Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

Inspired by the groundbreaking Federal Theatre Project's production, The American Century Theater in Arlington, Virginia, is currently offering up its own take of "Voodoo Macbeth."

While the production is set in an era and location removed from Orson Welles' landmark 1936 version, it is getting high marks for pushing the boundaries of theater – something that would have no doubt pleased Welles.

Here is a sampling of what Washington, D.C. area critics are saying about The American Century Theater production, which runs through April 13.

"'Voodoo Macbeth' was Orson Welles’s pot-stirring, 1936 adaptation of Shakespeare’s captivating Scottish thriller – pot-stirring because Welles set it not in Scotland, but in Haiti with an all-black cast. NoVa’s American Century Theater takes an altogether new (more...)

By RAY KELLY

The Library of Congress American Memory website contains a vast collection of scripts, internal documents and memorabilia related to the Federal Theatre Project and the works of a young Orson Welles.

The website has a treasure trove of items from Welles' 1936 production of "Voodoo" Macbeth and his 1937 staging of The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus.

As part of FDR's New Deal, the Federal Theatre Project funded theater and other live (more...)

Dann Cahn, who worked as an assistant editor on Orson Welles' 1948 film "Macbeth" and an editorial supervisor eight years later on "Fountain of Youth," died Wednesday at his California home.

Cahn, 89, was the last surviving member of the original creative team behind "I Love Lucy," according to the Los Angeles Times.

He began his Hollywood career as a child actor, appearing in the 1938 movie "Newsboys' Home" with Jackie Cooper. (more...)

Looking back at the trouble Orson Welles had in gaining commercial success for nearly all of his films, I was struck by how just one key review, preview, or threat from a powerful mogul (such as W. R. Hearst), could effectively destroy the commercial chances of a Welles movie.

We know that on Citizen Kane, it was the efforts of the Hearst empire that single-handedly wrecked Citizen Kane's box-office potential. With The Magnificent Ambersons, it was supposedly the "disastrous" preview in Pomona --- except there were actually a good portion of audience members who felt the film was quite brilliant. For Chimes at Midnight, it was the single pan the movie got in The New York Times. And with Macbeth, it was this article that appeared in Life Magazine, the same week the film opened in Boston and a few other American cites.

What's rather unfortunate about this, is that the Life article was the voice of just a single person, and as we know today, their judgment about the Scots accents was wildly off-base. But at the time, the article caused great concerns, although ironically, not so much within the ranks of the Republic executives, as with Welles's own friend and producing partner, Charles K. Feldman.

This is all brought out in the memos Richard Wilson was continually writing to Welles. Wilson specifically notes that Feldman had "memorized" the Life article in these excerpts from a letter he wrote on May 7, 1949:

To: ORSON WELLES
From: RICHARD WILSON

I have had the considerable disillusionment of hearing Charlie (Feldman) request some of the god-damnedest things it's possible to imagine. I've had the odd experience of being supported by (Republic pictures Chairman, Robert) Newman against the suggestions of your good friend and partner, Mr. Feldman.

...To give you a better picture of Charlie, he had so many of his friends talk to him about Macbeth that he now doesn't know what to think. He has memorized the Life article and cannot help but quote it to make a point. In other words, he's now beginning to believe the Life article.

...his suggestions are directly opposed to (the) pitch in your letter that the cure is not to file down the roughness. His sensitivity to costumes, sound, witches, voice etc. are all of a kind: intended to soften and make smooth the production.

...(Herbert J. Yates) has also, I feel, a sincere feeling of loyalty to you and the project which has now become precarious. He's a bit wistful about "the greatest gangster the world has ever known" type of approach (to market the film) ...and the exploitation boys were frustrated by not having got an endorsement. ...they can't get anyone to come out for it.

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MURDER!

Orson Welles doth foully slaughter Shakespeare in a dialect version of his "Tragedy of Macbeth"

LIFE magazine - October 11, 1948

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Simon Callow had mentioned some time ago that he originally hoped to finish the third volume of his massive biography on Orson Welles by his 60th birthday. So I thought that today, on the occasion of his 60th birthday, I'd take the opportunity to wish him a very happy birthday on behalf of everyone at Wellesnet, and also wish him well as he continues his monumental task of research and writing on volume three.

Of course, Mr. Callow has not yet finished his work on the last volume, but with the wealth of new information that has come to light about Welles, in just the last year, that is all for the best. I for one think it would be very foolish to rush such an important book into print, before it is actually ready, based on artificial deadlines. Of course, when dealing with Orson Welles's life and career (from 1948 until his death and beyond), there are a great many things Mr. Callow may still be exploring.

However, the final volume is now scheduled to be titled:

Orson Welles volume 3: One Man Band.

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Laurence Goldstein, the editor of The Michigan Quarterly Review, just also happens to be a great admirer of Orson Welles work, and he has certainly done a great service to Welles scholarship by inviting Catherine Benamou to put together a substantial collection of letters by Orson Welles about the editing and sound work that was required for Macbeth.

The memos are all part of the special collection library of Orson Welles material that Ms. Benamou curates at the University of Michigan. But this 55-page dossier is merely the tip of the iceberg in the special Welles collections, so I strongly recommend everyone supporting the MQR by buying a copy of this terrific issue! Obviously, if this first installment sells well, it will only help ensure that more, and possibly ever larger selections of Welles material will be published in future issues, perhaps even on a yearly basis.

To order a copy for only $7.00 visit The MQR website.

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Now, to make a few observations about the letters themselves:

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Many thanks to Greg Boozell who sent along this link to The Michigan Quarterly Review SITE where this exciting news is posted:

Several years ago the University of Michigan Special Collections Library acquired two collections of materials relating to Orson Welles, including scripts, correspondence, memoranda, stills, programs, and much else. In this issue Catherine L. Benamou, the author of a recent book on Welles, curates a generous selection of correspondence related to Welles's film of 1948, Macbeth, as well as a graphics portfolio featuring images of great rarity related to that film and a document that serves as a "smoking gun" in the great mystery about the fate of the original print of The Magnificent Ambersons. A detailed introduction by Benamou precedes an exchange of correspondence between Welles and Richard Wilson, the film's producer and a longtime associate of Welles from the time of the Mercury Theatre forward. The correspondence is jaunty in places but also deadly earnest about the particulars of sound recording, thematic interpretation, and casting decisions. These documents, including the portfolio on coated paper with detailed explanatory notes, are the inaugural project of a sequence of writings drawn from the Welles collections.

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At his site, Jonathan Rosenbaum gives a more detailed description of the Welles contents in the magazine:

The 55-page Welles dossier assembled by Benamou in Michigan Quarterly Review starts off with a 1942 letter from Robert Wise to Welles about the editing of The Magnificent Ambersons, drawn from the Kodar collection. The remaining documents, all drawn from the Wilson papers, are letters relating to Welles’ Macbeth (the film), all written between 1947 and 1949 — four of them by Welles, if one also includes a memorandum to Republic Pictures — followed by an eight-page “Portfolio of Graphics”. The latter starts with 1944 instructions by RKO’s Jim Wilkinson (in charge of their film vaults) to RKO’s Sid Kramer in New York to “instruct the Brazilian office to junk” one print of Journey into Fear (10 reels) and two prints of The Magnificent Ambersons (10 reels and 14 reels). (The remaining seven pages all relate to Macbeth.)

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Unfortunately, there is no online ordering, just the quaint olden way where you mail a check or money order for $7.00 if you would like to receive a copy, to:

Michigan Quarterly Review
0576 Rackham Bldg.
915 Washington Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1070

Meanwhile, for some background on the two different release versions of Macbeth, here is Todd McCarthy's excellent report from Variety in 1980 about UCLA's initial discovery of the longer version of the film, as well as Variety's original review of Macbeth from 1948, whose reviewer at the time found the soundtrack to be unintelligible "gibbering."

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4. The Play And The Script
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How can Macbeth, a tragedy written for the early seventeenth century audience, be presented in a photoplay for a twentieth century audience? This was the problem of (Orson Welles), the screenwriter. The film itself shows how well the writer and all others concerned with it succeeded. However, a comparison of a portion of the original play and the script reveals how the screen writer has made the film effective by retaining the Shakespearean flavor and by using modern sound effects and camera techniques.
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As you compare the film and the play, ask yourself these questions:
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Why is the film script so much shorter than the play?
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Why is more movement specified in the film version?�

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Deletions in the Study Guide for MACBETH
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In the final editing, the continuity of the photoplay demanded that several deletions be made. Therefore, it will be necessary to effect the elimination from our study guide of the text listed below:
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Delete the first two speeches. The scene in the motion picture starts with:
�I laid their daggers ready..." from Lady Macbeth's speech in the play text.�
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In the script text, delete everything preceding the sound of the owl, off stage.
Note that these pages are for illustration only.
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Delete question # 5 (Notice the dialect used in the play. How does it help the film to be convincing?).
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Delete the following two quotations:
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"Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters... '
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�...Duncan is in his grave; After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well.��
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