Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King
Here is a link to my review of Foster Hirsch’s biography of Otto Preminger in the Los Angeles Times Book Review. Known as “Otto the Terrible,” the director was legendary for bullying actors, although Kathryn Grant managed to overcome her fear of the man during the filming of Anatomy of A Murder by relying on a crucial bit of advice from Alice Faye: “‘He has bad breath,’ she told me, ‘and you can’t be afraid of someone with terrible breath.’”
Due to space constraints I was not able to run on at length about my abiding love for the film Skidoo, but I was very happy to learn of the writing of Christian Divine, “the world’s foremost authority on Otto Preminger’s 1968 acid-comedy.” Skidoo was Preminger’s cinematic foray into the counterculture and it features Groucho Marx as God and Jackie Gleason on acid. See below:
October 17, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Christian Divine here. Thanks much for your review and interest in SKIDOO. I have much more ephemera on the film at my website christiandivine.com and my SHOCK CINEMA magazine interview with Austin Pendleton goes into great SKIDOO detail, available at fine book stores everywhere.
Did you make it to our screening at the Egyptian over the summer?
October 18, 2007 at 8:54 am
Christian–thanks so much for writing. I’m in New York, so I didn’t make it to the Egyptian screening, though I was lucky enough to get my second viewing of Skidoo here at MoMA last year. I’m a big fan of the film, fascinated by Preminger’s effort to “get” the counterculture–and always a fan of film ephemera. Looking forward to reading more of your work.