I respect Otto Preminger and George Bernard Shaw‘s Saint Joan (’57), but I’ve only seen it once and that almost certainly means something. I feel the same way about the Preminger as I do about Victor Fleming and Ingrid Bergman’s 1948 version of Joan’s tragic saga, which is to say “yes but…” Two years ago I described Carl Dreyer‘s The Passion of Joan of Arc (’28) as a lapel-grabbing, no-way-out masterpiece.
The one aspect of the Preminger that I really love and swear by is Saul Bass‘s poster art. Within its own realm, it’s a better thing that the film itself.
