casting of the relatively unknown Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, he balked at their choice for the film's villain, Waldo, actor Laird Cregar. Preminger explained to Zanuck that audiences would immediately identify Cregar as a villain, especially after Cregar's role as Jack the Ripper in The Lodger. Preminger wanted stage actor Clifton Webb to play Waldo and persuaded his boss to give Webb a screen test. Webb was cast and Mamoulian was fired for creative differences, which also included Preminger wanting Dana Andrews to be a more classy detective instead of a gumshoe detective. Laura started filming on 27 April 1944, with a projected budget of $849,000. After Preminger took over, the film continued shooting well into late June. When released, the film was an instant hit with audiences and critics alike, earning Preminger his first Academy Award nomination for direction. Peak years Preminger expected acclaim for Laura would promote him to work on better pictures, but his professional fate was in the hands of Zanuck, who had Preminger take over for the ailing Ernst Lubitsch on A Royal Scandal, a remake of Lubitsch's own silent Forbidden Paradise (1924), starring Pola Negri as Catherine the Great. Before he suffered a heart attack, Lubitsch had spent months in preparation, and had already cast the film. Preminger cast Tallulah Bankhead, whom he had known since 1938 when he was directing on Broadway. Bankhead learned that Preminger's family would be barred from emigrating to the U.S. due to immigration quotas, and she asked her father (who was Speaker of the House) to intervene to save them from the Nazis. He did, which earned Bankhead Preminger's loyalty. Thus when Lubitsch wanted to make the film into a vehicle for Greta Garbo, Preminger, although he would have been eager to direct the film that brought Garbo out of retirement, refused to betray Bankhead. They became good friends and got along well during filming. The film received generally lackluster reviews as the Ruritanian romance genre had become outdated, and it failed to earn back its cost of production. Fallen Angel (1945) was exactly what Preminger had been anticipating. In Fallen Angel, a con man and womanizer ends up by chance in a small California town, where he romances a sultry waitress and a well-to-do spinster. When the waitress is found killed, the drifter, played by Dana Andrews, becomes the prime suspect. Linda Darnell played the doomed