Under Your Spell (1936)

Interesting facts

Under Your Spell is a 1936 American romantic comedy film with music directed by Otto Preminger. The screenplay by Frances Hyland and Saul Elkins is based on a story by Sy Bartlett and Bernice Mason. It was a remake of the American Spanish-language film, Las fronteras del amor. It was Preminger's first Hollywood movie.

Production

Otto Preminger had been working as an apprentice at 20th Century Fox for nearly eight months when studio head Darryl F. Zanuck assigned him to the film, a remake of the Spanish language release Las fronteras del amor, which Frank R. Strayer had directed for Fox two years earlier.

Filming began under the title Love Flight in mid-August 1936, soon after Preminger filed his Declaration of Intention to become a naturalized American citizen. Well under budget and ahead of schedule, principal photography was completed on September 15, and Zanuck was so pleased with Preminger's efficiency he signed him to a one-year contract at $1,000 per week, effective October 6.

The film opens with a lengthy tracking shot in a recording studio that established Preminger's preference for allowing camera movement to bind together all the elements of a scene. In another sequence, set during a trial, the director presaged his 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder with his use of loud, overlapping dialogue to create a sense of courtroom reality.

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