Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

Discussion of the actors, directors and film-makers who 'made it all happen'
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CineMaven
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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Tee - :lol: - Hee
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RedRiver
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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I'm afraid I'm one who wishes BUNNY LAKE was still missing! The psycho-drama wasn't believable to me. Not scary like PSYCHO nor campy like HOMICIDAL, it feels forced and ineffective. I assume the plotting that leads to all this is supposed to be intriguing. Not to me. To me it's just silly. No offense. We can't agree on everything!
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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If we agreed, I'd think you were an imposter. :shock:
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JackFavell
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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Ha! That's OK, Red. I can see how the movie might bog down a bit, and I thought the little girl was pretty out of it, but she had just spent a day in a car trunk, so... I'll give Preminger that one. But I still thought it was a good film, and I liked his oddball perspective. Plus Noel and Martita! Score! I don't care if Maven's friend thought he was overacting, he made it all just that much more disturbing for me, eww! How lascivious can you get? Personally, I guess I would rather see Preminger go over the top and fail, than be boring.
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CineMaven
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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Noel was very disturbing. Wouldn't seeing his collection of etchings win a girl over rather than seeing his collection of shrunken heads? I'm just sayin'... I don't think the movie was to be a riff on "Pyscho" or "Homicidal." The whole movie had an unsettling creepy feeling. It fulfilled its intention.
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JackFavell
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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It's kind of cool, setting a creepy movie in a pre=school. And the disorganization was a very modern comment, how harried and NOT NICE the modern teachers and staff was. I found that fascinating in light of our own school's problems are now. it's only gotten worse since then, standardizing the school system here in the States has really taken the joy out of teaching and has left a lot of unhappy, harried, and uncomfortable people in charge of our children. When all they can do is endless paperwork and teaching toward the big tests, so they can keep their gov't funding, it's made teaching the last place anyone who cares about kids would want to be. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a sharp drop in our college applications for teaching jobs soon. Preminger cast a critical eye on the modern age and took it down to the smallest level. Look how knowledgable Martita Hunt and Finlay Currie were about children, and yet they were shut away from the children as 'dotty' old folk who didn't matter any more... leftovers from a dusty, fusty and somehow impure old time.

I loved how the comments were made about the pudding? I forget what it was called, how the cook herself said it was awful, but then Laurence Olivier came in and ate it right up! That was a hint that he was more on the wavelength of the little kids, along with Martita. As the movie went along, it changed into a more and more childlike mindset, until we see the biggest child of them all, Keir Dullea, and then we get all these off kilter shots.
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CineMaven
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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Your review has made me appreciate the movie much more Wendy. This movie must be a parent's worse nightmare...their child gone, and those in charge are more worried about covering their arses than finding the missing child. (( Remember those Moms Lynley overheard talking while they were waiting for their kids? The one whose kid came home w/o socks? Everything seemed very depressed and heavy in that movie. )) All manner of weirdness and bureaucrazy swirl about this young Mother, who is not ashamed to say she is an "unmarried" mother. ( The shocks keep comin', don't they Otto. First the panties...and now this!! :shock: ) Hey, did all this happened b'cuz she was un...wed?

This line you wrote really shook me to the core about the movie:
Look how knowledgable Martita Hunt and Finlay Currie were about children, and yet they were shut away from the children as 'dotty' old folk who didn't matter any more... leftovers from a dusty, fusty and somehow impure old time.
...And please, if you wouldn't mind, I'm going to pass your review onto my friend. She is an educator, a teacher, a pre-Kg teacher, who wants to teach critical thinking to her students even though her Administrators want the kids to know how to write a paragraph before they go into Kindergarten. She & I had fun with the movie via our texts. ( I can't even quote what was said when we "watched" "Dark Victory" - I had to watch it again on my own to get my emotionalism about the film and Bette's performance back where it belonged...in my heart and not my tongue. ) But my friend is a woman who will listen to the reason from a totally well-written thesis. You showed me there was more to the movie than my smartass comments above.

Image

Carol Lynley was very good as Alice in Weirdland going down a rabbit hole and encountering all manner of characters in her search for her little girl. Unfortunately the danger was with her all the time. Lynley finally gets a shot to do some real acting with a real director. She often makes me think of Joanne Woodward.

OH OTTO...do forgive me. I should have known you knew what you were doing.

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CineMaven
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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On my friend's FaceBook page she writes:
Privatization and Testing are pushing the nation's public schools over a Pedagogical Cliff, a consequence which parents, teachers, and students should mobilize against using every strategy in the protest playbook, including ones which haven't been invented yet!
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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JackFavell
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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I don't mind at all, if you think it's something you want to share. You were right on it about those teachers all being about saving their asses... Anna Massey had that scared rabbit with a chip on her shoulder thing down pat.... now multiply that by a thousand times and that's the mindset in the schools right now... school has become a landmine filled war zone for teachers, they can't do anything right - the parents come down on them for one thing, then they get it from the principals, and now finally from the fed gov't. Toe the line or else! Teach what big brother wants you to teach... and watch the kids lose English and History and a whole bunch of other skills that no one in charge thinks is important. I think our scores will actually be going down from all this focus on testing and leveling of the field, but we'll see.

I do think that there are SOME things that should NOT be run like businesses in our country - hospitals, banks and schools, for instance. We are on the road to ruin if we think that everything benefits from business type models and standardization. The more diverse our schools are, and I'm not talking about just kids from different backgrounds, I'm talking about the teaching, the better off our kids will be. Teachers who are excited to teach, in new and different ways, this is where results come from, not from sticking to some arbitrary lesson plan put together by some bigwig in Washington.
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CineMaven
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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Here! Here! Jack Favell! Here...here! I agree. I think Rohanaka has the right idea with how she's handling her daughter's schooling.

And if you don't want or can't do that full time, ( that takes a lot of patience ) I say make sure when one's child comes home from school...a parent talking about school and helping them with projects and giving them a good attitude about learning should be part of the family routine. Education should be a lifestyle of positivity. And I think parents and teachers should work in tandem for the good of the child. ( Silly me! :roll: ) I shudder to think about what School is twenty years from now. I worked for the Department of Education for nine years. What I saw. :twisted:

Whew!! I'm glad I finished...
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JackFavell
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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Yeah, sorry bout the tirade. We're in the midst of some really stupid stuff in our school system right now. If it wasn't so awful it would be hilarious.
RedRiver
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

Post by RedRiver »

the disorganization was a very modern comment, how harried and NOT NICE the modern teachers and staff was

You know what? You're right, Wendy. Even I recognize the effectiveness of that scene. And I don't like the movie! I felt the frustration and fear you would experience in a situation such as that.
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CineMaven
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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Tirade alllll you want Jaxx0n. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Continue to monitor what's going on at school. Wish we could send Otto to straighten them out.
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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CineMaven
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

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This was my friend's response to posting your review of "Bunny Lake Is Missing" on her FaceBook page:
T, post to my page anytime. This was grand reading it from another's point of view. i noticed that the staff at the school were not very nice...
"You build my gallows high, baby."

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goldennoir1950
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Re: Otto Preminger (1906-1986)

Post by goldennoir1950 »

At the 2014 TCM Festival, Foster Hirsch sat right next to me at a screening for " Meet Me in St. Louis" in the lavish Gruauman's Chinese Theatre. At first I didn't realize it was him until I look to my side and said, " Excuse me, are you Foster Hirsch?" He politely and quietley said, "Yes I am". I went on telling him how i've read many of his books, especially the Otto Preminger Biography, which i found to be wonderfully comprehensive about one of the most dynamic directors of the 20th Century. Even though, he did not remain long, actually only for the interview with Margaret o' Brien; conversations like this are quite delightful to anyone who loves cinema and the people who made it.
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