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I’m keeping it brief to finish up a review of Adam Rifkin’s\u00a0Giuseppe Makes a Movie<\/strong> (2014) and a book review of Noel Mellor’s\u00a0Adventures in VHS<\/strong> (2016), so just posted is a pair of fine film noirs – one by a venerated autocratic German Expressionist, and the other a rather maligned producer-director better known for one breakthrough noir and late career epics.<\/p>\n Twilight Time’s release of Otto Preminger’s\u00a0Where the Sidewalk Ends<\/a><\/strong> (1951) highlights the director’s genuine skill in wringing maximum tension from a taut storyline, and reinforces the stand that Laura<\/a><\/strong> (1944), his breakthrough noir, wasn’t a fluke. Preminger made several genre entries, but he morphed into a precursor of Oliver Stone – a provocateur who made pictures on hot-button topics – pregnancy, race relations, rape – and migrated to what some would regard as bloated epics.<\/p>\n He also knew – perhaps taking a concept neatly refined by Alfred Hitchcock – that a director could and should brand himself in order to generate excitement around a project before, during, and after production. Preminger didn’t seem intent on establish a cult of rabid fans, but it was a valuable survival tactic for a filmmaker determined to stay free from studio interference, working as his own producer-director yet maintaining ties with a releasing company like United Artists – the most commercially and critically successful including the drug addiction drama\u00a0The Man with the Golden Arm<\/strong> (1955) and the super-epic\u00a0Exodus<\/strong> (1960), based on Leon Uris’ best-selling novel (and now a new TT Blu-ray\u00a0of which a review will follow next week, flanked by a review of 2015’s Admiral<\/strong> \/\u00a0Michiel de Ruyter<\/strong>).<\/p>\n