Otto Preminger, Liza Minnelli, and Ken Howard on the set of Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon
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Long an antagonist to Hollywood’s norms (not to mention its actresses), Preminger began the 1960s by directing a massive blockbuster (Exodus) and earning his second Oscar nomination (for directing The Cardinal). But towards the end of the decade, with 1967’s Hurry, Sundown, he began a run of six films which attempted to respond to changing times, all of which flopped. We’ll focus primarily on two of these: the much-maligned Skidoo, an indictment of both hippies and the true American establishment which Preminger prepared for by dropping acid with Timothy Leary; and the unfairly forgotten Such Good Friends, the rare sex comedy of the era to understand the extent to which the sexual revolution did little to liberate women from the expectations of men.
Groucho Marx and Donyale Luna in a scene from Skidoo, Paramount Pictures, 1968
SHOW NOTES:
Sources:
Who the Devil Made It? by Peter Bogdanovich
The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger by Chris Fujiwara
Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King by Foster Hirsch
The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans
“Top 20 Films of 1963 by Domestic Revenue,” boxofficereport.com
“Cinema: Black + White = Grey,” Time, March 31, 1967
“Luna, Who Dreamed of Being Snow White,” Judy Stone, New York Times, May 19, 1968
“Pleasing and Punishing,” Pauline Kael, New Yorker, January 8, 1972
“Such Good Friends,” Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, January 17, 1972
“Hate Culture Grabs ‘Such Good Friends,’” Tony Mastroianni, Cleveland Press, January 22, 1972
“Paris Journal,” Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Comment, January-February 1974
“Late Preminger The Un-Swinger,” Dave Kehr, New York Times, May 13, 2011
“Cinema ‘67 Revisited: Hurry Sundown and Hombre,” Mark Harris, Film Comment, March 29, 2017
“Skidoo,” Richard Brody, New Yorker, March 1, 2018
“Such Good Friends,” Richard Brody, New Yorker, June 28, 2018
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Michael Caine and Jane Fonda in Hurry Sundown, 1967, Paramount Pictures
Music:
The music used in this episode, with the exception of the intro, was sourced from royalty-free music libraries and licensed music collections. The intro includes a clip from the film Casablanca.
Excerpts from the following songs were used throughout the episode:
"Circle Desserat” - Circle Kadde
"Bellow’s Hull” - Reflections
“Eggs and Powder” - Muffuletta
"Slimheart” - Bitters
“Lobo Lobo” - El Baul
“ZigZag Heart” - Nursery
“Trenton Channel” - Reflections
“Inside the Paper Crane” - Origami
“Benbient” - Canton Becker
This episode was written, narrated, edited and produced by Karina Longworth.
Our editor this season is Evan Viola.
Research, production, and social media assistant: Brendan Whalen.
Logo design: Teddy Blanks.
Otto Preminger and Dyan Cannon on the set of Such Good Friends, 1971, Paramount Pictures