Editing Otto Preminger (section)

===Hollywood===
{{one source|section|date=February 2017}}
[[File:OttoPremingerLianeHaidRosyBarsonyOskarKarlweisPaulAbrahamTiborVonHalmay1934.jpg|left|thumb| Preminger (sitting) with (left to right) [[Liane Haid]], [[Oskar Karlweis]], [[Paul Abraham]], [[Tibor Halmay]], and [[Rosy Barsony]] in 1934]]
In April 1935, as Preminger was rehearsing a boulevard farce, ''The King with an Umbrella'', he received a summons from American film producer [[Joseph Schenck]] to a five o'clock meeting at the Imperial Hotel. Schenck and partner, [[Darryl F. Zanuck]], co-founders of [[Twentieth Century-Fox]], were on the lookout for new talent. Within a half-hour of meeting Schenck, Preminger accepted an invitation to work for Fox in Los Angeles.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

Preminger's first assignment was to direct a vehicle for [[Lawrence Tibbett]]. Preminger worked efficiently, completing the film well within the budget and well before the scheduled shooting deadline. The film opened to tepid notices in November 1936. Zanuck gave Preminger the task of directing another B-picture [[screwball comedy film]] ''[[Danger – Love at Work]]''. [[Simone Simon]] was cast but later fired by Zanuck and replaced with [[Ann Sothern]]. The premise was that eight members of an eccentric, wealthy family have inherited their grandfather's land, and the protagonist is a lawyer tasked with persuading the family to hand the land over to a corporation that believes there is oil on the property. One of the female members of the wealthy family provides the romantic interest.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

In November 1937, Zanuck's perennial emissary [[Gregory Ratoff]] brought Preminger the news that Zanuck had selected him to direct ''{{film year|Kidnapped|1938}}'', which was to be the most expensive feature to date for Twentieth Century-Fox. Zanuck himself had adapted the [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] novel. After reading Zanuck's script, Preminger knew he was in trouble since he would be a foreign director directing in a foreign setting. During the shooting of ''Kidnapped'', while screening footage of the film with Zanuck, the studio head accused Preminger of making changes in a scene; in particular, one with child actor [[Freddie Bartholomew]] and a dog. Preminger, composed at first, explained, claiming he shot the scene exactly as written.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

Zanuck insisted that he knew his own script. The confrontation escalated and ended with Preminger exiting the office and slamming the door. Days later, the lock to Preminger's office was changed, and his name was removed from the door. Later, a representative of Zanuck offered Preminger a buyout deal which he rejected: Preminger wanted to be paid for the remaining eleven months of his two-year contract. He searched for work at other studios, but received no offers – only two years after his arrival in Hollywood, he was unemployed in the film industry. He returned to New York, and began to re-focus on the stage. Success came quickly on Broadway for Preminger, with long-running productions, including ''Outward Bound'' with [[Laurette Taylor]] and [[Vincent Price]], ''My Dear Children'' with [[John Barrymore|John and Elaine Barrymore]] and ''[[Margin for Error (play)|Margin for Error]]'', in which Preminger played a shiny-domed villainous Nazi. Preminger was offered a teaching position at the [[Yale University|Yale School of Drama]] and began commuting twice a week to Connecticut to lecture on directing and acting.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

20th Century Fox purchased the screen rights of ''[[Margin for Error]]'' for approximately $25,000 in the spring of 1941, and [[William Goetz]], who was running Fox in Zanuck's absence, was soon impressed with Preminger and offered him a new seven-year contract calling on his services as both a director and actor. Preminger took full measure of the temporary studio czar, and accepted. He completed production on schedule, although with a slightly increased budget, by November 1942. Critics were dismissive upon the film's release the following February, noting the bad timing of the release, coinciding with the war. Before his next assignment with Fox, Preminger was asked by movie mogul [[Samuel Goldwyn]] to appear as a Nazi once more, this time in a [[Bob Hope]] comedy, ''They Got Me Covered''.{{citation needed|date=May 2017}}

Preminger hoped to find possible properties he could develop before Zanuck's return, one of which was [[Vera Caspary]]'s suspense novel ''[[Laura (novel)|Laura]]''. Before production would begin on ''Laura'', Preminger was given the green light to produce and direct ''Army Wives'', another B-picture morale booster for a country at war. Its focus was on showing the sacrifices made by women as they send their husbands off to the front.<ref>Foster Hirsch [https://books.google.com/books?id=cQOEiGn76iwC&pg=PT857 ''Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King''], Random House, 2011, p. 857.<!--ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref><ref>Fujiwara, Chris, ''The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger''. New York: Macmillan, 2009; {{ISBN|0-86547-995-X}}, p. 34</ref>