Voodoo MacBeth: Orson Welles’ First Big Hit

Today, nontraditional productions of Shakespeare are more traditional than stagings that maintain the original eras and settings of his plays. That was not true in 1936, when Orson Welles directed a Federal Theatre production of the “Scottish Play” in Harlem. Instead of Scotland, it shifted the action to Haiti, where voodoo substituted for Celtic witchery. A platoon of ten directors and eight screenwriters recreate the behind-the-scenes drama in Voodoo MacBeth, which opens today in New York.

The public did not recognize Welles as a golden boy yet, but producer John Houseman had an inkling of his talents. However, Welles was first somewhat reluctant to tackle MacBeth with an all-black cast, but his first wife Virginia convinced him of its potential. Of course, he was already Orson Welles, by temperament, so he frequently clashed with Rose McClendon, the founder of the Federal Theatre’s Harlem division, who had originally cast herself as Lady MacBeth.

Casting the rest of the roles was tricky, but Welles saw a spark in former boxing champ Cuba Johnson, who is transparently based on the production’s real-life Banquo, Canada Lee—but the twice-married welterweight might well be surprised by Johnson’s cautious coming-out and tentative gay relationship with another cast-member. Meanwhile, Houseman must battle Rep. Martin Dies, the first chair of the House Un-American Affairs Committee for founding of their radical production.

The caucus of directors and screenwriters eagerly positions Dies as the film’s villain, but it conveniently forgets the local Communist Party violently picketed the production. Welles would have sliced and diced by an attacker, were it not for Lee’s timely intercession. Nevertheless, their Voodoo MacBeth film will inevitably be panned for giving Welles and Houseman prominent “white savior” roles, because cultural criticism has collectively lost its mind. Seriously, this would never have been picked up for distribution without Welles’ central role—and I probably wouldn’t be reviewing it.

Jewell Wilson Bridges and Daniel Kuhlman are both reasonably solid as Welles and Houseman, but they lack the flair and physical resemblances Christian McKay and Eddie Marsan brought to the famous collaborators in Richard Linklater’s unfairly overlooked Me and Orson Welles. Frankly, Bridges just lacks that Wellesian charm.

The Eyes of Orson Welles: Cousins on Welles

It wasn’t just his eyes. By all accounts, cinematographer Gregg Toland substantially contributed to the dazzling look of Citizen Kane. Yet, that was Welles’ only picture with Toland, but he continued to display a similarly dramatic visual sensibility in all his subsequent masterworks and masterpieces. Cinema docu-essayist Mark Cousins speculates it all started with the original American auteur’s pen, ink, and sketchbook in The Eyes of Orson Welles, which opens today in New York.

Cousins’ intention is never to compete with Chuck Workman’s competent documentary profile Magician: The Astonishing Life & Work of Orson Welles or They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead, Morgan Neville’s fascinating chronicle of Welles’ final film, The Other Side of the Wind. He sets out to make something more personal and impressionistic, but the discovery of a trove of the master’s sketches, drawings, and paintings gives Cousins a hook that will still pull in many skeptical Welles fans.

To his credit, Cousins also has a sharp eye for visuals. At times, he is like a human google image search, drawing connections between Welles’ iconic film scenes, his graphic work, and the sights, locations, and media he would have absorbed at various stages of his life. Most viewers will happily follow him that far, but he ventures out onto thinner ice when he starts offering more speculate psychoanalysis and even presumes to speak for Welles, via a fictional letter from the subject to his documentarian, during the final chapter.

Still, Welles loyalists and traditionalists cannot object too strenuously, since his youngest daughter Beatrice Welles makes supportive appearances throughout Eyes. She seems to have a good sense of humor, which probably helps when you are part of the Welles family.

Of course, it is always rewarding to go back to the Welles well, because his oeuvre, although frustratingly limited as a credited director, is still so rich and powerful. Arguably, Macbeth emerges as the surprise leader for screen time, whereas Magnificent Ambersons gets oddly cursory treatment (especially since Welles was so notoriously excluded from the final editing).

Depending on one’s perspective, the idiosyncrasy of Cousins’ doc is either its greatest asset or detraction. He has clearly considered the Welles canon in holistic and cross-disciplinary ways, but he allows way too much of his personal subjectivity and bias into the film. That also rather needlessly drags things out. A tighter, more formalistic ninety-some-minute film would be much more effective than the current nearly two-hour cut, with its pointless “Citizen Trump” references. Sometime interesting and sometimes frustrating, Cousins’ Eyes of Orson Welles will be a decidedly mixed viewing experience for most classic movie buffs when it opens today (3/15) in New York, at the IFC Center.

They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead: Welles Making and Unmaking his Final Film

It is hard to call this a “making of” documentary, considering Orson Welles’ final film, The Other Side of the Wind, remained unfinished and unseen for over forty years. Blame the Islamist extremists in Iran. Welles received bridge financing from a film company owned by the Shah’s brother-in-law, so when the new regime came to power, they bottled up Welles’ unedited footage in a legal quagmire. They also launched a reign of terror against secular, tolerant modernity, but that is for another documentary. Morgan Neville and the surviving cast and crew chronicle the film’s making and unmaking in They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead (trailer here), which is now playing in New York and streaming on Netflix.

There is even disagreement among Welles’ close contemporaries whether he truly uttered the title phrase. Regardless, it does sum up his career rather aptly. Like Jake Hannaford, the central character of Wind, Welles had just returned to Hollywood after a long period of European scuffling when he commenced work on Wind. In many ways, it would satirize both Hollywood and European art cinema. Not coincidentally, Hannaford’s homecoming birthday party takes place in the fab desert pad next door to the house from Zabriskie Point. There are a number of intriguing little details like that in TLMWID that might counter-intuitively make this the film you should start with, before watching Wind, so you know what to keep an eye out for.

Rather awkwardly, Wind probably isn’t as interesting as the story behind it. As usual, Welles shot whenever he could, proceeding for months without nailing down his lead actor. Eventually, John Huston would play Hannaford, which was a truly brilliant bit of casting. In fact, some of the best parts of Dead address the friendship between the two larger than life movie legends. It rather boggles the mind, but both Rich Little and Peter Bogdanovich were cast as Hannford’s’ more successful protégé, with Bogdanovich replacing the impressionist when he was forced to leave to fulfill prior obligations.

Neville got on-camera just about everyone we would want to hear from, including Bogdanovoch, Little, Danny Huston (the accomplished actor-son of John), Cybil Shepard (who was involved with Bogdanovich at the time and appears briefly in Wind), Frank Marshall (the future super-producer, who worked on the film as a production aide), filmmaker friend Harry Jaglom, Beatrice Welles (his daughter), and actor-biographer Simon Callow. It would be nice to have had Oja Kodar on-camera too, but at least Neville has some audio reminiscences from her. However, Alan Cumming’s shticky introductions are completely unnecessary.

There is some fascinating cinema history in TLMWID, but it also sets the record straight on some points. Most crucially, it gives Gary Graver credit for his under-heralded work as Welles’ final cinematographer. In addition, Neville and company decisively dispel the myth Welles never really wanted to finish his pictures, but the notion he was often his own worst enemy remains in full force. It briskly but comprehensively chronicles an intriguing but frustrating episode in Welles’ intriguing but frustrating career. Highly recommended for Welles fans, They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead is now playing in New York, at the IFC Center and also streams on Netflix.

Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind

If his final film had been released in his lifetime, Orson Welles might also be known as the father of found footage, but should’ve-could’ve-would’ve was pretty much the story of his later career. Over forty years after Welles’ on-and-off-again, on-the-fly 1970-1976 shooting wrapped, his acidic Hollywood satire has finally been cut together and unveiled with the fanfare the old master was due in his lifetime. However, Welles fans should temper their expectations when The Other Side of the Wind (trailer here) finally arrives tomorrow, both in theaters and on Netflix.

Jake Hannaford is a crusty old filmmaker, who is considered a “living legend” due to his early work, but has just returned to Hollywood after a long, semi-self-imposed exile—or at least he was. This will be his final night on earth, but at least he will go out with a bang. All of Hollywood has flocked to his homecoming party, so they can gawk at his latest film: a self-indulgent attempt at sexually frank European art cinema—and a rather spot-on send-up of Antonioni. Out of eccentricity or indifference, Hannaford has allowed every journalist or amateur videographer with a handheld camera to document his snarky, drunken soiree.

Despite Welles’ protests otherwise, Hannaford certainly sounds like his alter-ego. The fact that he is played by the spectacularly craggy John Huston adds further layers of psycho-biographical significance. In fact, it is one of the more meta films of its era, with Peter Bogdanovich playing an analog of himself, Brooks Otterlake, Hannaford’s former protégé, whose current Hollywood success has eclipsed his former master. Hannaford has become unhealthily obsessed with the cast of his film-within-the-film, most notably his would-have-been discovery, John Dale, who bolted from the production before Hannaford could complete it for murky reasons. Pauline Kael-esque critic Juliette Rich, who hypothesizes Hannaford seduced Dale’s girlfriend as a surrogate for Dale himself. Dale’s leading lady, condescendingly referred to as “Red” (portrayed by Welles’ lover, Oja Kodar, naturally enough) is still present and accounted for, but she clearly is not happy to be there.

Editor Bob Murawski did a flat-out brilliant job shaping together all the footage, while doing his best to respect Welles’ original intentions. The result is a visually kinetic kaleidoscope of hedonism and bedlam. The often rapid-fire cuts are not classically Wellesian, per se, but we can still see his masterful eye composing each shot. It also features a wonderful score composed by the legendary-in-his-own-right Michel Legrand (seriously, his name also ought to be on the key art, because LeGrand scoring Welles again is an event). In all honesty, it is one of Legrand’s jazziest scores and one of his best, which is saying a lot (considering the themes he composed for F for Fake, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Thomas Crown Affair, to name just a few).

So why the warning to keep your enthusiasm in check? Unlike every other Welles film, Wind feels like a dated relic of its era, even though we are just seeing it now. Some of party dialogue has the sly acidic bite of the nattering gossipers in Citizen Kane or Magnificent Ambersons, but Otterlake’s pontifications sound like the shallow group-think of the time. Particularly cringe-worthy are his jibes at then Governor Reagan, who would go on to be the last president who unified the nation, in a positive way. There is also a phallic sight gag late in the picture that should have been considered beneath Welles’ dignity. More fundamentally, it is simply impossible to get around the fact that Welles & Kodar’s narrative is really just a sketch-like premise stretched to its absolute limits.

Wind is further notable as Welles’ most sexually explicit film, but the nude scenes in Hannaford’s film are actually work in their on-screen context. Frankly, there is an energy to these scenes that the rest of the proper film could have used. The dramatic, saturated colors also really pop off the screen, providing a vivid contrast with the black-and-white or dingy 16mm color of the party footage.

Those scenes also give us an idea of what might have been for Kodar, who was always (fairly or unfairly) dismissed as Welles’ lover, and Robert Random, who is best known for guest-starring on episodic TV (seven appearances on Gunsmoke, each in a different role). They are terrific together, generating some legit heat on screen. The mood is further heightened by Gary Graver’s striking color cinematography.

There is definitely stuff to see here, including Lilli Palmer, who is a delight playing the Marlene Dietrich-like Zarah Valeska. However, with a running time just over two hours, Wind is way too long and self-serious for what should have simply been a larky middle finger extended in Hollywood’s face. Still, the Legrand sounds great (there is also some Jaki Byard in there, along with some other jazz greats). It is too bad Welles’ unfinished The Deep will most likely always remain so, because it is more likely to be the lost masterpiece we crave from him. Recommended as a curiosity rather than a revelation, The Other Side of the Wind opens tomorrow (11/2) in New York, at the IFC Center and also starts streaming on Netflix.

Welles’ Chimes at Midnight

Orson Welles really made his reputation staging Shakespeare, particularly the “Voodoo Macbeth” produced for the Federal Theatre Project. Unfortunately, it was another Shakespearean production that perfectly symbolized the auteur’s mid-1960s fall from critical favor. In retrospect, it is rather embarrassing The New York Times was more preoccupied with Welles’ girth than his artistic vision. It is worth remembering the next time the editorial page decides to give us a lecture on civility. Still, a lot of people missed the boat on Welles’ Falstaff and rights conflicts made it difficult for more appreciative later generations to catch up with it. Happily, the Welles’ under-heralded Chimes at Midnight (trailer here) gets a special, restored DCP limited engagement, starting exclusively this Friday in New York at Film Forum.

Don’t hold your breath for St. Crispin’s Day. This is Falstaff’s story, not Prince Hal’s. Never shy about reworking Shakespeare, Welles basically plundered Falstaff’s greatest hits for the Henriad cycle, throwing in a few line here and there from The Merry Wives of Winsor. However, the guts of the film come from Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, focusing on Prince Hal’s competing loyalties to two father figures, the hedonistic yet strangely gallant Sir John Falstaff and his severe father, Henry IV. Falstaff is way more fun, but the King represents his future.

Aware the Lancasters’ claim to the throne is iffy at best, the King would be much relieved to see Prince Hal start to take his duties more seriously. Instead, he prefers to carouse in bawdy houses with Falstaff and the more polished but just as disreputable Ned Poins. Unfortunately, his profligacy only encourages rebellion among the nobility, who have rallied behind the dashing and popular Sir Henry Percy, a.k.a. Harry Hotspur, as their champion. Prince Hal cuts a poor figure beside him.

As for Falstaff’s figure, it is impressive, in its way. As the Times so brutally pointed out, you can’t spell Falstaff without an “f,” “a,” and “t.” Yet, there is more to Welles’ Sir John than the low comedy we associate with the reprobate. It is like he is a metaphor for Welles’ own career. Shticky on the outside, like the persona hosting Nostradamus documentaries and Paul Masson wine commercials, but he was heroic on the inside, like the director who labored for years to complete Don Quixote. Just like Falstaff, Welles was once the toast of Hollywood and a critical darling, but the establishment would turn against him in his later years, much like Prince Hal will inevitably renounce his friendship with Falstaff.

Whether Welles consciously identified with Falstaff on that level scarcely matters. It is still all there on the screen, in all its glorious pathos. Without question, Welles is the definitive Falstaff, puffed up with bluster, but achingly sensitive on the inside. His love for the Prince feels absolutely, painfully real.

Keith Baxter is also a minor revelation as Prince Hal. Probably better known for his stage work, Baxter is electric as he young prince. He might just be the coldest, most ruthless Prince Hal/Henry V seen on film, arguably bordering on the sociopathic. Yet, the great Sir John Gielgud might just upstage everyone, Welles included, as the ascetically noble and remorseful Henry IV. Even though most people automatically harken back to Arthur whenever his name is dropped, Chimes might be the best film to remember him by. Welles only had two weeks with Gielgud, but they made every second count. As a bonus, Jeanne Moreau also finds the earthy dignity in Dolly Tearsheet, Falstaff’s favorite “hostess.”

Chimes is a major Wellesian work that takes his signature visual flair to an even higher level. Every frame is a work of art, but the gritty grace and caustic wit of the ensemble performances remain incisive throughout. Wonderfully stylish and elegiac, Chimes at Midnight should be considered a worthy film in Welles canon. Very highly recommended, it opens New Year’s Day at Film Forum.

Unknown Welles: The Deep [Work Print]

Hopefully Guy Maddin (who is scheduled to present a screening at MoMA this Tuesday) was in town last night and able to attend the final Unknown Welles screening, because it was the closest thing to seeing the sort of “ghost films” that have inspired so much of his recent work. You could even say the surviving stitched-together work prints had a spectral look not unlike Maddin’s films. Frustratingly, Orson Welles never finished his adaptation of Charles Williams’ Dead Reckoning (later filmed by Phillip Noyce as Dead Calm), but you could get a vivid sense of what it would have been like when the work print of Welles The Deep screened last night at MoMA as part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown Welles sidebar.

No Welles fan will be surprised to learn the negative for The Deep is now lost, as are a few scenes here and there. As per his working method, most of the film audio was supposed to be dubbed in later, but Welles hit a snag when his star Laurence Harvey passed away. Repeatedly, Stefan Droessler of the Munich Filmmuseum stressed to the audience this was a work print, struck from the negative on the cheapest, crummiest film stock available. Its sole purpose was to serve as the vehicle for Welles’ editing mark-ups, which he did in a manner guaranteed to maximize confusion for future film restorers. You have to watch it with an eye for what could have been. Frankly, it is probably helpful to have seen the extended teaser trailer Welles cut together that screened with the fragments of The Dreamers to understand the intended look and flow.

Unlike Noyce’s Dead Calm, Welles is more faithful to Williams’ novel, maintaining the original five character cast. It starts in much the same fashion, with John and Rae Ingram becalmed in the middle of the ocean, but not particularly concerned about it. The Saracen still has auxiliary power, but being newlyweds they rather enjoy the time together in the middle of nowhere. Much to their surprise a dinghy approaches carrying the nearly dehydrated Hughie Warriner. He has come from the sinking yacht just now drifting into view.

After tending to the exhausted Warriner, Ingram rows over to the listing Orpheus to investigate inconsistencies in the shipwreck’s story. Unfortunately, once he reaches the sinking vessel, Warriner fires up the Saracen’s motor, abducting his wife and leaving him stranded, but he is not alone though. Warriner’s beleaguered wife Ruth and the Orpheus’s owner Russ Brewer were huddled below deck. Having faith in his wife’s survival instincts, Ingram does his best to make the Orpheus seaworthy. Although Brewer is not particularly helpful, he would also like to catch up with Warriner, who murdered his wife (under circumstances that remain rather murky).

Granted, Welles still had a lot of tightening up to do on the work print, but you can see the makings of a nifty thriller in there. It is obviously a crying shame The Deep was never completed and released, for a number of reasons. It probably would have been regarded as a rough equivalent of Touch of Evil. Clearly, it also would have made great strides in establishing Oja Kodar as a legitimate star in her own right, as Welles so desired. Today, only fans know her as Welles’ just-what-was-she-again, but The Deep would have been some sort of name for her. It is safe to say she is as good as Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm—and stills of her in her bikini and bright red sun hat would have been super publicity-friendly.

The Deep also would have burnished Harvey’s reputation. He was a big name in his day, but now he is largely remembered for The Manchurian Candidate, which had been largely withdrawn from public circulation until its 1988 re-release. Hughie Warriner easily would have been his second iconic role. Of course, Welles and Jeanne Moureau were no slouches either, as Brewer and Ruth Warriner, respectively. There is comparatively less audio of Moureau to extrapolate from, but Welles was deliciously caustic judging both from droll overdubs and his corresponding facial expressions.

The Deep is especially tantalizing because it is so close to being finished, yet so far. It really could have been a commercial hit for Welles. Maybe someday it still can. Regardless, it is a treat to see it, even in a form in which it was never meant to be seen. An absolutely fascinating viewing experience, The Deep was a fitting conclusion to this year’s To Save and Project at MoMA.

Unknown Welles: Journey Into Fear [Preview Cut]

In the Orson Welles’ filmography, this 1943 espionage thriller always has an asterisk next to the title in fans’ minds. Throughout his life, Welles insisted it was directed by his friend Norman Foster, except when discussing the scenes he helmed. Thanks to the misadventure of It’s All True, much of the daily directorial work was indeed left to Foster (who would make a bit of a name for himself with some nifty little noirs), but the Eric Ambler adaptation definitely bears the Welles stamp. Its ragged narrative edges also reflect RKO’s desire to edit it down under seventy minutes. Oh, but there were longer versions screened for preview audiences and European markets. The intrepid Munich Filmmuseum tracked down the various cuts as well as the shooting script to reconstruct a more coherent and surprising funny super-cut of Foster’s Journey Into Fear, which screened last night at MoMA as part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown Welles sidebar.

It is the early “Phony War” days of WWII, when Britain still expected to forge an alliance with Turkey. It was therefore all fine and dandy that munitions expert Howard Graham was in Istanbul working to rearm the Turkish navy. Graham and his wife Stephanie are due to sail to Batumi (which really doesn’t make sense, since the USSR was allied with Hitler at this time, but so be it), but they will be waylaid by a convoluted conspiracy. Kopeikin, a corrupt representative of Graham’s company drags him to a nightclub, ostensibly to meet the alluring dancer Josette Martel. Through blind luck, Graham escapes an assassination attempt that claims the life of magician Oo Lang Sang instead.

For his own safety mind you, Colonel Haki of Turkish intelligence has Graham whisked away on a dodgy tramp steamer, assuring the baffled American he will personally see to his wife’s safety. In fact, one of the rediscovered scenes suggests Haki does indeed give Ms. Graham some ambiguously special attention. (Let’s not forget, Welles was quite the ladies’ man, who was once married to Rita Hayworth. Plus, Haki’s fur hat looks smashing.) Meanwhile, Howard Graham is spending quite a bit of time with Martel on that dodgy steamer, because she is the only passenger he really doesn’t think is out to kill him.

Journey has always been an entertaining yarn, but the more complete version makes considerably more sense. Even though the Filmmuseum restoration team was again forced to resort to intertitles in places, the reconstructed preview cut gives us a fuller sense of the wit and irony of the script co-written by Welles and star Joseph Cotton. It is rather delightfully mordant.

As Graham, Cotton prefigures many of the classic everyman Hitchcokian protagonists as well as his turn as Holly Martins in the even more classic The Third Man. He credibly portrays Graham’s evolution from clueless passivity to resentful exasperation. While his screen time as Haki is limited, Welles made the most of it. He was also clearly feeling the power of the hat. Everett Sloane also adds some comedic noir flavor as the dubious Kopeikin, while Dolores del Rio’s Martel brings plenty of femme and a hint of fatale.

What RKO did to their Welles catalog makes you want to pull your hair out. A longer, smoother cut could have become an iconic film, much like Lady from Shanghai and The Third Man. Even with intertitles, the Filmmuseum version is the best way to see it, so hopefully it will be more widely screened in the future. Of course, it is a perfect selection for To Save and Project, which concludes its Unknown Welles sidebar tomorrow night at MoMA.

Unknown Welles: The Dreamers

When in Split, Croatia, drop by the Joker Center shopping mall to see Oja Kodar’s sculpture of her longtime life-partner, Orson Welles. In a cinematic sense, Welles also put his collaborator and muse on pedestal in The Dreamers, his oblique and of course unfinished adaptation of two Isak Dinesen short stories, which screened last night at MoMA as part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown Welles sidebar.

Among the program of maddeningly incomplete Wellesiana, The Dreamers best stands alone as a discrete film in its present state. That said, Welles’ original trailer for F for Fake further advances the docu-hybrid’s meta jokes, while the extended teaser for The Deep ought to make Welles fans drool for the work-print screening on Sunday. Unfortunately, the work-print screening of The Other Side of the Wind scenes edited by Welles are distractingly rough and the events they depict—a film shoot jeopardized by the abrupt departure of its star—are spookily prescient of the fate that would befall the still unfinished film.

While still somewhat fragmentary, The Dreamers manages to end on a note that roughly approximates closure. It is a deceptively simple, almost confessional film, focusing first on Welles playing a 19^th Century trader obsessed with the immortal Italian diva Pellegrina Leoni, whom Kodar then portrays in more recent times. In their interpretation, she becomes sort of a Flying Dutchman Norma Desmond. Although Welles and Kodar pitched the film to number of big name stars, he clearly takes pleasure from Kodar’s close-ups.

The Dreamers is a talky film, but it is also eerily intimate. Frankly, the Borgesian nature of the title story makes it a hugely ambitious work to tackle, but even after all his set-backs, Orson Welles was still all about thinking big. While it lacks the power and dazzle of The Merchant of Venice, The Dreamers is still worth seeing, especially to get a glimpse of the exotic couple’s Los Angeles home. Any scrap of Welles is recommended in principle, but The Deep looks like a can’t-miss when the Unknown Welles sidebar continues this weekend at MoMA.

Unknown Welles: The Merchant of Venice

Orson Welles was one of the few theater and film directors who was not afraid to tinker with Shakespeare’s texts. It must have been the confidence that came from being a prodigy. He would therefore be the logical person to adapt and helm a “Reader’s Digest” version of Shakespeare, but he still went way over-budget on his 1969 television production of The Merchant of Venice, forcing CBS to walk away and cut their losses. Long considered lost and unfinished, Welles’ version has been restored and pieced together from disparate sources by the Munich Filmmuseum. The remarkably coherent and satisfyingly Wellesian Merchant of Venice screened last night at MoMA as part of the 2015 To Save and Project International Festival of Preservation’s Unknown Welles sidebar.

As part of a full presentation on Welles in a Shakespearean bag, Filmmuseum director Stefan Droessler also screened a number of interview segments, television guest appearances, and fragments that never really went anywhere, but still involved Shakespeare. It is probably safe to say Welles is the only actor to perform Shakespeare on the Dean Martin Show, Ed Sullivan Show, and I Love Lucy. Nevertheless, Welles’ Shylock was the centerpiece.

Indeed, Welles unambiguously molds Merchant into Shylock’s story. There is only one brief cutaway to Belmont, with the rest was set in glorious Venice, conveniently starring Welles himself as the despised money-lender. Aside from a rather jaunty opening, in which Welles triumphantly returns to Venice (where he also shot Othello) lounging in a gondola, the film is probably the closest in tone to Welles’ The Trial. The entire city seems to be conspiring against Shylock, while wearing sinister carnival masks that weirdly bring to mind Eyes Wide Shut.

Naturally, Welles lost part of the audio track and the negatives, so the Filmmuseum restoration team frequently relied on a 1938 Mercury Theater production initially released as an enormous multi-record set in the days before LPs to fill in audio gaps. Believe it or not, it is not as jarring as it sounds. Unfortunately, they had to resort to inter-titles in occasional spots, but never during a critical dramatic moment. Most importantly, Merchant reflects Welles’ unmistakable sense of visual composition. Even when working in color he creates some starkly striking images.

The Filmmuseum’s restoration recently premiered at this year’s Venice International Film Festival, but it is strange it was not immediately snapped up by someone. Welles’ performance is as strong in Merchant as in any of his later works and his signature style remained undiminished. In this case, the cobbled together restoration should further burnish his reputation. It is too good to simply return to the vault, so Welles fans should keep an eye for it. It was also a great way to kick-off the Unknown Welles sidebar, which continues through Sunday (11/22) at MoMA.

Fandor Celebrates Welles: Around the World

Only Orson Welles cold win a Peabody for a television pilot that never went to series. That would be The Fountain of Youth, produced by Desi Arnaz. As he did in film, Welles burned TV bridges on both sides of the Atlantic. At least six episodes of his British travel series were produced and eventually aired on the fledgling ITV. Twenty-six had been commissioned, but they were probably lucky to get what they got, for reasons Welles fans know only too well. Little seen at the time of their original broadcast, all six episodes are now available for streaming as part of Fandor’s Orson Welles collection, assembled in celebration of the filmmaker’s centennial.

Orson Welles will be our host, as well as the director and primary cameraman and editor. You might pick up a little something about each port of call, but the series will never replace your Fodor’s or Let’s Go. It’s all about Welles, but isn’t it always?

The first episode assembled into the Around the World super-cut is probably the most Wellesian. It is here in Basque Country that we most often see his dynamic sense of composition. Of course, it is hardly surprising Welles was inspired by the locals’ defiant refusal to quietly conform to either France or Spain. He also clearly had a great deal of affection for his appointed translator, Chris Wertenbaker, the young son of his recently deceased friend, Time foreign correspondent Charles Wertenbaker.

If you were charmed the first “Pays Basques I” than hopefully you will also will also enjoy the network-edited “Pays Basques II,” which includes the same intro and conclusion, but comes with a lot more Pelote (the Basque game related to Jai alai) in between. Still, Welles’ easy rapport with Wertenbaker and all the little moppet Pelote prodigies is quite engaging.

Probably the one episode most likely to disappoint is “Return to Vienna.” By its very title, it promises to revisit the memorable backdrops of Carol Reed’s The Third Man, but Welles spends most of his time in the city’s elite pastry shop. Evidently that was what he most remembered from his time in Vienna. Still, it is nice to be able to finally see it for ourselves. Like many works of Welles marginalia, “Return” was presumed lost for years.

Continuing on to Paris, Around gets a bit impressionistic with “St.-Germain-des-Prés.” Welles spends a lot of time wordlessly panning the streets of the Left Bank hipster enclave. A lot of famous French intellectuals, including Jean Cocteau and Juliette Gréco make cameo appearances, but Welles only talks at length with Raymond Duncan, Isadora’s sandal making, Greek tunic-wearing brother. He and Welles get on pretty well too.

In one sense, Welles was really phoning in the London episode, since he spends half the episode talking to the widows living in the Anglican charity houses next door to theater where he was mounting his ill-fated production of Moby Dick—Rehearsed. On the other hand, that old Welles charm really comes through as he flirts with his eighty and ninety year old neighbors, all whom declared themselves to be “true blue” Tories, who must be besides themselves with glee up in Heaven watching the pasting David Cameron just laid on Ed Millibrand. For the second half of the show, Welles knocks back a few pints with a few of retired soldiers living in the Royal Hospital Chelsea (hospital in this case meaning a place of hospitality). Again, the old salty dogs appreciate Welles’ good fellowship (and his hollow leg).

For the bullfight report in Madrid, Welles enlists Kenneth Tynan and Elaine Dundy as surrogate hosts. She is relatively relaxed, but he had no business being on camera at this point in his career. As was always the case, Welles’ commentary was recorded after the fact. In some cases, it certainly looks like he took advantage of the opportunity make contentions his guests never had a chance to refute (but he always seems to faithfully represent his conversations with the pensioners). With only one camera, this was sort of a necessity. Still, what could be considered highly problematic liberty-taking for anyone else, comes across as Welles’ likable roguishness here.

Frankly, there is always room for more Orson Welles projects in the world, especially those that are more or less finished. With Around we can see Welles start to understand being Orson Welles was a form of performance art in itself. There are more than enough fascinating moments at each stop (particularly Basque Country and London) to make Around the World a rewarding way to spend nearly three hours. Recommended for Welles fans looking for more, Around the World is now available for Fandor subscribers as part of its Welles collection (along with his intriguing but fragmentary Too Much Johnson).

Magician: Workman on Welles

Just imagine what might have been if Orson Welles had worked in the digital era. Probably no other filmmakers left behind so many unfinished yet potentially great films. As his latest video-biographer Chuck Workman documents, Welles had no shortage of work ethic. It was simply a lack of everything else, particularly money. You may have heard this story before, but Workman illustrates the great auteur’s rise and fall with a wealth of striking visuals and many rarely seen archival interviews. Welles gets the full Workman treatment in Magician: the Astonishing Life & Work of Orson Welles (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York.

Welles was a precocious but never small child. Evidently, in the Welles family, children had to be interesting performers, or they were banished to the nursery to be boring in private. Obviously, Master Orson was not about to be shunted away. In a departure from many DVD-behind-the-scenes-extras, Workman patiently invests a bit of time up-front on Welles’ formative years in Woodstock, Illinois, where he honed his craft at the Todd School and the local Woodstock Theatre, whose main stage has since been renamed in Welles in honor. Workman takes the audience there and it does indeed look like fitting launching pad for Comet Welles—an intimate yet classy space that could fire a young genius’s imagination.

By the time Welles hit the New York theater world, he was practically a fully formed master. Workman breezes through his early Broadway triumphs and radio superstardom, essentially using the feature films to island-hop his way through Welles career. At this point, the film starts to feel very familiar to anyone with a casual knowledge of Welles’ life and career. Yes, Citizen Kane is a masterpiece and The Magnificent Ambersons sort of is too, but according to Welles RKO cut out the most important parts. However, Workman includes some fascinating interview excerpts with the late Oscar winning Robert Wise, justifying the cuts he made at the studio’s behest.

Magician also incorporates tantalizing glimpses of films Welles started but never completed, such as The Deep, Don Quixote, and the technically finished but now mostly lost Merchant of Venice. Frankly, this is some of the best material Workman collects, hinting at what might have been. It nicely compliments Workman’s full visual portrait of the artist, which also directly addresses his larger than life celebrity status, as seen through clips of Welles guest appearances on I Love Lucy, The Muppet Show, and various chat shows and commercials.

There are not a lot of surprises in Magician. Frankly, you really have to stretch to find any new material at all in the film. Still, Workman and company make a convincing defense of Welles’ unfinished oeuvre, arguing he was committed enough to start production, whereas most would-be filmmakers accept defeat in the development or pre-production stages.

Magician certainly makes you want to watch all of Welles’ films again, including the ones that we can’t, which means it probably accomplishes its goals, but it never feels as fresh as Visionaries, Workman’s relatively recent (stylistically traditional) survey of avant-garde filmmaking. Recommended for Welles diehards looking for something to tide them over until the long rumored release of The Other Side of the Wind (promised for the auteur’s centennial this coming May), Magician opens Wednesday (12/10) in New York, at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema.

Orson Welles’ Too Much Johnson

It is not exactly the missing forty minutes of The Magnificent Ambersons, but for Orson Welles fans it is still quite significant.  Long considered lost to the ages, the silent short films Welles conceived for an ahead-of-its time stage production have been found (in Italy, as it happens) and restored by the film preservation department of the George Eastman House. Despite their strange genesis, the shorts known collectively as Too Much Johnson perfectly represent the Welles filmography—they are brash, innovative, and unfinished. Always fascinating and sometimes genuinely entertaining, Too Much Johnson, Welles' first stab at filmmaking, had its long awaited New York premiere last night, courtesy of the Eastman House (promo here).

William Gillette’s summer stock staple Too Much Johnson is not revived very often anymore—and the Mercury Theatre’s disastrous production probably deserves its share of the blame.  It literally bombed in New Haven. Welles’ original vision was rather ground-breaking.  Each act would be preceded by a short silent film in the Max Sennett tradition that would dramatize all the play’s exposition and backstories.  Of course, Welles never finished any of the shorts (and it is unclear whether the Stony Creek Theater could have accommodated them anyway), but since he had cut all the presumably redundant background information from the text, the production reportedly baffled critics and patrons alike.

To help contemporary viewers, the Eastman House’s preservation and curatorial staff provided running commentary throughout the New York screening, in addition to the requisite piano accompaniment.  Eastman House made no editorial decisions, preserving every frame that came in the can.  As a result, there are plenty of gaps, as well as repetitive takes of the same scene.  Yet, the finished restoration is a smoother audience experience than it might sound like. Serendipitously, the multiple versions are often madcap hi-jinks that when viewed continuously appear as if the characters are caught in a surreal loop.

The first act prelude is the most complete and easiest to follow. Joseph Cotten plays a man named Billings, who has been romancing another man’s wife under the assumed name of Johnson.  Coming home earlier than expected, the betrayed Dathis chases the man he thinks is Johnson across the future Meatpacking District, eventually ending on the ocean liner that will take both men’s families to Cuba for a dubious vacation.  (Once there, Billings looks up an old friend, only to find his plantation is now owned by a man who really is named Johnson.  Hilarity no doubt ensues.)

Frankly, Cotten’s prowess for Harold Lloyd comedy is quite impressive.  He shimmies across ledges and drags ladders over rooftops like a rubber-boned pro.  As if that were not enough, the first short also delivers Welles’ ever indulgent producer, John Houseman, as a bumbling beat cop.

The second and third constituent shorts are much more fragmentary, but there are some striking day-for-night shots of a Hudson Valley quarry, decked out with palm trees to resemble Cuba.  Periodically, one gets a glimmer of Welles’ developing eye for composition. Cotten also maintains his energetic good sportsmanship as the caddish anti-hero.

Johnson might be a bunch of odds and ends compared to Welles later masterpieces, but it is strangely compelling to watch the bedlam he unleashes with his co-conspirators.  The Eastman program also includes a three minute 16mm film documenting Welles directing Johnson that seems about as chaotic as you would imagine.  Yet, there is also something very poignant about the happy-go-lucky but incomplete work, prefiguring Welles later abortive attempts to produce his Don Quixote. 

Too Much Johnson is enormously important as cinematic history but also a good deal of fun.  The Eastman House intends to hold future screenings with live commentary, so cineastes should definitely keep an eye on their website.  They also hope to stage Welles' adaptation of the stage play incorporating excerpts of the shorts, which is impressively ambitious.

War of the Worlds: The Night Orson Welles Scared the Attitude Out of New Jersey

Prior to October 30, 1938, Orson Welles was considered a talent to watch, but his Mercury Theater on the Air did not have a proper sponsor and it regularly got beat by a variety show featuring ventriloquist Edgar Bergen with his dummy Charlie McCarthy (it was a great act for radio, because you truly couldn’t see his lips move).  Then Welles staged an innovative adaptation of H.G. Wells’ science fiction classic and suddenly everything changed.  American Experience marks the 75^th anniversary of Welles’ controversial broadcast with War of the Worlds (promo here), which airs this coming Tuesday on most PBS stations.

Welles was already a cottage industry before he transplanted War of the Worlds to Grover’s Mill, New Jersey.  Best known as a stage director, he frequently performed on radio, often without credit. The media and the smart set closely followed his career, but he had yet to breakthrough with Middle America.  For his weekly radio showcase, Welles had a notion to adapt the Martian invasion novel.  Producer-adult supervisor John Houseman thought it was a terrible idea, but Welles had his way as usual.  However, the script just didn’t come together until they decided to stage it as a series of breaking news bulletins.  This was not a completely original strategy.  It was inspired by Archibald MacLeish’s radio play Air Raid, which had just aired with much less fanfare.

According to American Experience’s historical experts, most listeners missed Welles’ introduction, dial-twisting over to the Mercury Theater once Bergen had finished his shtick.  As most everyone knows, a mild panic then ensued.  All the talking heads try their best to excuse away the mass hysteria, arguing the stress of the Depression and the constant news flashes trumpeting European war left the general public primed to believe Welles’ Americanized War of the Worlds.  Maybe there is a kernel truth to that, but that would have been one heck of an exclusive for CBS to score.

Just about everyone now recognizes Welles as one of the most important film directors of the Twentieth Century, but AE’s WOTW reminds us he was also probably one of the greatest radio directors as well.  Director Cathleen O’Connell and tele-writer Michelle Ferrari include some fascinating behind-the-scenes details of the in/famous broadcast, but the black-and-white dramatic recreations of angry listeners’ letters of complaint are rather corny and just generally unnecessary.

Arguably, Welles’ fictionalized news flashes represent an early forerunner to found footage genre films, in which a carefully produced narrative deliberately approximates some form of on-the-fly documentation.  O’Connell and her battery of experts, including Welles’ daughter Chris Welles Feder, nicely put the episode in the context of Welles’ career and the development of mass media.  Easily recommended for fans of Welles and Wells despite the over-stylized recreation interludes, American Experience’s War of the Worlds premieres on PBS Tuesday the 29^th (10/29), seventy-five years after the fateful broadcast, nearly to the day.

60th Anniversary: The Third Man

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of zither-mania. While that might be a slight overstatement, Anton Karas’s zither theme became an unlikely international hit after the release of Carol Reed’s The Third Man (trailer here), which is currently enjoying a special anniversary revival run at Film Forum with a new 35m print.

Indeed, Karas’s unaccompanied zither music is perfectly suited to Third Man’s post-war Vienna, where the city’s faded old world glory can still be seen beneath the wreckage and rubble left in the wake of WWII. As Reed’s introductory narration shrewdly explains, the Austrian capitol is now an occupied city, whose administration is divided between the Allied forces. By necessity, nearly everyone is involved with the black market, but some are better at working the rackets than others.

Into this noir world enters Holly Martins, a down on his luck dime novelist expecting to find work with his childhood chum, Harry Lime. Unfortunately, when he arrives in Vienna, he discovers Lime is dead, the apparent victim of an auto accident. To make matters worse, Major Calloway, the top British MP for the zone, is not interested in pursuing the case. He claims Lime was just another racketeer, whose death probably leaves the world a better place. Still, Martins finds at least one potential ally in the inhospitable city: Lime’s lover, Anna Schmidt.

Schmidt is really Czechoslovakian, but fearing repatriation under the Soviets, she presents herself as an Austrian with forged papers Lime acquired. Indeed, Third Man compelling evokes the environment of occupied Austria, where the Soviet authorities are obviously more interested in rounding up nationals of their subjugated states than cracking down on the racketeering ring openly operating in their zone.

Adapted by Graham Greene from his own novella, Third Man is one of three true masterpieces of British Film Noir directed by Reed (along with Fallen Idol and Odd Man Out, which Film Forum also revived earlier in the year). With cinematographer Robert Krasker, he presents viewers with one strikingly off-kilter visual after another. Ironically, many presumed Third Man to be the work of Reed’s co-star Orson Welles, especially given the presence of the Mercury Theatre’s Joseph Cotton in the lead. Yet, Welles steadfastly maintained his contributions were limited to acting, as well as a few memorable improvised lines.

Welles is absolutely perfect as the title character, exploiting his larger-than-life screen presence to make a role relatively small in terms of actual camera time seem much larger. As Martins, Cotton masterfully expresses that earnest Middle American naiveté and resourcefulness in the face of jaded cynicism and corruption. Though Trevor Howard’s Major Calloway is a bit of a stock figure, it is an excellent example of how a great actor can infuse character into a stereotypical role.

A masterwork of light and shadow, Third Man is a film that always deserves a big screen revival. From the Ferris wheel to the underground sewers, it takes viewers on a brilliantly expressionistic tour of a formerly grand city that had become physically scarred and morally compromised. It runs at Film Forum through Tuesday, December 29th.

Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles

The inaugural production of Mercury Theatre had to make a suitably bold statement. In what was then a radical departure from tradition (but has since become conventional), Welles recast Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in Fascist Europe. Though the Mercury’s production of Caesar: Death of a Dictator was truly groundbreaking, the true star was Brutus, played by company cofounder and artistic director Orson Welles. Though in 1937 the Great Depression continued unabated while Fascism spread across Europe, it was still a heady time for one teenaged actor who witnesses the chaos of Welles’s creative process firsthand in Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles.

British actor Goerge Coulouris had the lead role of Mark Antony. Joseph Cotton had a small part as Publius. Yet the two actors best remembered from Welles’s celebrated Caesar, were of course the director himself, and the young Lucius, who serenaded Brutus in a pivotal late scene. In Linklater’s film, based on the novel by Robert Kaplow, that young actor is a wide-eyed Richard Samuels, who yearns to be part of the New York smart-set. However, working for the tempestuous auteur would be an education in and of itself for the young actor.

Welles can be charming, but he is also a demanding taskmaster. Though married, he has quite the roving eye. Yet his genius compensates for his arrogance—at least up to a point. In some of the film’s most insightful scenes, the brash Welles seems to understand on some level that he is just one failure away from a major karma blowback.

Given the renowned figures associated with the Mercury, Linklater had a number of casting challenges, but none was greater than the larger-than-life Welles. Yet, in choosing the virtually unknown Christian McKay, he found an actor able to approximate Welles’s incomparable presence, without descending into mere impersonation. Discovered while performing in the very off-off-Broadway production Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles, McKay captures the both the cadences and intensity of the Welles so familiar from his classic films.

In another tricky bit of casting, Eddie Marsan’s small but important supporting turn as John Houseman, the great British character actor (by way of Hungary), is absolutely pitch-perfect. His Houseman is an island of modest dignity amid the bedlam loosed by Welles’s destructive genius. While it is an even smaller role, Canadian actor James Tupper is also quite convincing as Joseph Cotton.

In a way, it is rather appropriate that High School Musical’s Zac Efron would have the lead in a film about the capriciousness of show business. In fact, he is relatively likable as young Samuels. Unfortunately, his love triangle rivalry with Welles for the affections of the director’s cold-bloodedly ambitious assistant Sonja Jones forms the weakest link of the film. In truth, Claire Danes’s Jones is decidedly unsympathetic and far less attractive than Samuels’s prospective girlfriend, Gretta Adler, an aspiring writer played by Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of the great director Elia Kazan).

Orson is utterly unlike Linklater’s prior work (including films like School of Rock and Dazed and Confused), but he clearly has a keen understanding of Orson Welles’s place in cinema history. He keeps the action moving along fairly jauntily, while paying knowing homage to Welles’s brilliant but checkered career.

Production designer Laurence Dorman masterfully recreates 1930’s New York and Jools Holland’s arrangements of vintage swing standards nicely evoke the right period vibe. Indeed, that sense of time and place is one of the handsomely assembled Orson’s greatest strengths. Ultimately, it is an effectively realized valentine to 1930’s Broadway and the mercurial talent of Orson Welles. It opens this Wednesday (11/25) in New York and Los Angeles.