Orson Welles

Orson Welles' late-in-life follies inspired one of the funniest bits shown on the most unfunny "Critic". (Something about frozen peas? It was funny.) His films are pretty good, too (even though _Touch of Evil_ seemed a bit ... disheveled. Or was that _Shanghai_? The one where he has a really fake beard? I saw one of those flicks in a film class after getting no sleep the night before.)

(_Shanghai_ had the funhouse mirror sequence, right?)

Welles is classic all the way. His Macbeth is underrated and bizarre as well.

Did anyone read Simon Callow's biography? Seemed pretty snide in tone.

Too bad Othello is kind of patchwork, that would have been another great one had he gotten backed fully & up front to film it. I can appreciate Kane historically and for its technical finesse, but I don't really relate to it.

Did he really put dye in his swimming pool to catch guests who peed while swimming?

Has anyone read the Callow bk on OW(and did they ever publish his vol. 2)? The Thomson, of course, is superb - I love the way that DT swings between being incredibly tough-minded and adoringly effusive.

It is only 'good' when compared with Heather Graham's. It sounds kind of Australian, which who knows is maybe how eastenders sounded back then, seeing as how that's where the Australian accents derives from (so I'm told and it certainly sounds that way when you think about it). Apparently, the real life Depp character was from Dorset or somewhere but the studios vetoed this bit of obsessive detail-following on the grounds that it would be TOO WEIRD (for Depp or audiences, I'm not sure).

(uh, x-post by about a year and a half)

Not that I know of, but Turner Classic Movies is showing the film THIS WEDNESDAY (May 18th) at 11:30pm Eastern.

Either get your VCR ready or find someone who has TCM.

! I must get this.

(Does his "sellout" material need any defense anymore? It's all priceless.)

I wish someone would get on Falstaff/Chimes At Midnight quick. That's a great, great Welles film.

Does anyone remember when Orson Welles was on Moonlighting?

Last I saw on Wellesnet, Rosenbaum was expressing disappointment that this wasn't the case. (Of course, that was months ago.)

i was reading recently about how as soon as those really bombastic deep-focus shots became identified as "wellesian," he stopped using them.

As I understand it, Orson was on some kind of medication that reacted badly with alcohol, so after a few takes - I imagine he had to imbibe the wine at the end of each take - he was incoherent. Then again, the director's voice seems to indicate they were only on takes one, two and three, so maybe he did show up to the set absolutely trousered. I guess we'll never know. Still, awful to see such a great man laid so low.

Some of my favorite Welles performances were on The Dean Martin Show, of all places. The sketch/dance routine with Dean, Orson and Jimmy Stewart at the hairdressers makes me weep with laughter every single time I watch it.

I saw F for Fake for the first time last week, and I'm still thinking about it. The way it's edited is so goddamn brilliant. I keep remebering the sequence when the painter is denying that he ever signed a painting, and instead of just cutting to the biographer saying that he did, he lets the camera sit for a long moment on the biographers expression, purse-lipped, not even wanting to comment on a fact so obvious. "Of course they were signed."

This thread never really got off the ground: TS Rudolph Maté vs. Russell Metty

I actually haven't seen The Stranger, that may be the case, but some gems in Russell Metty's subsequent work:

Ride the Pink Horse
Magnificent Obsession
All That Heaven Allows
Written on the Wind
A Time to Love and a Time to Die
Touch of Evil
Imitation of Life
Spartacus
The Misfits

xp Hey now!

No love for his previous work such as Bringing Up Baby?

Good lord how the f did I miss that one

You and Nick Pinkerton both.

Interesting story I just saw about the studio bringing in Metty to shoot some additional scenes for The Magnificent Ambersons while Welles was out of the country. Welles was annoyed but liked his work which is why he hired him for The Stranger.

Orson Welles talks to Andy Kaufman about his character Latka on Taxi. pic.twitter.com/laMMceFhp6

— Reconsidering Cinema (@coenesqued) September 27, 2018

I’ve watched this clip at least 20 times in the past week and the zinger welles lands on kaufman around the 20 second mark cracks me up every time. kaufman looked so wounded

That time Orson Welles almost made a noir thriller with Lucille Ball: https://crimereads.com/orson-welles-lucille-ball-and-the-greatest-thriller-that-never-was/

Some interesting tidbits in there about shared DNA between this script and Kane: As it happened, Mankiewicz didn’t hate everything Welles had dreamt up for Smiler. The script opened with a newsreel recounting the life of the Hughes-like heavy; Mankiewicz found the idea clever and kept it in Citizen Kane.

Examining the Magnificent Ambersons preview comment cards.

https://www.wellesnet.com/magnificent-ambersons-previews/

“We do not need trouble pictures, especially now… Make pictures to make us forget, not remember.”

O_o

The David Thomson bio from '95 included several of them, including that comment. Ugh.

Give the people what they want and you will most probably end up with crap.

That theory was most recently discussed on the Kinks-post-1970 thread.

RKO decided to preview the film in Pomona, a middle class community 30 miles east of Los Angeles at the Fox Theatre following a showing of the Dorothy Lamour musical The Fleets In.

i swear to god. what were these ppl thinking?

"Bury the bastard."

Has this been posted anywhere yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOmYEssdXg8

The Trial is getting Criterioned:

https://www.criterion.com/films/28115-the-trial

Finally! (Great, great movie.)

Indeed.

Eureka/Masters of Cinema coming out with a limited-edition 4K of Touch of Evil in September.
https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/touch-of-evil-limited-edition-box-set-4k-ultra-hd/

Oh and HERE'S a little tidbit from a friend yesterday on FB who would know:

Today I received the very good news from UCLA Film & TV archive that Paramount is scanning the remaining nitrate footage of It's All True so that it can be preserved! More updates to follow.

Saw this yesterday, Orson doing Shylock on the Dean Martin Show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59sNCF80C70

I've been watching Chimes at Midnight again in memory of Keith Baxter, and during Criterion's commentary, James Naremore mentions that one reason Welles probably left for Europe was his politics, something Hollywood would not have liked post-WWII and Naremore says he believes Welles would've been in a lot of trouble had he continued making films in Hollywood like he did at RKO during the height of the Red Scare. Never thought of it before, but he's probably right - brings to mind what people said about the Replacements in the wake of the new Tim reissue, in that things probably turned out for the best. (i.e. had Tim become a massive hit, it's doubtful the band members would've handled it well).

(He does add that J. Edgar Hoover did indeed have a file on Welles and kept an eye on him as well.)

On Talking Pictures just now, a 1972 version of "Treasure Island" starring Welles as Long John Silver - based on an unfinished screenplay by Welles, though he asked for his name to be taken from the credits. Story of the film here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_Island_(1972_film)

Didn't know this even existed tbh.

... his voice was dubbed... by Robert Rietty!

why the fuck was welles so into jesus franco anyway

seems like whenever the spanish were involved first thing welles said was "oh well we need to get jesus franco in on this, then, nobody knows more about spain than him"

i'm just saying he might have been better off with rich little. is all.