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The ABZs of Film Noir otto preminger and edgar g. ulmer Though not blood-related, Otto Preminger and Edgar Ulmer constitute a Viennese-twin grouping of their own. Here the kinship, and contrast, relates not to psychological conflict between the two Vienna-bred directors but rather to the divergent production modes within which most of their work can be subsumed. All of Preminger’s film noirs, like most of Lang’s and Siodmak’s and all of Billy Wilder’s, were made within the comparatively privileged A- film category; the majority of Ulmer’s, like Willy Wilder’s, fit into the more marginal B-film type. The alphabetic differences are more than nominal, having strictly governed budget levels during the classical studio era and therefore substantially affecting talent choices, technical resources, and production schedules , not to mention distribution and exhibition strategies in promotion and theater billing. B-feature budgets, among the eight major Hollywood studios, were generally one-fourth to one-half of even A-programmers, and sometimes as little as one-twentieth of so-called superspecials.1 At Poverty Row companies limited exclusively to B pictures, such as Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) where Ulmer spent much of his time, budgets were even more minuscule and production conditions often strayed “beyond the pale of the B’s into the seventh circle of the Z’s.”2 These monetary and material deprivations , however, should not be regarded, as they tended to be with the Wilder brothers, as a straightforward determinant of quality. Although Preminger’s films made the most of their big-budget advantages, they also bore the burden of classical Hollywood’s autocratic controls and aesthetic constraints. Conversely, what Ulmer’s cheapies may have lacked (for the most part) in star power and production values were frequently compensated for in the greater creative freedom that working in the cinematic backwaters provided. The upper- and lower-class niches associated with Preminger and Ulmer’s films, while not preordained, seem to have suited the two men’s similarly divergent backgrounds, personalities, and artistic aspirations. Preminger was more to the manor born (although not to the extent that he describes in his memoirs); and his creative instincts, like his aristocratic bearing and lifestyle, leaned toward the “tradition of quality” and the “well-made” cultural artifact.3 Ulmer, who grew up under less privileged, at times even penurious circumstances, veered toward the bohemian in lifestyle and the experimental in his stage and film work. Yet once 145 8 driven to darkness 146 in Hollywood, both men, like most of the émigré filmmakers, had to not only prove themselves anew but also adapt their talents and proclivities to the exigencies of the American system. Adding uniquely, and ironically, to Preminger’s and Ulmer’s challenges, both directors, after some early American successes, faced occupational exile from mainstream Hollywood altogether. Preminger would claw his way back into the industry’s good graces and rise to A-film stature and considerable prominence. Ulmer would stage a comeback as well, but—partly from choice, partly from circumstance—would work, with a few significant exceptions, in the B-to-Z rung for the rest of his career.4 Jewishness also figures uniquely in both directors’ lives and careers. Preminger ’s lawyer father, who had risen rapidly in the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s juridical ranks during World War I, was appointed state prosecutor (the equivalent of U.S. attorney general) at war’s end—an unprecedented honor. No Jew, especially one who refused the pro forma demand to convert, had ever been granted such a high government post. His son’s ascent in the theater world was similarly propitious. In 1923, the seventeen-year-old Preminger landed an apprenticeship at the prestigious Theater in der Josefstadt that Max Reinhardt was reviving (and Ulmer had helped redesign) in Vienna. By 1926 he was already appearing in starring roles in German-speaking regional theater; by 1927 he was directing; in 1928 and 1929 he opened his own theater companies in Vienna; in 1930 he was back with Reinhardt as a director; and in 1931 the twenty-five-year-old wunderkind replaced the maestro as manager of the Josefstadt. Uncannily mirroring his father’s meteoric rise, Preminger was next offered the highest position to which any Austrian impresario could aspire: the director-managership of the Burgtheater , the Austrian state theater. And like his father, the offer was contingent on conversion to Catholicism, and like his father, Preminger refused—unlike his father...

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