Otto Preminger

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 30:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1980, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

On our Desert Island this week is the independent film director and producer Otto Preminger.

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mister Braminger

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You're on this desert island, all on your own, with just eight records. Could you adjust yourself to loneliness? Could you bear it? No, I would jump into the sea and swim.

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Does music play a big part in your life? Would these eight records help you? Well, I must tell you something. I don't know much about music, but I have an instinct for the music which I want for my films. And I've been very lucky because all my films usually used new composers who never did any film scores before, and they were all very successful. Why do you make a point of choosing new composers? Because you'll be very disappointed.

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They're less expensive. What I mean is this.

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See, usually

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people finish the rough cut of a picture.

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Then they show it to a composer and he spends about six weeks to write the score.

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I, on the other hand, want the composer to be with me from the first day of shooting all through shooting, and discuss with him while we are shooting, what kind of music, etc. I want him to be part of the film. Now, very successful older composers would be too expensive, so it is a question of money. This is how I started to discover new composers, and I must say I was very lucky and very and I'm very happy with the system.

Presenter2:11

Let's have your first record out of the eight that you've chosen to take with you. What's that going to be?

Presenter2:16

Ah, you mean Laura? Laura. And the picture was your first big success. Yeah. And we're going to hear now that that one theme which had such a great impact.

Otto Preminger2:32

Here's the face.

Otto Preminger2:35

In the misty light

Otto Preminger2:42

Footsteps

Otto Preminger2:47

That you hear down the hall.

Presenter2:53

The theme from Laura. mister Preminger, you're from Vienna, the son of a lawyer. You became stage struck. How did that happen? Was it any particular occasion? Well, at the age of seventeen.

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I wanted to become an actor.

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At that time, a very famous German producer, director, Max Reinhardt, who originally was Austrian.

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came back to Vienna and started a theatre.

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And I had written to him and one of his assistants had me auditioned, he liked me, and I became an actor, an apprentice actor there. My first part was with uh a few other young actors to take the furniture in and out, you know, and reorganize it.

Otto Preminger3:42

Three.

Presenter3:44

And my second part was also for him in Salzburg, at a festival in Salzburg, where I played a nun because there was a you know, there is a play which they are still playing, uh uh Pantomime and The Miracle. And there is a long march of nuns. And as the nuns were all society women, you know, the in Salzburg is a small town, they didn't have enough actors, he put between every fifteen nuns an assistant. That was also dressed as a nun and told them what to do. And then I started out and became an actor first and later a director.

Otto Preminger4:00

Medical

Presenter4:25

You were a director at nineteen. Yeah. That was where your ambition lay, in directing more than acting. Yeah. As a matter of fact, at nineteen I opened my first theater in Vienna. Yes. Called the Commodie, which still exists. Then I opened another theater called Kroße Schauspielhaus. And then I took over the theater where I had started for Max Reinhardt when he retired. Yes. And I ran it until

Presenter4:49

Your productions by that time as a young

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A young man in your early twenties were getting an international reputation. You were the Austrian. Well, I wouldn't say international, but they were very successful. And then I got an offer to go to Hollywood in 1935, which saved my life, which because if I had been there when Hitler came to power, I would be dead like many of my friends. Had you any idea what this was, what, three or four years before the Anschluss, had you any idea what was going to happen? No.

Otto Preminger4:59

But I was saying

Otto Preminger5:03

Mm-hmm.

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Nobody had. As a matter of fact, I'll tell you something. The Nazis were

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What had been Germany?

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And my father, who was originally Attorney General of the Austrian Empire and then a very well-known lawyer, laughed. He said, They never come here, it's nonsense. And I'm very happy to tell you that when they did come in 1938, the president of the police of Vienna was his friend. We put him on a plane with my mother to Zurich, and this is how he was saved. My brother had to walk across the border to Czechoslovakia with his wife and his daughter. And so I was lucky, and we were all lucky to escape. Let's have your second record. What shall we have now?

Presenter6:10

The man with the golden arm

Presenter6:12

The score was written by Elmer Bernstein, Bernstein of Steen, and I loved it very much. And this was the second part that uh Frank Sinatra played when he returned, you know, he had a time when he was in love and almost committed suicide, and then he came back and this was his second part, and he was terrific. We don't hear Frank Sinatra singing, but this is the number from the man with the golden arm called Frankie Machine.

Presenter7:15

An excerpt from Elmer Bernstein's music for The Man with the Golden Arm.

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Right, mister Preminger, you're in New York. How was your English at that time? My English?

Otto Preminger7:23

My English

Presenter7:24

When I first came to New York,

Presenter7:27

I did a play. I had only taken six months English lessons and I did a play called Leibel. Luckily enough, I had done the play before in German, so I knew it practically by heart. So I knew when the actors talked, whether they talked to me or talked lines from the play, otherwise I wouldn't have known. But I learned a little English, as you can hear now. I speak almost speaking. And then after that first

Presenter8:01

Play libel, you went to Hollywood. Yup.

Presenter8:04

You had already directed one film in Austria. A very small, bad film, called The Big Love, The Great Love.

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And you could take a fairly independent attitude to Hollywood because you knew you could always set up theater work in New York. No, no, I was not independent. I was very anxious to make a success. And I did two small pictures after I watched one picture from the beginning to the end. And Mr. Dariel Zanuk was the head of the studio. And I did these two pictures. And then he gave me an assignment. And he had a man, a go-between, between the producers and directors called Gregory Ratov. And Gregory Ratov came to me and said, you're going to get the biggest assignment of the studio. You're going to do a picture called Kidnap. Zanuk is going to send you the script in a few days. And I got the script. And I couldn't understand it because you see it was a script. It was Scotland. And I came from Vienna. I didn't even speak English fluently. So I told Gregory Ratov, I said, look, I can't do this. And he said, he said, Otto, if you don't do it...

Otto Preminger8:18

Oh.

Otto Preminger9:17

Call the

Presenter9:22

You're through. You can just as well resign and go back to Vienna. Because Zanunk will never forgive you. He's producing the picture himself. To make it short, this was the most important picture at the studio at that time. And I let him persuade me. And I started the picture, and it was terrible what I did. And Zanunk and I had a few fights, and then he fired me. Eventually I went back to New York and I did first a very successful play with Lorette Taylor Hood.

Presenter9:55

What was the name? Outward Bound. Outward Bound. And then I did a play which I also acted in and directed and produced.

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Could margin for error. And then you went back to to servitude. You went back to twentieth century Fox. Well, yes. It was not servitude exactly. But but it's not. There was no alternative at all. It was not quite right. Zanouk was in the army.

Otto Preminger10:17

There was no alternative.

Presenter10:24

And this successor, I mean, called Bill Goetz, asked me to do this play, you know, that I had done in New York, to act in it in Hollywood. And I said I will only act in it if I can also direct and produce it, and he gave me a contract with producer and director.

Presenter10:40

And when Zanuk came back from the army and other difficulties with him, Zanuk fired him. And after he had fired him, he called me in, and I still remember he was in his house on the beach, and there was also a swimming pool. And he didn't even turn around when I was announced. And he looked at the piece of paper and said, Well, you have three properties here. Well, one is not bad.

Presenter11:04

And you can produce it. It's called Laura. But you will never be wrecked as long as I am at the studio.

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So I needed the money and I said, Okay, what can I do?

Presenter11:15

Now he assigned a director called Ruben Mamoulian. And Ruben Mamoulian started to direct that he knew that Zanouk and I didn't get along. So he he didn't even let me on the set. He treated me terribly, ordered new costumes without asking me. It was just horrible about his sh shot. In the meantime, Bill Goetz's successor was a man called Lou Schriver.

Presenter11:39

I went to him and I said, Look, Lou, Zanuk was in New York. Let's send him the dailies. I mean, the the film that was shot because it's awful. He said, Oh, okay. We sent it to Zanuk and back came a telegram, a wire from him to Lou Schriver. He said, Tell Preminger not to set foot on the s stage and tell Mamoulian he can start from scratch again, because he blamed me for it. To make it short, Mamuyan didn't know what was wrong and shot the same thing over again. Then Zanuk came back, and I still remember very well because it was an important moment in my life. Zanuk called me over and said, Monday, you can start directing. And this is how it came that I directed Laura. Your great success. It was my first success.

Otto Preminger11:46

Yeah.

Otto Preminger12:06

Yes.

Otto Preminger12:10

Yeah.

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Let's have another record. What's what's the third one you've got there? Well, I think the th third one is a record of Carmen Jones, which was a musical

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On the stage by Hammerstein.

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who was a wonderful man and I made a picture based on this musical. The music of course you will know. I did not discover this musician because it was the the composer of Carmen. You know who composed Carmen? Bizet? Yeah, Bizet. And you will hear the singing and I must confess that while Harry Berfonte and Dorothy Dandrich played the leading parts and they both were singers, I did not want to change the music. I kept the music just as Bizet wrote it because I felt the music shouldn't be changed. So I had to find two singers to s sing it. That was very lucky because the woman, or the girl at that time, she was very young.

Presenter13:33

who sang for Dorothy Dandridge, became a very, very famous

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Opera singer called Marilyn Hohan.

Speaker 413:42

Love's a baby that grows up wild and he don't do what you want him to. Love ain't nobody's angel child and he won't pay any mind to you. One man gives me his diamond stud and I won't give him a cigarette. One man treats me like I was mud.

Speaker 414:07

And all a God that man can get

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The voice of Marilyn Horne singing in Carmen Jones.

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Now you decided to be an independent producer. Was this you didn't get on very well with Darrell Zane? No, that was not the reason. The reason was that I wanted complete autonomy. It's not that I did get along with him very well when I was successful. You see, there was one thing about the studio

Otto Preminger14:22

Was this

Otto Preminger14:25

And all of

Otto Preminger14:26

No.

Otto Preminger14:30

Yes.

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Politics

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Once you were successful, the studios competed with each other.

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for the successful people. So you had a certain power and Zanock would not let me go unless my contract was over or I really wanted very badly to go. There were very few independent producers at that time. This is what, 25 years ago. I was one of the first ones. But when I started a few other people became independent producers and they were backed, financed by major studios, so they had outlets. But you had to work through the major studios for getting started. No, I didn't have to work through them. No, they financed me and they released the pictures, but I had complete autonomy. I had the right to cut it.

Otto Preminger15:00

This is what, 25 years.

Otto Preminger15:17

No, I think it's a good idea.

Presenter15:26

The the right to to hire the screenplay writer, the right was all like now. What was the first one you made as an independent?

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The first one I made as an impression was I think the moon is blue.

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Which you had previously produced on Broadway? Yeah, it was a play that I produced abroad.

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I see the fourth record you've chosen is indeed from The Moon is Blue. Yes. Who's singing it?

Presenter15:50

He's singing it. Sunny Switzerland is singing it. Sure. Where who else?

Otto Preminger15:59

Uh

Otto Preminger16:01

Money grows on trees, the desert starts to freeze.

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Funny clothes and

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Cats converse in perfect peeking And sometimes a dream like you comes true Now and then when the moon is blue

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Oh, we

Otto Preminger16:19

So perhaps the D

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That ordinary

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The Moon is Blue by Sauta Finnegan with Sally Sweetland.

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So for twenty-five years you've been completely independent. Now this doesn't mean just

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choosing the story and the actors.

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You've gone right through the whole process, the promotion, publicizing, every part of it. Certainly.

Otto Preminger16:41

Yeah.

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And you've been something of a gipsy, you've had no no real base?

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No, I lived for about seventeen years in Los Angeles, Hollywood, and then I moved to New York about twenty one years ago.

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And I'm not a gypsy, I have a house in New York. What do you mean a gypsy? Well, yes, yes. I mean, you you live under kisses, but you do to your guests, you insult them and say they are gypsies. I mean, look, I'm not much bored than you. No, only minimally. But I have as much hair as you, only I shave it because I think it's awful to have this little hair thing and be bored otherwise. Yes, I do. If you take my advice, buy yourself an electric shaver and sh and shave yourself. I'll start tomorrow. Please. Yes.

Otto Preminger17:17

My

Otto Preminger17:25

Yes, I know.

Presenter17:36

But you don't

Otto Preminger17:36

work in the studio anymore. You you

Presenter17:38

Yeah. No, I usually for the last fifteen years or so I've only worked except for exceptions in uh real locales, in real rooms, in real restaurants, because it is not necessary anymore.

Otto Preminger17:39

No, I

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Film is very sensitive now. I could here in this dark studio, I could easily shoot you and me because first of all your head reflects enough light. Surely. And and my head too.

Otto Preminger18:04

Surely.

Presenter18:07

So I wouldn't need it. Only from time to time, for instance in my last film called The Human Factor, I shot one scene.

Presenter18:15

in a set. I had a set built for one scene because it takes place in Moscow and I couldn't go there. It was for one scene not worthwhile. So I had the set built on the studio and you saw through the window my back projection Moscow. Otherwise I shoot only real places.

Presenter18:34

You still act occasionally. I mean, you you had um you you played one of the heavies in Batman not long ago.

Otto Preminger18:37

Everything

Presenter18:42

I have twins, a boy and a girl, and at that time they are now nineteen. At that time they were about ten or even younger. And they used to look every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon on television at a show called Batman. And I ran into the producer of the show someday. They had an idea and said to him, Look, if you want to, I play Mr. Fries, who was one of the characters in one episode for free for you. So he grabbed the opportunity and I played it and I walked into my children's room and this came on and I said, Daddy, look, Daddy is there. And that gave me fun.

Presenter19:22

I'm sure he did. Let's have another record. What have we got to now? Well, there's now anatomy of a murder. You know, it is the music. For once, it was not a new composer, but it was still a man who has never done a film score before. His name was Duke Ellington. And I must tell you right now, before we start, not only was he a great artist, but he was also a wonderful, wonderful man.

Presenter20:51

Duke Ellington and his orchestra almost cried from the soundtrack of Anatomy of a Murder. Now you've mentioned this new film of yours, The Human Factor. What's it about?

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But it's it's based on a novel by Graham Greene, and it is actually

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It's two things. It's on one hand.

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a kind of spy story about the secret service, the English secret service, and it is also a love story between a black girl

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And a white man. Have you had some interesting locations?

Presenter21:26

I always have interesting locations. You sought yourself out always some good jobs. Part of it takes place in Africa. And we shot it in Nairobi. Originally it plays really in South Africa, but the South African government is not very fond of black people. And they said, well, I can shoot it there, but they must see first what I shot. Otherwise, if they don't like it, they will confiscate it. Now, I couldn't take that risk. So I went to Kenya. And in Kenya is a black government, they didn't even ask me to read the script. They said, Mr. Premier, they knew me. Whatever you want to do, we'll help you. And they behaved beautifully.

Speaker 421:30

Yeah.

Otto Preminger21:30

You sort yourself out all with some good trip.

Otto Preminger22:07

I'm gonna

Presenter22:21

What's your next record? We got to number six now. Number six, I would say, is a picture called Advice and Consent. Charles Lawton, wasn't he? Charles Lawton played the lead and I must say he was and is the one actor whom I not only admired as an actor more than any other actor, I really learned from him. The way he approached the part, everything was wonderful. Unfortunately, shortly after we finished the picture, he called me, was on a tour in the Middle West, and asked me if I could get a hospital room for him.

Otto Preminger22:24

Now

Presenter22:59

And I did, and we came back and they made tests and he did not have cancer, as they suspected. And I still remember my wife and I took a bottle of champagne to him and he was crying like a child. He was so happy. But unfortunately, a few months later, he got sick again and he died. And he's really he was a wonderful man and a w great, great actor, Charles Lawton.

Presenter23:25

Advice and consent.

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The title music from Advise and Consent.

Presenter24:01

You said nice things about Charles Lawton, you've paid tribute to other actors, but there are actors who have worked for you who say that you're very tough on the set, in fact that you're rather a frightening man to actors and something of an ogre. Who told you that? Which actor told you that? You are incredible. You read things and you believe everything bad about me.

Otto Preminger24:24

No, I was giving it to you to deny.

Presenter24:26

Uh

Otto Preminger24:27

Uh

Presenter24:27

I don't deny it. No. The only thing

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That I don't like, I can't stand, are actors who are late or who don't learn their lines. Otherwise, I'm very patient. For instance, the man with the golden arm, you know, was Kim Novak, who already was a star. She had done two pictures at Columbia, and I borrowed her from Columbia Pictures.

Presenter24:52

Sinatra but the dialogue that she spoke on the stage was never used in the picture. She then afterwards dubbed it so she could repeat it and repeat it. I didn't like that, I don't like it. So sometimes we had to do a scene thirty-five times and both. Sinatra and I were very patient. So don't say I'm tough. Take it back. Right, take it back. Okay. You're lucky that you did. In your autobiography, I noticed that in the list of your films at the back, you credit all the writers, and that isn't usual, and it's very much to be commended. Because I think the writer

Otto Preminger25:27

Man, because

Presenter25:29

Contributes a great deal to the picture. And of course, you contribute a lot of work to the scripts yourself. You always work with the writer. Well, I work with the writers very close.

Otto Preminger25:35

Well I've got bitter

Presenter25:38

I mentioned your autobiography. Two books about you have been published here, but not your own book. No, no, my own book was published. And the best thing about my own book is the cover. It is done by my friend Saul Baas, whom I discovered when I did The Moon is Blue. This is the first time he worked for me, and then he did all the titles on all my pictures. And I asked him to do the cover for my book, my autobiography, and he called me and said, you know, you look much better from the back, the back of your head. May I put that on the front cover and your face on the back cover? And this is what happened.

Otto Preminger25:59

Yeah.

Otto Preminger26:14

Please

Presenter26:17

Let's have another record. What have we got now? And we got number seven. Well, I did a picture called Porget Bess, and that was my second um meeting, or should I say my second experience with mister Mamoulian. Mamoulian had been engaged to do this, to direct this picture, and one day

Presenter26:38

He had a fight or something before he started with uh Sam Goldwyn, who produced it. And Goldwyn called me and asked me if I would take over and as I liked Paul Geebest very much, I said yes, and I started to direct. And I often talked to him on the phone. And the people in the studio used to stand when I talked to him under my window just to listen, because nobody in his life or in their experience had talked to Goldwyn like me. So you're charged at producers but not at actors?

Otto Preminger27:09

So your child

Presenter27:12

Now I was not tough on him. The only thing is that Goldwyn, strangely enough, he had an instinct for pictures, but he didn't know anything about it. And whatever he said was so completely, incredibly naïve and silly that you had to shout at him, because he also even on the phone couldn't hear well. And anyway, it turned out to be a big success, Borg and Bess. And this is my picture.

Otto Preminger27:39

Listen to your daddy warning

Otto Preminger27:43

For his daughter Trevelly

Otto Preminger27:47

Woman may borne you, love you and mourn you, but

Presenter27:50

More

Otto Preminger27:55

A woman is a sometime thing. Yes, a woman is a sometime thing. Oh, a woman is a sometime thing.

Presenter28:06

A woman is a sometime thing from the soundtrack of Porgy and Bess. mister Preminger, you're an independent and self-reliant man. Could you look after yourself on a desert island?

Presenter28:18

Could I look after myself on a desert island? Yes. Could you build a hut? Are you any good at carpentry? Build a hut? Yes. You must be out of your mind.

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I can't even build a a box, uh anything. Can you build the hut? No. Then why do you expect me to build the hut? I don't expect you, I just wanted to know.

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with an inquiring mind if you thought you could build a hut. Could you find any food? Could you fish? Could you cook?

Presenter28:45

I could not cook.

Presenter28:47

I don't think you're going to enjoy this desert island very much. Your last record, what's that?

Presenter28:53

The last record is from my picture Exodus, which I did in Israel and the music was written by Ernest Gold. He was a new young composer and he won the Academy Award. The producer of the picture, who was called Otto Preminger at that time, didn't win anything.

Presenter29:14

accepts a big success.

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Fight for Survival from the soundtrack of Exodus.

Presenter29:52

Well, you've played us eight discs, all from soundtracks of your own films. If you could only have one of the discs, and not the eight, which would it be? I won't tell you.

Presenter30:02

Which one would you like best?

Presenter30:05

Now you see you can't answer. You ask all these questions. If I ask you one question, you just get red in your face and your head particularly, and you and you can't answer. I could answer it, but I'm not going to. I won't find you. And I won't answer it either.

Otto Preminger30:17

And I won't answer.

Speaker 330:19

Okay.

Otto Preminger30:19

Yeah.

Presenter30:20

Shall we have um Laura, for example?

Presenter30:23

Yes, I like Flora very much. I liked all my mants. And I don't forget I selected the composer, but not only that. If I hadn't liked them, I would have not used them and and taken another composer.

Otto Preminger30:37

Yes.

Presenter30:37

So you'll have Laura.

Presenter30:39

Yeah.

Presenter30:40

And one luxury to take with you? One luxury. Yes. It couldn't be a woman. No. Inanimate.

Otto Preminger30:46

Banam

Otto Preminger30:48

Uh

Speaker 430:48

It matters.

Presenter30:50

A but a beautiful watch. A beautiful watch. Yes. And try not to get sand in it.

Presenter30:56

and one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare as the conventional obvious choices.

Presenter31:03

Well, there is a beautiful autobiography by Otto Preminger. That is the book I enjoyed most.

Presenter31:10

All right.

Presenter31:12

And thank you, Otto Preminger, for letting us hear your choice of desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter31:18

Goodbye everyone.

Speaker 331:26

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio four.