Books Film noir Film noir ( / n w ɑːr / ; French: [film nwaʁ] )
10919-488: The American Film Institute ranked it as the greatest American film of the 1980s and the fourth greatest of all time—it tells the story of a boxer's moral self-destruction that recalls in both theme and visual ambiance noir dramas such as Body and Soul (1947) and Champion (1949). From 1981, Body Heat , written and directed by Lawrence Kasdan , invokes a different set of classic noir elements, this time in
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#173284762723311098-623: The Catholic Legion of Decency condemned the film for glamorizing a promiscuous heroine who has a child out of wedlock ; they successfully lobbied 20th Century Fox to make changes to the film. Forever Amber opened to big business in October 1947 and garnered decent reviews. Preminger called the film "the most expensive picture I ever made and it was also the worst". Preminger maintained a busy schedule, working with writers on scripts for two planned projects, Daisy Kenyon (1947) and The Dark Wood ;
11277-640: The Graham Greene espionage novel The Human Factor (1979), had financial problems and was barely released. As noted above, both as a director and (later in his career) as the producer of his own films, Preminger repeatedly broke new ground, by challenging long-established norms and taboos in Hollywood films. He was also known for his efficiency as a filmmaker—for most of his career he routinely completed his films on time and on budget. He frequently favoured long takes, often filmed dialogue in two-shots, rather than intercutting, and preferred minimal cuts. John Ford
11456-499: The Hollywood blacklist . The Catholic Legion of Decency condemned the comedy The Moon Is Blue (1953) on the grounds of moral standards. The film was based on a Broadway play which had inspired mass protests for its use of the words "virgin" and "pregnant". Refusing to remove the offending words, Preminger had the film released without the Production Code Seal of Approval. Based on the novel by Nelson Algren , The Man with
11635-610: The San Giovanni Grisostomo , Venice's most distinguished opera house . He wrote other tragedies for a time, but he was not long in discovering that his bent was for comedy . He had come to realize that the Italian stage needed reforming; adopting Molière as his model, he went to work in earnest and in 1738 produced his first real comedy, L'uomo di mondo ("The Man of the World"). During his many wanderings and adventures in Italy, he
11814-532: The University of Vienna . Preminger's first theatrical ambition was to become an actor. In his early teens, he was able to recite from memory many of the great monologues from the international classic repertory, and, never shy, he demanded an audience. Preminger's most successful performance in the National Library rotunda was Mark Antony 's funeral oration from Julius Caesar . As he read, watched, and after
11993-576: The Vendramin family, where he performed most of his plays to 1762. In 1757, he engaged in a bitter dispute with playwright Carlo Gozzi , which left him utterly disgusted with the tastes of his countrymen; so much so that in 1761 he moved to Paris, where he received a position at court and was put in charge of the Théâtre-Italien . He spent the rest of his life in France, composing most of his plays in French and writing his memoirs in that language. Among
12172-566: The Venetian language , regional vernacular, and colloquialisms. Goldoni also wrote under the pen name and title Polisseno Fegeio, Pastor Arcade , which he claimed in his memoirs the " Arcadians of Rome" bestowed on him. There is an abundance of autobiographical information on Goldoni, most of which comes from the introductions to his plays and from his Memoirs . However, these memoirs are known to contain many errors of fact, especially about his earlier years. In these memoirs, he paints himself as
12351-399: The gangster film to the police procedural to the gothic romance to the social problem picture —any example of which from the 1940s and 1950s, now seen as noir's classical era, was likely to be described as a melodrama at the time. It is night, always. The hero enters a labyrinth on a quest. He is alone and off balance. He may be desperate, in flight, or coldly calculating, imagining he
12530-485: The hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Great Depression , known as noir fiction . The term film noir , French for "black film" (literal) or "dark film" (closer meaning), was first applied to Hollywood films by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, but was unrecognized by most American film industry professionals of that era. Frank is believed to have been inspired by
12709-526: The major studios or by one of the smaller Poverty Row outfits, from the relatively well-off Monogram to shakier ventures such as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) . Jacques Tourneur had made over thirty Hollywood Bs (a few now highly regarded, most forgotten) before directing the A-level Out of the Past , described by scholar Robert Ottoson as "the ne plus ultra of forties film noir". Movies with budgets
12888-563: The 1910s and 1920s that involved theater, music, photography, painting, sculpture and architecture, as well as cinema. The opportunities offered by the booming Hollywood film industry and then the threat of Nazism led to the emigration of many film artists working in Germany who had been involved in the Expressionist movement or studied with its practitioners. M (1931), shot only a few years before director Fritz Lang 's departure from Germany,
13067-420: The 1940s, with its emphasis on quasi-documentary authenticity, was an acknowledged influence on trends that emerged in American noir. The Lost Weekend (1945), directed by Billy Wilder , another Vienna-born, Berlin-trained American auteur , tells the story of an alcoholic in a manner evocative of neorealism. It also exemplifies the problem of classification: one of the first American films to be described as
13246-483: The 1950s and 1960s, he directed high-profile adaptations of popular novels and stage works. Several of these later films pushed the boundaries of censorship by dealing with themes which were then taboo in Hollywood, such as drug addiction ( The Man with the Golden Arm , 1955), rape ( Anatomy of a Murder , 1959) and homosexuality ( Advise & Consent , 1962). He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director . He also had several acting roles. Preminger
13425-556: The Cain approach has come to be identified with a subset of the hardboiled genre dubbed " noir fiction ". For much of the 1940s, one of the most prolific and successful authors of this often downbeat brand of suspense tale was Cornell Woolrich (sometimes under the pseudonym George Hopley or William Irish). No writer's published work provided the basis for more noir films of the classic period than Woolrich's: thirteen in all, including Black Angel (1946), Deadline at Dawn (1946), and Fear in
13604-461: The Cold War. This cinematological trend reflected much of the cynicism and the possibility of nuclear annihilation of the era. This new genre introduced innovations that were not available to earlier noir films. The violence was also more potent. While it is hard to draw a line between some of the noir films of the early 1960s such as Blast of Silence (1961) and Cape Fear (1962) and the noirs of
13783-524: The Commedia dell'arte with recognisable local and middle-class realities. His operatic works include two of the most successful musical comedies of the eighteenth century, Il filosofo di campagna ( The Country Philosopher ), set by Galuppi (1752) and La buona figliuola ( The Good Girl ), set by Niccolò Piccinni (1760). In 1753, following his return from Bologna, he defected to the Teatro San Luca of
13962-449: The French literary publishing imprint Série noire , founded in 1945. Cinema historians and critics defined the category retrospectively. Before the notion was widely adopted in the 1970s, many of the classic films noir were referred to as " melodramas ". Whether film noir qualifies as a distinct genre or whether it should be considered a filmmaking style is a matter of ongoing and heavy debate among film scholars. Film noir encompasses
14141-591: The German POW camp Stalag 17 (1953), directed by Billy Wilder . From the mid-1950s, most of Preminger's films used animated titles designed by Saul Bass , and many had jazz scores. At the New York City Opera , in October 1953, Preminger directed the American premiere (in English translation) of Gottfried von Einem 's opera Der Prozeß , based on Franz Kafka 's novel The Trial . Soprano Phyllis Curtin headed
14320-404: The Golden Arm (1955) was one of the first Hollywood films to deal with heroin addiction. Later, Anatomy of a Murder (1959), with its frank courtroom discussions of rape and sexual intercourse led to the censors objecting to the use of words such as "rape", "sperm", "sexual climax" and "penetration". Preminger made but one concession (substituting "violation" for "penetration") and the picture
14499-418: The Golden Arm , The Moon is Blue , The Cardinal and Advise & Consent . Preminger and his wife Marion became increasingly estranged. He lived like a bachelor, as was the case when he met the burlesque performer Gypsy Rose Lee and began an open relationship with her during the mid-1940s. Lee had already attempted to break into movie roles, but she was not taken seriously as anything more than
14678-768: The Great War , Russia entered the war on the Serbian side. Bukovina was invaded by the Russian Army and the Preminger family fled. His father secured a position as public prosecutor in Graz , capital of Styria . When the Preminger family relocated, Otto was nearly nine, and was enrolled in a school where instruction in Catholicism was mandatory and Jewish history and religion had no place on the syllabus . Ingo, not yet four, remained at home. After
14857-528: The King gave him a pension. He lost this pension after the French Revolution . The Convention eventually voted to restore his pension the day after his death. It was restored to his widow, at the pleading of the poet André Chénier ; "She is old", he urged, "she is seventy-six, and her husband has left her no heritage save his illustrious name, his virtues and his poverty." In his Memoirs Goldoni amply discusses
15036-446: The Lake (1947)—he was an important screenwriter in the genre as well, producing the scripts for Double Indemnity , The Blue Dahlia (1946), and Strangers on a Train (1951). Where Chandler, like Hammett, centered most of his novels and stories on the character of the private eye, Cain featured less heroic protagonists and focused more on psychological exposition than on crime solving;
15215-403: The Night (1947). Another crucial literary source for film noir was W. R. Burnett , whose first novel to be published was Little Caesar , in 1929. It was turned into a hit for Warner Bros. in 1931; the following year, Burnett was hired to write dialogue for Scarface , while The Beast of the City (1932) was adapted from one of his stories. At least one important reference work identifies
15394-582: The Terrible" and "Otto the Ogre"—although it has been speculated that (like his contemporary John Ford ) Preminger's tyrannical persona and abusive behaviour were to some extent a calculated pose, intended to garner publicity, keep his cast and crew under his control, and keep interfering studio executives at bay. Preminger evidently had relatively few conflicts with the major stars with whom he worked, although there were notable exceptions. Lana Turner (originally cast in
15573-464: The Third Floor still lost its studio, RKO , US$ 56,000 (equivalent to $ 1,217,900 in 2023), almost a third of its total cost. Variety magazine found Ingster's work: "...too studied and when original, lacks the flare [ sic ] to hold attention. It's a film too arty for average audiences, and too humdrum for others." Stranger on the Third Floor was not recognized as the beginning of
15752-526: The Window (1944) was a production of the independent International Pictures. Lang's follow-up, Scarlet Street (1945), was one of the few classic noirs to be officially censored: filled with erotic innuendo, it was temporarily banned in Milwaukee, Atlanta and New York State. Scarlet Street was a semi-independent, cosponsored by Universal and Lang's Diana Productions, of which the film's co-star, Joan Bennett ,
15931-531: The arrogant nobility and the pauper who lacks dignity. As in other theatrical works of the time and place, the characters in Goldoni's Italian comedies spoke originally either the literary Tuscan variety (which became modern Italian) or the Venetian dialect , depending on their station in life. However, in some printed editions of his plays, he often turned the Venetian texts into Tuscan, too. One of his best-known works
16110-417: The basis for Double Indemnity (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and Slightly Scarlet (1956; adapted from Love's Lovely Counterfeit ). A decade before the classic era, a story by Hammett was the source for the gangster melodrama City Streets (1931), directed by Rouben Mamoulian and photographed by Lee Garmes , who worked regularly with Sternberg. Released
16289-598: The cast. Preminger also adapted two operas for the screen during the decade. Carmen Jones (1954) is a reworking of the Bizet opera Carmen to a wartime African-American setting while Porgy and Bess (1959) is based on the George Gershwin opera. His two films of the early 1960s were Advise & Consent (1962), a political drama from the Allen Drury bestseller with a homosexual subtheme, and The Cardinal (1963),
16468-511: The casting of the relatively unknown Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews , he balked at their choice for the film's villain, Waldo, actor Laird Cregar . Preminger explained to Zanuck that audiences would immediately identify Cregar as a villain, especially after Cregar's role as Jack the Ripper in The Lodger . Preminger wanted stage actor Clifton Webb to play Waldo and persuaded his boss to give Webb
16647-408: The classic era to be something other than genuine film noir. They regard true film noir as belonging to a temporally and geographically limited cycle or period, treating subsequent films that evoke the classics as fundamentally different due to general shifts in filmmaking style and latter-day awareness of noir as a historical source for allusion . These later films are often called neo-noir . While
16826-480: The classic noir period in Great Britain: Night and the City (1950). Though it was conceived in the United States and was not only directed by an American but also stars two American actors— Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney —it is technically a UK production, financed by 20th Century-Fox 's British subsidiary. The most famous of classic British noirs is director Carol Reed 's The Third Man (1949), from
17005-466: The classic period were similarly low- and modestly-budgeted features without major stars— B movies either literally or in spirit. In this production context, writers, directors, cinematographers, and other craftsmen were relatively free from typical big-picture constraints. There was more visual experimentation than in Hollywood filmmaking as a whole: the Expressionism now closely associated with noir and
17184-434: The conventions of classic film noir as historical archetypes to be revived, rejected, or reimagined. These efforts typify what came to be known as neo-noir. Though several late classic noirs, Kiss Me Deadly (1955) in particular, were deeply self-knowing and post-traditional in conception, none tipped its hand so evidently as to be remarked on by American critics at the time. The first major film to overtly work this angle
17363-666: The end of that year Preminger had one of the most sumptuous contracts on the lot, earning $ 7,500 a week. Forever Amber , based on Kathleen Winsor 's internationally popular novel Forever Amber , published in 1944, was Zanuck's next investment in adaptation. Preminger had read the book and disliked it immensely. Preminger had another bestseller aimed at a female audience in mind, Daisy Kenyon . Zanuck pledged that if Preminger did Forever Amber first, he could make Daisy Kenyon afterwards. Forever Amber had already been shooting for nearly six weeks when Preminger replaced director John Stahl . Zanuck had already spent nearly $ 2 million on
17542-406: The era; at least four qualify by consensus: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Notorious (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951) and The Wrong Man (1956), Otto Preminger 's success with Laura (1944) made his name and helped demonstrate noir's adaptability to a high-gloss 20th Century-Fox presentation. Among Hollywood's most celebrated directors of the era, arguably none worked more often in
17721-488: The expressionistic effects of classic black-and-white noir. Like Chinatown , its more complex predecessor, Curtis Hanson 's Oscar-winning L.A. Confidential (1997), based on the James Ellroy novel, demonstrates the opposite tendency—the deliberately retro film noir; its tale of corrupt cops and femmes fatale is seemingly lifted straight from a film of 1953, the year in which it is set. Director David Fincher followed
17900-583: The featured role of Tuptim in The King and I (1956). Preminger advised her to turn it down, as he believed it unworthy of her. The role went to Rita Moreno and the film was a smash hit, and Dandridge later regretted taking Preminger's advice. In 1970, Preminger was a subject of ridicule in Tom Wolfe's essay Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's , where he was portrayed verbally dueling with Black Panther Field Marshal Donald Cox . In 1971, he married Hope Bryce,
18079-458: The femme fatale, the private eye, came to the fore in films such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), with Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade , and Murder, My Sweet (1944), with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe . The prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined in film noir of the 1950s, a period during which several critics describe the form as becoming more focused on extreme psychologies and more exaggerated in general. A prime example
18258-479: The film that brought Garbo out of retirement, refused to betray Bankhead. They became good friends and got along well during filming. The film received generally lackluster reviews as the Ruritanian romance genre had become outdated, and it failed to earn back its cost of production. Fallen Angel (1945) was exactly what Preminger had been anticipating. In Fallen Angel , a con man and womanizer ends up by chance in
18437-537: The film was poorly received and ridiculed for a heavy-handed approach, and for the dubious casting of Michael Caine as an American Southerner. It was followed by several other films which were critical and commercial failures, including Skidoo (1968), a failed attempt at a hip sixties comedy (and Groucho Marx 's last film), and Rosebud (1975), a terrorism thriller which was also widely ridiculed. Several publicized disputes with leading actors did further damage to Preminger's reputation. His last film, an adaptation of
18616-622: The film's commercial success and seven Oscar nominations made it probably the most influential of the early noirs. A slew of now-renowned noir "bad girls" followed, such as those played by Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946), Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Ava Gardner in The Killers (1946), and Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947). The iconic noir counterpart to
18795-457: The first "true" film noir is Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), directed by Latvian-born, Soviet-trained Boris Ingster . Hungarian émigré Peter Lorre —who had starred in Lang's M —was top-billed, although he did not play the primary lead. (He later played secondary roles in several other formative American noirs.) Although modestly budgeted, at the high end of the B movie scale, Stranger on
18974-559: The first of many attempts to define film noir made by French critics Raymond Borde [ fr ] and Étienne Chaumeton in their 1955 book Panorama du film noir américain 1941–1953 ( A Panorama of American Film Noir ), the original and seminal extended treatment of the subject. They emphasize that not every noir film embodies all five attributes in equal measure—one might be more dreamlike; another, particularly brutal. The authors' caveats and repeated efforts at alternative definition have been echoed in subsequent scholarship, but in
19153-485: The genre include 1944's Phantom Lady (a top-of-the-line B and Woolrich adaptation), the ironically titled Christmas Holiday (1944), and Cry of the City (1948). Criss Cross (1949), with Lancaster again the lead, exemplifies how Siodmak brought the virtues of the B-movie to the A noir. In addition to the relatively looser constraints on character and message at lower budgets, the nature of B production lent itself to
19332-584: The genre's films. Because of the diversity of noir (much greater than that of the screwball comedy), certain scholars in the field, such as film historian Thomas Schatz, treat it as not a genre but a "style". Alain Silver , the most widely published American critic specializing in film noir studies, refers to film noir as a "cycle" and a "phenomenon", even as he argues that it has—like certain genres—a consistent set of visual and thematic codes. Screenwriter Eric R. Williams labels both film noir and screwball comedy
19511-456: The hypocrisy of monks and of the Church . Goldoni was inspired by his love of humanity and the admiration he had for his fellow men. He wrote, and was obsessed with, the relationships that humans establish with one another, their cities and homes, and the study of philosophy . The moral and civil values that Goldoni promotes in his plays are those of rationality, civility, humanism, the importance of
19690-483: The immensely successful neo-noir Seven (1995) with a film that developed into a cult favorite after its original, disappointing release: Fight Club (1999), a sui generis mix of noir aesthetic, perverse comedy, speculative content, and satiric intent. Working generally with much smaller budgets, brothers Joel and Ethan Coen have created one of the most extensive oeuvres influenced by classic noir, with films such as Blood Simple (1984) and Fargo (1996),
19869-414: The inceptive noir, Stranger on the Third Floor , was a B picture directed by a virtual unknown, many of the films noir still remembered were A-list productions by well-known film makers. Debuting as a director with The Maltese Falcon (1941), John Huston followed with Key Largo (1948) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Opinion is divided on the noir status of several Alfred Hitchcock thrillers from
20048-409: The industry blacklist—as well as Henry Hathaway ( The Dark Corner (1946), Kiss of Death (1947)) and John Farrow ( The Big Clock (1948), Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)). Most of the Hollywood films considered to be classic noirs fall into the category of the B movie. Some were Bs in the most precise sense, produced to run on the bottom of double bills by a low-budget unit of one of
20227-427: The late 1950s, new trends emerged in the post-classic era. The Manchurian Candidate (1962), directed by John Frankenheimer , Shock Corridor (1963), directed by Samuel Fuller , and Brainstorm (1965), directed by experienced noir character actor William Conrad , all treat the theme of mental dispossession within stylistic and tonal frameworks derived from classic film noir. The Manchurian Candidate examined
20406-440: The latter as a film noir despite its early date. Burnett's characteristic narrative approach fell somewhere between that of the quintessential hardboiled writers and their noir fiction compatriots—his protagonists were often heroic in their own way, which happened to be that of the gangster. During the classic era, his work, either as author or screenwriter, was the basis for seven films now widely regarded as noir, including three of
20585-554: The latter considered by some a supreme work in the neo-noir mode. The Coens cross noir with other generic traditions in the gangster drama Miller's Crossing (1990)—loosely based on the Dashiell Hammett novels Red Harvest and The Glass Key —and the comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), a tribute to Chandler and an homage to Altman's version of The Long Goodbye . The characteristic work of David Lynch combines film noir tropes with scenarios driven by disturbed characters such as
20764-678: The latter was not produced. Joan Crawford starred in Daisy Kenyon alongside Dana Andrews , Ruth Warrick and Henry Fonda . Variety proclaimed the film "high powered melodrama surefire for the femme market". After the modest success of Daisy Kenyon , Preminger saw That Lady in Ermine as a further opportunity. Betty Grable was cast opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. The film had previously been another Lubitsch project, but after Lubitsch's sudden death in November 1947, Preminger took over. His next film
20943-459: The lookout for new talent. Within a half-hour of meeting Schenck, Preminger accepted an invitation to work for Fox in Los Angeles. Preminger's first assignment was to direct a vehicle for Lawrence Tibbett . Preminger worked efficiently, completing the film well within the budget and well before the scheduled shooting deadline. The film opened to tepid notices in November 1936. Zanuck gave Preminger
21122-478: The major studios that have been chosen for the United States National Film Registry . Of the others, one was a small-studio release: Detour . Four were independent productions distributed by United Artists , the "studio without a studio": Gun Crazy ; Kiss Me Deadly ; D.O.A. (1950), directed by Rudolph Maté and Sweet Smell of Success (1957), directed by Alexander Mackendrick . One
21301-520: The man allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown, and one witness later commented, "I had never seen such terrifying rage in anyone," describing the director as having "veins standing out on his forehead" and "literally foaming at the mouth". One of the most infamous examples of his mistreatment of inexperienced actors was Jean Seberg , whom he plucked from obscurity and directed in Saint Joan and Bonjour Tristesse . Seberg later commented: "With him, I became
21480-520: The model of Molière with the strengths of Commedia dell'arte and his own wit and sincerity). This style was typified in La Donna di garbo , the first Italian comedy of its kind. After 1748, Goldoni collaborated with the composer Baldassare Galuppi , making significant contributions to the new form of ' opera buffa '. Galuppi composed the score for more than twenty of Goldoni's librettos. As with his comedies, Goldoni's opera buffa integrates elements of
21659-455: The monstrous or supernatural elements of the horror film , the speculative leaps of the science fiction film , or the song-and-dance routines of the musical . An analogous case is that of the screwball comedy , widely accepted by film historians as constituting a "genre": screwball is defined not by a fundamental attribute, but by a general disposition and a group of elements, some—but rarely and perhaps never all—of which are found in each of
21838-452: The month before Lang's M , City Streets has a claim to being the first major film noir; both its style and story had many noir characteristics. Raymond Chandler , who debuted as a novelist with The Big Sleep in 1939, soon became the most famous author of the hardboiled school. Not only were Chandler's novels turned into major noirs— Murder, My Sweet (1944; adapted from Farewell, My Lovely ), The Big Sleep (1946), and Lady in
22017-469: The most famous classic noirs. By 1931, Curtiz had already been in Hollywood for half a decade, making as many as six films a year. Movies of his such as 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932) and Private Detective 62 (1933) are among the early Hollywood sound films arguably classifiable as noir—scholar Marc Vernet offers the latter as evidence that dating the initiation of film noir to 1940 or any other year
22196-606: The most famous: High Sierra (1941), This Gun for Hire (1942), and The Asphalt Jungle (1950). The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of American film noir. While City Streets and other pre-WWII crime melodramas such as Fury (1936) and You Only Live Once (1937), both directed by Fritz Lang, are categorized as full-fledged noir in Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward's film noir encyclopedia, other critics tend to describe them as "proto-noir" or in similar terms. The film now most commonly cited as
22375-476: The most understandable of femme fatales; Dan Duryea , in one of his many charismatic villain roles; and Lancaster as an ordinary laborer turned armed robber, doomed by a romantic obsession. Some critics regard classic film noir as a cycle exclusive to the United States; Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, for example, argue, "With the Western, film noir shares the distinction of being an indigenous American form ...
22554-561: The next month with William Dieterle (who would later move to Hollywood) in The Merchant of Venice . Other notable alumni with whom Preminger would work the same year were Mady Christians , who died of a stroke after having been blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and Nora Gregor , who was to star in Jean Renoir 's La Règle du jeu (1939). The following summer, a frustrated Preminger
22733-501: The noir style for economic reasons: dim lighting saved on electricity and helped cloak cheap sets (mist and smoke also served the cause). Night shooting was often compelled by hurried production schedules. Plots with obscure motivations and intriguingly elliptical transitions were sometimes the consequence of hastily written scripts. There was not always enough time or money to shoot every scene. In Criss Cross , Siodmak achieved these effects, wrapping them around Yvonne De Carlo , who played
22912-416: The novel by Raymond Chandler, it features one of Bogart's most famous characters, but in iconoclastic fashion: Philip Marlowe, the prototypical hardboiled detective, is replayed as a hapless misfit, almost laughably out of touch with contemporary mores and morality. Where Altman's subversion of the film noir mythos was so irreverent as to outrage some contemporary critics, around the same time Woody Allen
23091-414: The office and slamming the door. Days later, the lock to Preminger's office was changed, and his name was removed from the door. Later, a representative of Zanuck offered Preminger a buyout deal which he rejected: Preminger wanted to be paid for the remaining eleven months of his two-year contract. He searched for work at other studios, but received no offers – only two years after his arrival in Hollywood, he
23270-412: The opera, he was told that his piece "was composed with due regard for the rules of Aristotle and Horace , but not according to those laid down for the Italian drama." "In France", continued the count, "you can try to please the public, but here in Italy it is the actors and actresses whom you must consult, as well as the composer of the music and the stage decorators. Everything must be done according to
23449-578: The parallel influence of the cinematic newsreel. The primary literary influence on film noir was the hardboiled school of American detective and crime fiction , led in its early years by such writers as Dashiell Hammett (whose first novel, Red Harvest , was published in 1929) and James M. Cain (whose The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared five years later), and popularized in pulp magazines such as Black Mask . The classic film noirs The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Glass Key (1942) were based on novels by Hammett; Cain's novels provided
23628-459: The period, updated the hardboiled tradition in different ways, but the show conjuring the most noir tone was a horror crossover touched with shaggy, Long Goodbye -style humor: Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–75), featuring a Chicago newspaper reporter investigating strange, usually supernatural occurrences. The turn of the decade brought Scorsese's black-and-white Raging Bull (1980, cowritten by Schrader). An acknowledged masterpiece—in 2007
23807-401: The plays which he wrote in French, the most successful was Le bourru bienfaisant , dedicated to Marie Adélaïde , a daughter of Louis XV and aunt to the dauphin , the future Louis XVI of France. It premiered on 4 February 1771, almost nine months after the dauphin's marriage to Marie Antoinette . Goldoni enjoyed considerable popularity in France; in 1769, when he retired to Versailles ,
23986-542: The post-classic area. Some of these are quintessentially self-aware neo-noirs—for example, Il Conformista (1969; Italy), Der Amerikanische Freund (1977; Germany), The Element of Crime (1984; Denmark), and El Aura (2005; Argentina). Others simply share narrative elements and a version of the hardboiled sensibility associated with classic noir, such as Castle of Sand (1974; Japan), Insomnia (1997; Norway), Croupier (1998; UK), and Blind Shaft (2003; China). The neo-noir film genre developed mid-way into
24165-401: The production. Only after turning to his revised script did Preminger learn Zanuck had recast star Peggy Cummins with Linda Darnell. Zanuck was convinced that whoever played Amber would become a big star, and he wanted that woman to be one of the studio's own. Zanuck had bought the book because he believed its scandalous reputation promised big box-office returns, and he was not surprised when
24344-566: The proto-noirs They Drive by Night (1940), Manpower (1941) and High Sierra (1941), now regarded as a seminal work in noir's development. Walsh had no great name during his half-century as a director but his noirs The Man I Love (1947), White Heat (1949) and The Enforcer (1951) had A-list stars and are seen as important examples of the cycle. Other directors associated with top-of-the-bill Hollywood films noir include Edward Dmytryk ( Murder, My Sweet (1944), Crossfire (1947))—the first important noir director to fall prey to
24523-431: The result that Tryon was hospitalised with a body rash and peeling skin, due to nerves. Interviewed some 30 years later, Tryon admitted that he still hated talking about the experience, and his brother Bill Tryon told the same interviewer: "I'll never watch that movie again the rest of my life, knowing what Tom went through." The Academy Film Archive has preserved several of Otto Preminger's films, including The Man With
24702-488: The rising middle class, a progressive stance on state affairs, honour and honesty. Goldoni had a dislike for arrogance, intolerance and the abuse of power. Goldoni's main characters are no abstract examples of human virtue, nor monstrous examples of human vice. They occupy the middle ground of human temperament. Goldoni maintains an acute sensibility for the differences in social classes between his characters as well as environmental and generational changes. Goldoni pokes fun at
24881-407: The role that subsequently went to Lee Remick ) quit Anatomy of a Murder a month before filming was due to start, over a dispute about her wardrobe, with Turner telling the press that she couldn't deal with Preminger's domineering personality, and renowned British actor Paul Scofield reportedly quit Saint Joan after he got into a heated argument with Preminger during the first cast read-through of
25060-475: The script. Laurence Olivier , who played a police inspector in the psychological thriller Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965), shot in England, recalled in his autobiography Confessions of an Actor that he found Preminger a "bully". Adam West , who portrayed the lead in the 1960s Batman television series, echoed Olivier's opinion. He remembered Preminger as being rude and unpleasant, especially when he disregarded
25239-552: The semi-documentary style that later emerged represent two very different tendencies. Narrative structures sometimes involved convoluted flashbacks uncommon in non-noir commercial productions. In terms of content, enforcement of the Production Code ensured that no film character could literally get away with murder or be seen sharing a bed with anyone but a spouse; within those bounds, however, many films now identified as noir feature plot elements and dialogue that were very risqué for
25418-464: The situation of American prisoners of war (POWs) during the Korean War . Incidents that occurred during the war as well as those post-war functioned as an inspiration for a "Cold War Noir" subgenre. The television series The Fugitive (1963–67) brought classic noir themes and mood to the small screen for an extended run. In a different vein, films began to appear that self-consciously acknowledged
25597-847: The sociopathic criminal played by Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet (1986) and the delusionary protagonist of Lost Highway (1997). The Twin Peaks cycle, both the TV series (1990–91) and a film, Fire Walk with Me (1992), puts a detective plot through a succession of bizarre spasms. David Cronenberg also mixes surrealism and noir in Naked Lunch (1991), inspired by William S. Burroughs ' novel . Carlo Goldoni Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni ( / ɡ ɒ l ˈ d oʊ n i / , also US : / ɡ ɔː l ˈ -, ɡ oʊ l ˈ -/ , Italian: [ˈkarlo oˈzvaldo ɡolˈdoːni] ; 25 February 1707 – 6 February 1793)
25776-543: The state of Italian comedy when he began writing. At that time, Italian comedy revolved around the conventionality of the Commedia dell'arte , or improvised comedy. Goldoni took to himself the task of superseding the comedy of masks and the comedy of intrigue with representations of actual life and manners through the characters and their behaviours. He maintained that Italian life and manners were susceptible of artistic treatment such as had not been given them before. His works are
25955-406: The task of directing another B-picture screwball comedy film Danger – Love at Work . Simone Simon was cast but later fired by Zanuck and replaced with Ann Sothern . The premise was that eight members of an eccentric, wealthy family have inherited their grandfather's land, and the protagonist is a lawyer tasked with persuading the family to hand the land over to a corporation that believes there
26134-594: The term has been used to describe films from around the world. Many films released from the 1960s onward share attributes with films noir of the classical period, and often treat its conventions self-referentially . Latter-day works are typically referred to as neo-noir . The clichés of film noir have inspired parody since the mid-1940s. The question of what defines film noir and what sort of category it is, provokes continuing debate. "We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric , strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel ..."—this set of attributes constitutes
26313-558: The time. Thematically, films noir were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centered on portrayals of women of questionable virtue—a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid-1930s and the end of the pre-Code era. The signal film in this vein was Double Indemnity , directed by Billy Wilder; setting the mold was Barbara Stanwyck 's femme fatale , Phyllis Dietrichson—an apparent nod to Marlene Dietrich , who had built her extraordinary career playing such characters for Sternberg. An A-level feature,
26492-496: The town for Milan and then for Verona where the theatre manager Giuseppe Imer helped him on his way to becoming a comical poet as well as introducing him to his future wife, Nicoletta Conio. Goldoni returned with her to Venice, where he stayed until 1743. Goldoni entered the Italian theatre scene with a tragedy , Amalasunta , produced in Milan. The play was a critical and financial failure. Submitting it to Count Prata, director of
26671-430: The typical thespian etiquette of subtly cooperating when being helped to his feet, in a scene by West and Burt Ward . Preminger became notorious for his abusive and bullying behaviour towards his crews, and he was especially intolerant of less experienced actors—he reputedly completely memorised every line of each script before shooting began, and would fly into a rage at any actor who struggled to remember their lines. He
26850-411: The words of cinema historian Mark Bould, film noir remains an "elusive phenomenon." Though film noir is often identified with a visual style that emphasizes low-key lighting and unbalanced compositions , films commonly identified as noir evidence a variety of visual approaches, including ones that fit comfortably within the Hollywood mainstream. Film noir similarly embraces a variety of genres, from
27029-489: Was Such Good Friends (1971), which earned a Golden Globe nomination for its star Dyan Cannon . Preminger made a guest appearance as " Mr. Freeze " on the Batman television series, succeeding George Sanders and preceding Eli Wallach in the role of the supervillain. Preminger's Hurry Sundown (1967) is a lengthy drama set in the U.S. South and was partly intended to break cinematic racial and sexual taboos. However,
27208-420: Was 17, his soon-to-be mentor, Max Reinhardt , the renowned Viennese-born director, announced plans to establish a theatrical company in Vienna. Reinhardt's announcement was seen as a call of destiny to Preminger. He began writing to Reinhardt weekly, requesting an audition. After a few months, Preminger, frustrated, gave up, and stopped his daily visit to the post office to check for a response. Unbeknownst to him,
27387-425: Was French director Jean-Luc Godard 's À bout de souffle ( Breathless ; 1960), which pays its literal respects to Bogart and his crime films while brandishing a bold new style for a new day. In the United States, Arthur Penn (1965's Mickey One , drawing inspiration from Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste and other French New Wave films), John Boorman (1967's Point Blank , similarly caught up, though in
27566-483: Was a period piece based on Lady Windermere's Fan . Over the spring and early summer of 1948 Preminger turned Oscar Wilde 's play into The Fan (1949), which starred Madeleine Carroll ; the film opened to poor notices. Several of his films in this period dealt with controversial and taboo themes, thereby challenging both the Motion Picture Association of America 's Production Code of censorship and
27745-458: Was adapted into film in 1960. Among the first major neo-noir films—the term often applied to films that consciously refer back to the classic noir tradition—was the French Tirez sur le pianiste (1960), directed by François Truffaut from a novel by one of the gloomiest of American noir fiction writers, David Goodis . Noir crime films and melodramas have been produced in many countries in
27924-596: Was also known for similar techniques, filming as few takes as possible, and "cutting in the camera", and it is likely that Preminger preferred these methods for the same reasons as Ford, who had learned from hard experience that shooting as little footage as possible reduced costs, while also minimising the ability of studio executives to recut their films against their wishes. However, despite his liberal social outlook, Preminger became notorious for his domineering and abrasive personality, his explosive temper, and his dictatorial manner on set, which earned him nicknames like "Otto
28103-491: Was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice . His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty. His plays offered his contemporaries images of themselves, often dramatizing the lives, values, and conflicts of the emerging middle classes . Though he wrote in French and Italian, his plays make rich use of
28282-406: Was an apothecary ; as for the grandfather, he had died four years before Carlo's birth. In any case, Goldoni was deeply interested in theatre from his earliest years, and all attempts to direct his activity into other channels were of no avail; his toys were puppets, and his books were plays. His father placed him under the care of the philosopher Caldini at Rimini but the youth soon ran away with
28461-436: Was an independent distributed by MGM , the industry leader: Force of Evil (1948), directed by Abraham Polonsky and starring John Garfield , both of whom were blacklisted in the 1950s. Independent production usually meant restricted circumstances but Sweet Smell of Success , despite the plans of the production team, was clearly not made on the cheap, though like many other cherished A-budget noirs, it might be said to have
28640-570: Was another famous target of Preminger's temper—he reportedly screamed at her almost every day for two months during the filming of Forever Amber . She came to loathe him, and the combination of the long hours of filming, heavy dieting and Preminger's constant harangues caused Darnell to collapse twice on set, and she was ordered to take ten days off by a doctor. During rehearsals for the Herman Wouk play "A Modern Primitive", Preminger screamed so violently at an actor who struggled to remember his lines that
28819-490: Was born in 1905 in Wischnitz, Bukovina , Austria-Hungary (present-day Vyzhnytsia , Ukraine ), into a Jewish family. His parents were Josefa (née Fraenkel) and Markus Preminger. The couple provided a stable home life for Preminger and his younger brother Ingwald, known as "Ingo" , later the producer of the original film version of M*A*S*H (1970). After the assassination in 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand , which led to
28998-512: Was constantly at work and when, at Livorno , he became acquainted with the manager Medebac, he determined to pursue the profession of playwriting in order to make a living. He was employed by Medebac to write plays for his theatre in Venice. He worked for other managers and produced during his stay in that city some of his most characteristic works. He also wrote Momolo Cortesan in 1738. By 1743, he had perfected his hybrid style of playwriting (combining
29177-523: Was directing on Broadway. Bankhead learned that Preminger's family would be barred from emigrating to the U.S. due to immigration quotas , and she asked her father (who was Speaker of the House ) to intervene to save them from the Nazis. He did, which earned Bankhead Preminger's loyalty. Thus when Lubitsch wanted to make the film into a vehicle for Greta Garbo , Preminger, although he would have been eager to direct
29356-553: Was ever diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease when interviewed by Foster Hirsch. He was survived by his wife, Hope, and three children: his son, Erik, and twins Mark William and Victoria Elizabeth. Preminger was cremated and his ashes are in a niche in the Azalea Room of the Velma B. Woolworth Memorial Chapel at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx . Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder was nominated for
29535-451: Was in the hands of Zanuck, who had Preminger take over for the ailing Ernst Lubitsch on A Royal Scandal , a remake of Lubitsch's own silent Forbidden Paradise (1924), starring Pola Negri as Catherine the Great . Before he suffered a heart attack, Lubitsch had spent months in preparation, and had already cast the film. Preminger cast Tallulah Bankhead , whom he had known since 1938 when he
29714-400: Was in this way that accomplished noir actress Ida Lupino established herself as the sole female director in Hollywood during the late 1940s and much of the 1950s. She does not appear in the best-known film she directed, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), developed by her company, The Filmakers, with support and distribution by RKO. It is one of the seven classic film noirs produced largely outside of
29893-497: Was in trouble since he would be a foreign director directing in a foreign setting. During the shooting of Kidnapped , while screening footage of the film with Zanuck, the studio head accused Preminger of making changes in a scene; in particular, one with child actor Freddie Bartholomew and a dog. Preminger, composed at first, explained, claiming he shot the scene exactly as written. Zanuck insisted that he knew his own script. The confrontation escalated and ended with Preminger exiting
30072-501: Was largely responsible for spurring a trend of Hollywood gangster films. Successful films in that genre such as Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932) demonstrated that there was an audience for crime dramas with morally reprehensible protagonists. An important, possibly influential, cinematic antecedent to classic noir was 1930s French poetic realism , with its romantic, fatalistic attitude and celebration of doomed heroes. The movement's sensibility
30251-548: Was no longer content to occupy the place of a subordinate and he decided to leave the Reinhardt fold. His status as a Reinhardt muse gave him an edge over much of his competition when it came to joining German-speaking theater. His first theater assignments as a director in Aussig were plays ranging from the sexually provocative Wedekind Lulu plays, to the Berlin-tried, melodramatic, Sergei Tretyakov play Roar China!. In 1930,
30430-483: Was not even the first screen version of Cain's novel, having been preceded by the French Le Dernier Tournant in 1939.) In Japan, the celebrated Akira Kurosawa directed several films recognizable as films noir, including Drunken Angel (1948), Stray Dog (1949), The Bad Sleep Well (1960), and High and Low (1963). Spanish author Mercedes Formica's novel La ciudad perdida (The Lost City)
30609-412: Was on showing the sacrifices made by women as they send their husbands off to the front. Zanuck returned from the armed services with his grudge against Preminger intact. Preminger was not granted permission to direct Laura , only to serve as producer. Rouben Mamoulian was selected to direct. Mamoulian began ignoring Preminger and started to rewrite the script. Although Preminger had no complaints about
30788-472: Was paying affectionate, at points idolatrous homage to the classic mode with Play It Again, Sam (1972). The " blaxploitation " film Shaft (1971), wherein Richard Roundtree plays the titular African-American private eye, John Shaft , takes conventions from classic noir. The most acclaimed of the neo-noirs of the era was director Roman Polanski 's 1974 Chinatown . Written by Robert Towne , it
30967-632: Was released with MPAA approval, marking the beginning of the end of the Production Code. With Exodus (1960) Preminger struck a first major blow against the Hollywood blacklist by acknowledging banned screenwriter Dalton Trumbo . The film is an adaptation of the Leon Uris bestseller about the founding of the state of Israel. Preminger also acted in a few movies including the World War II Luft-Stalag Commandant, Oberst von Scherbach of
31146-404: Was separated at the time. It was not until 1966, when Preminger was 60 years old and Erik was 22, that father and son finally met. In May 1946, Marion asked for a divorce, after meeting a wealthy (and married) Swedish financier, Axel Wenner-Gren . The Premingers' divorce ended smoothly and speedily. Marion did not seek alimony, only personal belongings. Axel's wife, however, was unwilling to grant
31325-670: Was the inspiration for the Dragnet series, which debuted on radio in 1949 and television in 1951. Several directors associated with noir built well-respected oeuvres largely at the B-movie/intermediate level. Samuel Fuller 's brutal, visually energetic films such as Pickup on South Street (1953) and Underworld U.S.A. (1961) earned him a unique reputation; his advocates praise him as "primitive" and "barbarous". Joseph H. Lewis directed noirs as diverse as Gun Crazy (1950) and The Big Combo (1955). The former—whose screenplay
31504-753: Was the second biggest shareholder. Lang, Bennett and her husband, the Universal veteran and Diana production head Walter Wanger , made Secret Beyond the Door (1948) in similar fashion. Before leaving the United States while subject to the Hollywood blacklist , Jules Dassin made two classic noirs that also straddled the major/independent line: Brute Force (1947) and the influential documentary-style The Naked City (1948) were developed by producer Mark Hellinger , who had an "inside/outside" contract with Universal similar to Wanger's. Years earlier, working at Warner Bros., Hellinger had produced three films for Raoul Walsh ,
31683-402: Was this very success that was the object of harsh critiques by Carlo Gozzi , who accused Goldoni of having deprived the Italian theatre of the charms of poetry and imagination. The great success of Gozzi's fairy dramas so irritated Goldoni that it led to his self-exile to France. Goldoni gave to his country a classical form, which, though it has since been cultivated, has yet to be cultivated by
31862-403: Was unemployed in the film industry. He returned to New York, and began to re-focus on the stage. Success came quickly on Broadway for Preminger, with long-running productions, including Outward Bound with Laurette Taylor and Vincent Price , My Dear Children with John and Elaine Barrymore and Margin for Error , in which Preminger played a shiny-domed villainous Nazi. Preminger was offered
32041-412: Was written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo , disguised by a front—features a bank hold-up sequence shown in an unbroken take of over three minutes that was influential. The Big Combo was shot by John Alton and took the shadowy noir style to its outer limits. The most distinctive films of Phil Karlson ( The Phenix City Story [1955] and The Brothers Rico [1957]) tell stories of vice organized on
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