Otto Preminger Retro Continues...

Cinematheque Ontario continues with the awesome Otto Preminger series.  For myself, I have only just begun to discover this great artist’s films.  I had only seen ADVISE AND CONSENT and BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING in the past – both works of which I have truly admired, but now have come to recognise Preminger’s style, technique and cinematic genius.

Below are the capsule reviews of a few of the upcoming Preminger films to be screened within the next two weeks.  Preminger also directed two blockbusters, IN HARM’S WAY and EXODUS.  These will be reviewed and posted in 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)

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM
(will be posted in the next few days)

RIVER OF NO RETURN (USA 1954) ****
Directed by Otto Preminger

The strangest of all Preminger films, RIVER OF NO RETURN is a musical, a western, an adventure and also an unlikely romantic comedy with two hot stars Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum.  Monroe plays a salon singer and Mitchum a farmer brought together on a raft down what Indians call the treacherous RIVER OF NO RETURN.  The river is named for the obvious reason that no one has survived it - except in a 20th Century Fox Cinemascope movie!  At times ridiculous, camp and even inspirational (like the crazy ending), Preminger’s film still bears the characteristics of his later films – such as his characters being many things, not just good or bad and the film’s sardonic wit.  Despite its odd unpredictable bits, RIVER OF NO RETURN is extremely entertaining and the romance at least, believable.  Filmed around Banff and the Rocky Mountains in western Canada!
(Screening at 7 pm on June 11th at the Cinematheque Ontario)

WHIRLPOOL (USA 1949) ***
Directed by Otto Preminger

Though based on a novel by Guy Endore, this rather implausible story of a loving wife, Ann (Gene Tierney) of a famous psycho-analyst (Richard Conte) hounded by a sinister murdering hypnotist, David Korvo (Jose Ferrer looking equally sinister) is made worse by Preminger’s fondness of letting his story sink into melodrama and cheap theratrics.  The upside of the film is the smart one-liners and at times quirky humour – especially during the initial scenes when Ferrer attempts to seduce the beautiful Tierney.  But the stereotype ending and the cheap theatrics aforementioned at the end undermines the entire proceedings.  WHIRLPOOL, looks at times like a film noir psychological thriller with a femme fragile instead of a femme fatale.
(Screening at 7 pm on Friday June 5th at the Cinematheque Ontario)