Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King

Nothing about Otto Preminger was small or trivial—from his privileged upbringing in Vienna as the son of an improbably successful Jewish lawyer to his work in film and theater in Europe and, later, in America. His range as a director was remarkable: romantic comedies, musicals, courtroom dramas, adaptations of classic plays, political melodrama, war films, and film noir. He directed everything from sweeping sagas to small-scale pictures.

In Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King, Foster H...