Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

��* * * * * * * * * * ��OBEDIENTLY YOURS, ORSON WELLES�In Paris�By Leslie Weisman�Earlier this month I had the great pleasure of seeing this play, written by the esteemed Welles scholar and author Richard France (Orson Welles on Shakespeare, 2001; The Theatre of Orson Welles, 1977) and adapted for the French stage by actor and writer Jacques Collard. "Obediently Yours, Orson Welles" has been translated into French, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, and Italian, and staged in as many countries. Failing a close-to-home venue, I did the next best thing, seeing it in a city that he loved and, judging by the full house and enthusiastic, sympathetic reception, one that remembers him, and returns the sentiment:�Paris. [This may be the appropriate place to note that I am a friend of Mr. France, and have worked with him. That said, what follows is my honest appraisal of seeing the play.]� Conveniently situated about a block from the Champs-Elys�es Cl�men�eau metro station, the Th��tre Marigny�s Salle Popesco, the "modern" half of the two-theater complex, seating about 300, is an ideal venue for an intimate portrayal of Welles.�The play is a marvel of economy that takes us through his life from the perspective of his last year, as his attempts to obtain financing for DON QUIJOTE from friends (in some cases, this appellation should be seen as carrying invisible quotation marks) and associates are set against a carefully structured, temporally shifting shadow play of episodes from his life and career.�Not an overly rosy portrait � no one would accuse the author of trying to whitewash Welles�it is nonetheless an intimate, affecting, and affectionate one.� The setting is a recording studio, where Welles is making the infamous radio commercials which, while essential sources of money that would allow him to make his own films, perhaps inevitably earned him the derision of the mean-spirited and the uninitiated � another reason this play should be on everyone�s play list, and not just Wellesians�.��

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Here's a rare�treat.� A long scene from Orson Welles script of... �

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THE DREAMERS (1982)�

Directed by Orson Welles. Screenplay by Orson Welles and Oja Kodar, based on The Dreamers and Echoes by Isak Dinesen.� Cinematography (in color) by Gary Graver.� Music by Erik Satie.�
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Starring

Orson Welles as Marcus Kleek�
Oja Kodar as Pellegrina Leoni�
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While no other actors were officially cast, Welles was hoping to obtain the services of the following actors:
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Timothy Dalton as Lincoln Forsner
Oliver Reed as Guildenstern
Bud Cort as Pilot
Peter Ustinov as Baron Clootz
Alida Valli as Eudoxia�

and

Jeanne Moreau as Donna Lucetta Boscari
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(Welles describes Moreau�s character in the script as having �a frizzled and deplorable red wig, two eyes, glittering with intelligence, which peer out at Lincoln from behind a mask of simple avarice and complicated wickedness. This is none other than DONNA LUCETTA BOSCARI herself, notorious from Vienna to Palermo, expert in poisons and aphrodisiacs, procuress to the higher clergy, and as we have seen � a hopelessly addicted gambler.�)�
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Welles wrote the screenplay for this poetic masterpiece in 1978 and began shooting some short "test footage" of the picture in the garden and interior of his house in the Hollywood Hills throughout the early eighties.
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This scene from Welles script is interesting to compare with the test footage Welles shot�that is included in ONE MAN BAND (on the Criterion DVD of F FOR FAKE).
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The scene�takes place high in a Swiss Monastery, during a raging alpine snowstorm. Three ex-lovers of the great Opera singer, Pellegrina Leoni have converged to witness her play her final� scene� a death scene. Welles plays her Dutch friend and patron, Marcus Kleek.�
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The script gives a much better idea of how Welles would have approached the material, since all we see in�the test footage is�a simple monologue by Welles, with no sense of the many effects he had planned to use in�the scene.� As the script indicates, these would have included long dissolves and double images, as well as reverse shots to the three men who are listening to him tell his story� �

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The OLD GENTLEMAN has stepped out of the shadows.
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MARCUS KLEEK
The truth, young gentleman?
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LINCOLN raises his head and looks at his old enemy.
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MARCUS KLEEK
Now that you've cornered her and killed her, you want the truth?
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LINCOLN discovers that all his ferocity has drained suddenly away...
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MARCUS KLEEK
I have known this woman at a time when she was known to all the world by her real name. Before that I have known her. I saw her first on a small theatre stage in Venice and she was then sixteen years old. I bought a villa for her near Milan. And when she wasn't traveling, she stayed there, and had many friends around her. And sometimes we were alone together...
And then we used to laugh such at the world. And we would walk together in the garden, arm in arm. I alone, of all people, knew her.
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GUILDENSTERN stirs in the shadows.
Until now, LINCOLN has net been aware of his presence.
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GUILDENSTERN
You? -- you were her lover?
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The OLD MAN meets his eye. Dismisses the word with contempt.
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MARCUS KLEEK
Lovers!... I have seen her lovers... running about yapping around her, flattering and fighting...
No, young gentlemen � I was her friend.
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(With great pride) At the gate of paradise when the keeper of the gate shall ask me who I am, I shall give no name and no position in the world. But I shall answer him:
"I was the friend of Pellegrina Leoni."
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Richard France�s play OBEDIENTLY YOURS, ORSON WELLES is now playing in Paris at the Th��tre Marigny until Oct. 29.

Our European correspondent Allegra saw the play while she was in Paris and tells me it's quite wonderful, noting that the actor M. Drouot at times seemed almost to be channeling Welles. If you live or are going to be in France anytime during October you can order tickets here:

Tickets

Marigny - Salle Popesco
Carr� Marigny, avenue Marigny
75008 Paris

There is also a nice piece by David Larre (in French) here that has three pictures of M. Drouot as Orson Welles. He looks uncannily like Orson!

Article

Joseph McBride's new book on Orson Welles features two chapters on the saga of� the making, and unmaking of�THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. It's the most comprehensive coverage of this unfinished Welles masterpiece that has yet been seen.��

In the book Mr. McBride also goes into some detail about the early problems Welles encountered when he went to Brazil to film IT'S ALL TRUE. Among the astounding revelations are a "smoking gun" phone call between RKO vice-president Reginald Amour and Phil Reisman, where it's plainly clear that Welles had not gone over budget on IT'S ALL TRUE, but was actually about $500,000. under�the 1.2 million budget that RKO had allotted for the film.�

Here are some of the factual memos from the RKO files that speak for themselves:
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George Schaefer was under intense pressure from RKO�s board in New York to cut the studio's mounting losses, so he wrote a heartfelt letter to Welles, noting how he had stood by him during the Hearst and industry efforts to suppress CITIZEN KANE. Now, with his own job on the line, George Schaefer asks Welles for a bit of cooperation and gratitude. To deliver his letter, he personally sent RKO executive Phil Reisman to Rio, who also had instructions to bring IT'S ALL TRUE to a quick conclusion, even if it meant shutting the production down. A few days before Reisman left for Rio, RKO Vice-President Reginald Armour called him in New York to discuss the situation.
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REGINALD ARMOUR & PHIL REISMAN�(Transcript of phone call):

April 27, 1942

REGINALD ARMOUR: You�re elected for Rio, brother.
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PHIL REISMAN: ...I want to find out from the legal department about Welles�s contract�what rights he has... Do you have the breakdown of the actual cost to date�what the Mexican part of the picture (My Friend Bonito) has cost to date? Has there been any budget set?�
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REGINALD ARMOUR: No�it will be about $1.2 million altogether�but we don�t want to talk to him about that�we don�t want him to know.
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PHIL REISMAN: Someone must have told him�because when I was down there he was telling everyone the picture would cost a million dollars. It�s going to be a documentary film�and we�ll never get it back. George is sending me down there with the right to shut the God damn thing off if I want to�and bring him home and take the loss right now.

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Here's a very nice piece on OSOTW featuring comments from John Huston, Susan Strasberg and Gary Graver, written for the March, 1976 issue of AFTER DARK, a New York based magazine that billed itself as "The National Magazine of Entertainment."�

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