The tragedy is he was allowed in the supermarket.
― Cronk's Not Cronk (Eric H.), Wednesday, 30 April 2014 01:20 (ten years ago) link
Superegomarket
― Ludo, Wednesday, 30 April 2014 08:54 (ten years ago) link
Fun thing I didn't know was available -- all his Harry Lime radio shows:
https://archive.org/details/TheLivesOfHarryLime
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 21 May 2014 15:11 (ten years ago) link
I think those are also included on one of the Criterion discs for his films. Arkadin, maybe?
― a strange man (mh), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 15:38 (ten years ago) link
http://www.spaziocineforum.it/quinlan.jpg
― Ant Man Bee Thousand (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 7 June 2014 11:24 (ten years ago) link
Too Much Johnson work print viewable here
http://www.filmpreservation.org/preserved-films/screening-room/too-much-johnson-work-print
some thoughts:
http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2014/08/a-few-notes-on-too-much-johnson.html
http://brightlightsfilm.com/too-much-johnson-orson-welles-film-recovering-orson-welless-dream-of-early-cinema/#.U_tuA_mwJrO
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, 25 August 2014 17:14 (nine years ago) link
centennial symposium next spring at Indiana U:
http://www.cinema.indiana.edu/?post_type=series&p=7603
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 October 2014 17:08 (nine years ago) link
Arena - The Orson Welles Story (BBC, 1982)
http://vimeo.com/71534857
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 22 October 2014 05:10 (nine years ago) link
So...finally?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/29/movies/hollywood-ending-near-for-orson-welles-last-film.html
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 29 October 2014 12:09 (nine years ago) link
I'll believe it when I (literally) see it. Actually I have seen a 5-minute excerpt, with Oja Kodar blowing some guy in a car.
Unless OW left awfully detailed notes, seeing "his" version of the whole thing is very unlikely, as Bogdanovich indicates above.
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 15:59 (nine years ago) link
I gotta say, I'm not intrigued, based on the descriptions in the Bogdanovich interview book.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:02 (nine years ago) link
Well I watched the workprint of Too Much Johnson (that is, of the silent "prologues" to the stage production) at MoMA the other day, which is "chiefly of historical interest," so I'd watch this.
TMJ is probably much easier to watch as I did with a guy from Eastman House on mic and supplying production and historical notes, and seeing vanished Manhattan buildings on the big screen as Joseph Cotten scramble over their rooftops in 1938, than to watch in one sit at the link posted above.
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:08 (nine years ago) link
was the footage actually used in a theatrical production or was that abandoned?
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:13 (nine years ago) link
According to the Bogdo book and David Thomson, there's bits of a bemused John Huston, told to improvise lines about the rigors of filmmaking. Sounds like two old drunk men on a bored Saturday afternoon.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:16 (nine years ago) link
There's the scene Morbz mentioned and another one that has Huston's character facing the press which surfaced in a documentary that's contained with the Criterion F for Fake, along with a variety of other clips of scrapped projects. (I hadn't realized Welles was doing the original film version of what eventually became Dead Calm two decades later.)
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:30 (nine years ago) link
Well the Johnson footage was not fully edited by the time the play ran and closed in Connecticut, so no one ever saw it. (Apparently the theater there essentially wasn't equipped to show it, either.)
I recognized George Coulouris w/out it being pointed out, and John Houseman still looks like Professor Kingsfield in '38.
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 16:39 (nine years ago) link
man i really hope there's an opportunity to see whatever constitutes welles' workprint of this. really can't imagine it needs/benefits from speculatively chosen musical picks.
― schlump, Wednesday, 29 October 2014 18:06 (nine years ago) link
Well if you're going to project it as "a real movie" to rep house audiences, I can see why they'd want to do it. Beatrice W and Kodar no doubt realize the Orson Centennial is going to be the optimum time in their remaining years to monetize this.
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 18:53 (nine years ago) link
If only Jess Franco were still alive
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 18:57 (nine years ago) link
beatrice welles is so awful
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:10 (nine years ago) link
btw you can buy her hideous handbags here: http://www.beatricewelles.com/beatrice_welles_collection.htm
i wish someone could assemble the various pieces of welles's 'don quixote' and do it right this time.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:13 (nine years ago) link
fwiw: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/aug/29/2
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:17 (nine years ago) link
her MO is basically to sue, claiming she has some kind of rights to a film when she doesn't. but it prevents people from taking much action to restore let alone release many of welles's films. "chimes at midnight," which might be my favorite of all (although it's hampered by a cheap sound mix), is almost unseen these days thanks to her.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:18 (nine years ago) link
she seems to make a living forcing various companies to settle with her even though her claims are specious. certainly she isn't making a living with her handbags.
part of me thinks that this is all her way of getting back at a father who was less than attentive in her childhood--and who left her mother.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:20 (nine years ago) link
yeah, I read Christopher's book a while back and it just made me feel bad for all the Welles daughters
― Number None, Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:21 (nine years ago) link
yeah, he was a total heel. also, he probably didn't leave her with any money. he didn't exactly managed his money well, and what he did make he usually poured either into a glass or into a variety of unfinished projects. so i doubt she was left with much when he died.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:22 (nine years ago) link
some history on "other side of the wide," courtesy a 2002 article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/1404733/Daughter-and-lover-fight-over-unreleased-Orson-Welles-film.html
accounts differ on how "finished" this film was. some think it just needed a sound mix, others say the shooting wasn't even really complete.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:24 (nine years ago) link
i'd forgotten Franco was the one who had done an edit of Don Quixote.
Film Forum in NYC is doing their centennial retro ASAP: Jan 1-Feb 3. (Not really all that many films to deal with, so a lot of acting-only.) Then Paley Center does a TV retro in Feb.
http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=10676
I wasn't aware that Filmoteca Española had done a DCP 'resto' of Chimes. Wonder if the sound is any clearer...
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:25 (nine years ago) link
probably not; i think the shitty sound is just how welles recorded/mixed it.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:26 (nine years ago) link
and it has that recorded-in-a-bathtub quality that the post-synched soundtracks to even some of welles's hollywood films have. he did amazing, highly inventive, original things with sound, in part because he seemed indifferent to the idea of sonic verisimilitude, but by the same token the recording quality of some of his soundtracks is just awful.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:27 (nine years ago) link
you know i take that back, just a few pre-1960 acting jobs plus his 2 minutes in The Muppet Movie at FF.
anyone seen this TV King Lear? Talk about a part he grew into and should've done in 1980...
yeah, in Kael's pro-OW piece in the '60s she talked about how much lesser she found his movies after he lost his radio artist's attention to sound.
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:29 (nine years ago) link
Furthermore, Welles feared a repetition of the experience of having the film re-edited by someone else (as had happened to him on The Magnificent Ambersons, The Stranger, The Lady from Shanghai, Macbeth, Mr. Arkadin and Touch of Evil), so he divided up all the reels of film for Don Quixote and deliberately mislabelled many of them, telling Mauro Bonanni, "If someone finds them, they mustn't understand the sequence, because only I know that."
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:32 (nine years ago) link
he underestimated jesus franco
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:33 (nine years ago) link
i saw his 'king lear' and don't remember it being terribly good.
did OW have any really standout performances in films directed by other people? (other than 'the third man.') the list of projects at the back of 'this is orson welles' is dizzying. i wonder if anyone in the world's managed to see everything he was in.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:36 (nine years ago) link
yeah, he's great in jane eyre, pasolini's segment of RoGaPag....
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:38 (nine years ago) link
also good in Compulsion... not to mention lots of iconic voice-over work...
I thought he looked strained in Jane Eyre, but that booming histrionic falsity works for Rochester.
He was well cast as Unicron.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:42 (nine years ago) link
I like his hokey Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre, also Compulsion and The Long Hot Summer. Some say his sermon in Huston's Moby Dick is the highlight, but I still haven't seen it. The Catch-22 cameo is funny. yes, Pasolini!
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:43 (nine years ago) link
Oh yeah! That sermon is his best actor-ly moment.
Stop the movie when it ends though.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:47 (nine years ago) link
I enjoyed his Cesare Borgia in Prince of Foxes, and I'm sure he did too.
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:51 (nine years ago) link
welles and melville were kinda made for each other. apparently he made a moby dick film of his own that met a typically wellesian fate:
Orson Welles filmed approximately 75 minutes of the original 1955 production, with the original cast, at the Hackney Empire and Scala Theatres in London. He hoped to sell the film to Omnibus, the United States television series which had presented his live performance of King Lear in 1953; but Welles stopped shooting when he was disappointed in the results. The film is lost, with the only copy believed to have been destroyed when a fire broke out at Welles's Madrid home in 1970, while he rented it to the actor Robert Shaw, who was drunkenly smoking in bed.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:51 (nine years ago) link
His cameo in A Man For All Seasons is amusing; he looks like a dangerous strawberry.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:53 (nine years ago) link
He did a piece he called Moby-Dick Rehearsed onstage, and I've seen footage of him (in the '70s, probably) reciting Melville's prose against a seafront twilight in an attempt to get another low-budget film of it (or about it) going... He said in one of those recent "conversation" books (maybe?) that if F for Fake had done well enough he'd have tried to do an essay film every couple years.
― this horrible, rotten slog to rigor mortis (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:57 (nine years ago) link
Chimes at Midnight available as a Region 2 DVD, sound/picture are dece:
http://www.mrbongo.com/products/falstaff-chimes-at-midnight
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:59 (nine years ago) link
the long hot summer is a horrible film, i guess welles is amusing in typical scenery-chewing mode
― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 19:59 (nine years ago) link
Awful. But young Newman was never more guapo.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 29 October 2014 20:10 (nine years ago) link
Interview with Welles scholar (and Rock 'n' Roll High School screenwriter) Joseph McBride, by Danny Peary... apparently the search for a complete Ambersons goes on, at least for him.
http://sagharboronline.com/sagharborexpress/danny-peary-on-film/joseph-mcbride-to-appear-at-the-fabulous-orson-welles-tribute-at-the-film-forum-35347
― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 January 2015 19:01 (nine years ago) link
thanks for the link -- that's a wonderfully insightful interview.
i love 'ambersons' but find it hard to revisit because the last half-hour is so heartbreaking, the way the obviously non-welles stuff gradually consumes the real film.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Monday, 12 January 2015 19:22 (nine years ago) link
don't get the dismissal of Thomson's Rosebud, which to me has the most original insights of any of the longer c ritical biographies although the form is as ungainly as Edmund Morris' Dutch.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 12 January 2015 19:29 (nine years ago) link