Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

ORSON WELLES: There is a grand place, where the ancient cliffs hold a million stories.  Where the mystic forests whisper time worn tales. Where the glacial lakes drown secrets from the ice age. There is a grand place called New Hampshire.  A brand new stage for adventure and romance...

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It's rather amazing that Orson Welles work in the arts is so vast it is still being catologued and discovered -  more than 20 years after his death.  This of course, not only applies to his own unfinished films, most of which we know about, but also to the incredible amount of radio and voiceover work Welles did, much of which is still unknown to even the most vervent of Welles scholars.

The recent posting at Wellesnet of many of Welles brilliant radio shows from the forties is a prime example.  Like a cache of hidden treasure, Store Hadji has provided us with many rare Welles radio shows that were very seldom heard.  

Suffice it to say, Welles total career is like a glacier from the ice ages of New Hampshire's lakes.  We are still discovering bits and pieces of his work which pop up at the most surprising time and places.

Such as this last week, when the biggest story about the new Transformers movie,  seemed to be that Orson Welles had provided a voice for the old Transformer movie.  Thankfully, Welles had no connection with the new one, but if he did, perhaps he could have used a one per cent cut of the $70 million opening week gross to finish The Other Side of the Wind. 

Another Welles unknown gem: In 1982, after the success of On Golden Pond, Welles did a promo piece to lure other Hollywood filmmakers to the state of New Hampshire, persumably after well-known New Englander Katherine Hepburn said "no."  It has now been revised for a new short film about filming in New Hampshire, which can be viewed here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM5REtS3hUM

As it is yet another masterpiece of Welles vocal acumen, it should be welcome viewing for all.

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PRINCE OF FOXES (1949) Twentieth Century-Fox.

Directed by Henry King; Produced by Sol C. Siegel; Screenplay by Milton Krims; Second Unit Director: Robert D. Webb; Based on the novel by Samuel Shellabarger; Director of Photography: Leon Shamroy; Editor: Barbara McLean; Art Direction: Lyle Wheeler and Mark-Lee Kirk. Costume designer: Vittorio Nino Novarese; Music by Alfred Newman. Special Photographic Effects: Fred Sersen. Sound: Roger Heman. 107 min. 

The Cast: Tyrone Power (Anrea Orsini), Orson Welles (Cesare Borgia), Wanda Hendrix (Camilla Verano), Felix Aylmer (Count Antonio Verano), Everett Sloane (Mario Belli), Katina Paxinou (Mona Constanza Zoppo), Marina Berti (Angela), Leslie Bradley (Don Esteban), Eduardo Ciannelli (Art dealer) James Carney (Alphonso D’Este). 

By Lawrence French 

In honor of Orson Welles' 92nd birthday earlier this month, Fox Home Video has released three of Welles early fims as actor on DVD.  Given the amount of work Welles did for Fox, perhaps we will eventually see a complete box set of Orson Welles' Fox films.  Since Welles delivered the oration at Darryl Zanuck’s funeral, which presumably was filmed, that might be a great supplement to include on any future Fox-Zanuck-Welles releases. The three current Fox titles featuring Welles are Jane Eyre, The Black Rose and Prince of Foxes. 

Firstly, Fox is to be congratulated for not only providing DVD’s that are beautifully restored, but also come at an agreeably low price and are handsomely packaged, with slip case covers and include a set of four miniature lobby cards showing scenes from the film.  Also, as noted on the message board, some of the great scores done by Bernard Herrmann (on Jane Eyre) and Alfred Newman (on Foxes) are available as isolated tracks.  

On re-viewing Prince of Foxes, I was quite pleasantly surprised, since I had almost no memory of it from a screening caught nearly 30 years ago at a Henry King retrospective held at the Museum of Modern Art.  But in Fox's luminous new transfer, you can now enjoy the film for all it’s purely fun aspects, including Welles gleeful performance as the scheming Cesare Borgia, along with Everett Sloane providing much delight as a double-crossing sidekick, who sadistically offers a Lear-like moment at the Borgia court, by gouging out Tyrone Power's eyes and then squishing them like grapes. It's literally eye-popping! 

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When talking with Roger Corman about his Edgar Allan Poe movies, I took the opportunity to ask him about his dinner meeting with Orson Welles, which took place in the mid-seventies when Corman and Peter Bogdanovich were preparing St. Jack, which Welles was originally supposed to direct.

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask Corman about Welles initial participation in directing St. Jack, but did ask Roger about what he and Welles talked about during their dinner meeting.

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LAWRENCE FRENCH: You talked about going to dinner with Peter Bogdanovich and Orson Welles one time, and I was very curious if you can remember anything of that meeting?

ROGER CORMAN: We talked about films in general, films of Orson's, films of mine, films of Peter's, and in particular, when I did The St. Valentine's Day Massacre for Fox, (in 1967). I wanted to have Orson Welles play Al Capone, and Jason Robards for Bugs Moran, because the St. Valentine's Day Massacre was the attempt of Capone to wipe out his chief rival, Bugs Moran. So my idea was to get two distinguished actors to play those parts, and Jason Robards was thin and Irish, as was Bugs Moran, and both Capone and Welles were big, heavyweight guys. But the executives at Fox said to me, "Roger, you're a young director and we have to tell you, nobody can work with Orson Welles. He just takes over the set on any picture he's in and the director ends up just standing there, even if he's only an actor. So don't get involved with this, let's find somebody else. They also said, "He probably isn't going to want to play Al Capone, anyway."

LAWRENCE FRENCH: That's funny, because Orson Welles said he knew gangsters like Lucky Luciano, and that he would have sold his soul to play Don Corlene in Francis Ford Coppola's THE GODFATHER, but the part was never offered to him. And from what you say, he apparently never got the offer to play Al Capone, either.

ROGER CORMAN: No, he didn't, because we moved Jason Robards into the leading role of Al Capone, even though we both thought he was better suited for the role of Bugs Moran. And for Bugs Moran, instead of Jason, we used Ralph Meeker. Then, much later on, at this dinner I had with Orson, he told me, "I would have loved to play Al Capone, and who says I can't take direction?"

LAWRENCE FRENCH: Of course, Welles did have the reputation of sometimes taking over the direction of films he was acting in, so if he had played Al Capone in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre and had tried to direct his own scenes, do you think you would you have allowed that?

ROGER CORMAN: No, I would not. Being a young director and not being that experienced with actors, I probably would have, without question, held onto my choice of shots. But I would have eased my position with him as an actor and probably allowed him, provided he didn't go too far from what I was thinking, would have allowed him to express himself as an actor, because he was a brilliant actor!

LAWRENCE FRENCH: That's nice to hear, because Welles himself said something that was very interesting. He said that anyone on his set could make suggestions and he would consider them. It didn't mean he'd use them, but he welcomed any ideas, even if it was from a grip.

ROGER CORMAN: I followed the same thinking. Chuck Hanawalt was my key grip on most of the Poe films, and he was very bright. And very often I would use Chuck's ideas. And of course, my cameraman was Floyd Crosby, who would often have ideas, so although most of the shots were what I wanted to do, I would take ideas from anybody. Or at least I would listen to the ideas, and pick what I think worked best.

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NOTE: Floyd Crosby, was the brilliant Oscar-winning cinematograher of F.W. Murnau’s Tabu (1931) and ten years later, found himself shooting on Welles own ill-fated project, It’s All True. Crosby shot the stunning black & white footage for the My Friend Bonita episode of It’s All True, that was directed by Norman Foster and intended for inclusion as one of the three episodes of that never completed movie.