Otto Preminger Retro Continues...

Cinematheque Ontario continues with the awesome Otto Preminger series.  Last chance to catch Preminger’s works if you have not already done so.  Included in the series are also rare Preminger that are unavailable on DVD.

Below are the capsule reviews of a few of the upcoming Preminger films to be screened within the next two weeks. 

For details on showtimes, ticket pricing and venue check the Cinematheque Ontario website at:

http://www.cinemathequeontario.ca

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING (UK 1965) ***** Top 10
Directed by Otto Preminger

Perhaps the best mystery puzzle ever created on film, BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING has all the elements of a good thriller currently found in movies of this genre.  Is the daughter of Carol Lynley really missing or is Bunny Lake a figment of the mother’s imagination?  That is what the London inspector played by Laurence Olivier is determined to find out, as he realizes no one has ever seen the little girl.  As Preminger’s film progresses, the characters get weirder than the circumstances surrounding the missing girl.  This is what makes this film an icy, bitingly wicked movie.  Combined with an excellent use of lightning, eerie nursery rhymes and soundtrack by The Zombies, Preminger’s cult classic was at first a flop at the box-office but now recognized as the hit it should have been.  Preminger’s London is as creepy as it is swinging, especially when Lynley begins searching for the doll hospital.  Noel Coward’s (he plays the landlord in a cameo) lines should be memorized for their sheer outlandishness.  His performance as a dirty old eccentric who quotes Elizabethan for the BBC is priceless.
(Screening at 7 pm on June 20th at the Cinematheque Ontario)

DAISY KENYON (USA 1947) ****
Directed by Otto Preminger

Preminger does romantic melodrama with his touch of sarcastic wit, keen social observation and wry humour.  Joan Crawford plays magazine illustrator DAISY KENYON caught between two lovers.  Fed up with the false promises of married attorney Dana Andrews, she opts for the not-so stable ex-army officer Henry Fonda.  Each uses each other, playing games though intelligent enough to warrant the audience’s attention.  As in Preminger other films, his camera tracking, long shots are ever present as if preventing his characters of a way of escape from their sordid lives.  Daisy is the only one bold enough to eventually make a decision to get out with Preminger’s film climaxing to an unpredictable finish.  The best scene has the two men in confrontation with Andrews confessing his love for the illogical.  And the film’s best line? “Your humour is in pretty bad taste!” Crawford outshines Fonda and Andrews in her performance and charisma.
(Screening at 7 pm on Thursday June 18th at the Cinematheque Ontario)

EXODUS (USA 1960) **
Directed by Otto Preminger

The lengthiest at over 200 minutes and least effective of the Preminger films is this adaptation of the Leon Uris super thick novel of the same name.  Based on the script by 2-time Oscar winner Dalton Trumbo, the most famous of the Jewish blacklisted scriptwriters in Hollywood, the film fails to move and connect as it should.  Though the central theme is the founding of the state of Israel after World War II, the film contains many stories.  The first and really fast moving part of the film deals with the EXODUS of 600 Jews from Cypress, engineered by a Palestinian Jew, Ari Ben Canaan (Paul Newman).  The audience is brought into focus of the situation through the eyes of a naïve American widowed nurse, Kitty Fremont (Eva Marie Saint) who learns of the plight and persecution of the Jews while falling in love with Ben Canaan.  Included is a subplot of another romance between a young rebel (Sal Mineo) and a 15-year old, Karen (Jill Harworth).  The second half of the film goes on and on and on, with new subplots (the evacuation of the children in Palestine; the Ben Canaan family reunion; a prison escape) added at the last minute.  Despite an all star cast that includes Lee J. Cobb, Peter Lawford, Ralph Richardson and Hugh Griffiths, the only memorable thing about EXODUS is Ernest Gold’s Academy Award winning score.
(Screening at 7 pm on June 19th, Saturday at the Cinematheque Ontario)

IN HARM’S WAY (USA 1965) ***
Directed by Otto Preminger

IN HARM’S WAY is a navy epic based on the lives of several U.S. officers based in Hawaii at the outset of World War II.  The main character is Captain ‘Rock’ Torrey, portrayed with equal heroics and sultriness by John Wayne in what could arguably be his best role.  Torrey is admonished after pursuing an enemy by not following orders but is offered a chance to regain his respect.  Preminger weaves his film around Torrey’s story while showing the gloom, despair and boredom of naval life overseas.  But the strong point of the movie is the romance between Torrey and a divorced Navy Nurse Corps Lieutenant (Patricia Neal).  Fortunately the chemistry of the stars works well with the audience rooting for the couple in an otherwise unemotional war film.
(Screening at 7 pm on June 23rd, Tuesday at the Cinematheque Ontario)