Arts and Manners

For several months I, together with millions of other naive citizens, have been told by the breathless cultural supplements of the Liberal press that Mr. Otto Preminger, one of Hollywood’s elder and more compromised statesmen, is taking a chance on his life in defense of ours. These stubborn rumors did not quite fit with the vague recollections I had of Mr. Preminger’s deep respect for a buck, and his interest in the obscene; but they alerted even me for his heralded picture, The Man With the Golden Arm. The film having been shown at last, the suspense is ended and I can safely assure you that Mr. Preminger is still motivated by a deep respect for a buck and an interest in the obscene.

Now the rumors of heroism originated in the fact that Mr. Preminger, when he chose to film Mr. Nelson Al-gren’s slightly putrid novel, knowingly defied Hollywood’s Production Code: under that voluntary and embarrassingly futile instrument of self-policing, no Hollywood movie must depict drug addiction—which happens to be the only discernible theme of Mr. Algren’s puerile exercise in realism. What made Mr. Preminger a hero in the eyes of the Liberal press was that he had presumably read the novel, and yet had brazenly applied for a seal of approval under the clear stipulations of the Code. This, in the eyes of everybody else, made him either a jackass or a calculating promoter; a jackass, if he really believed for a second that the duly sworn administrators of the Production Code could permit such a blatant violation; a calculating promoter, if he wanted the publicity value of the denial.

WS

About the Author

William S. Schlamm

Featured Tags

For several months I, together with millions of other naive citizens, have been told by the breathless cultural supplements of the Liberal press that Mr. Otto Preminger, one of Hollywood’s elder and more compromised statesmen, is taking a chance on his life in defense of ours. These stubborn rumors did not quite fit with the vague recollections I had of Mr. Preminger’s deep respect for a buck, and his interest in the obscene; but they alerted even me for his heralded picture, The Man With the Golden Arm. The film having been shown at last, the suspense is ended and I can safely assure you that Mr. Preminger is still motivated by a deep respect for a buck and an interest in the obscene.

Now the rumors of heroism originated in the fact that Mr. Preminger, when he chose to film Mr. Nelson Al-gren’s slightly putrid novel, knowingly defied Hollywood’s Production Code: under that voluntary and embarrassingly futile instrument of self-policing, no Hollywood movie must depict drug addiction—which happens to be the only discernible theme of Mr. Algren’s puerile exercise in realism. What made Mr. Preminger a hero in the eyes of the Liberal press was that he had presumably read the novel, and yet had brazenly applied for a seal of approval under the clear stipulations of the Code. This, in the eyes of everybody else, made him either a jackass or a calculating promoter; a jackass, if he really believed for a second that the duly sworn administrators of the Production Code could permit such a blatant violation; a calculating promoter, if he wanted the publicity value of the denial.