Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

The upcoming Chris Welles Feder hosted screening of Touch of Evil at the Staten Island Film Festival on June 5th, reminds us that this year marks the 50th Anniversary since Touch of Evil premiered in New York (on May 21, 1958).

Since it appears that Universal Home video will not be re-visiting their bare-bones DVD release of Touch of Evil to commemorate it's 50th Anniversary (although there are still 8 months left to hope), here are some comments from the films leading players, who sadly are no longer with us to celebrate the film's brilliance.

The story of how Orson Welles came to direct Touch of Evil varies greatly, depending on who you listen to. Just as in Citizen Kane, each of the key witnesses has his own unique version of how the events unfolded:
______________________________________

Albert Zugsmith - Producer
(From King of the B's by Todd McCarthy & Charles Flynn).

In 1957, prior to directing Touch of Evil, Welles played a corrupt rancher in Jack Arnold’s Man in the Shadow, Produced by Albert Zugsmith for Universal. According to Zugsmith, he and Welles got together in his bungalow after each days shooting was completed, where they would drink vodka, smoke cigars and rewrite the next days scenes. (However, this was disputed by director Jack Arnold, who said Welles didn’t rewrite any of the script). It also appears that Zugsmith would have been a valuable ally with Welles in his battle with Universal over the final editing of the film, but by then, he had left the Universal lot and set-up shop at MGM.

(more...)

Directly as sent to me:

"The main event on the opening day of the Staten Island Film Festival, Thursday, June 5, will be a screening of "Touch of Evil," the 1998 reconstructed version. This film was proposed by Chris Welles Feder, Welles's eldest daughter, who will present it to the festival audience and then take questions and answers following the screening. The film will be shown at the College of Staten Island, Center for the Arts. For more information, visit the festival's web site: www.sifilmfestival.org"

And there you have it. Any of our NY-area readers who make it, please feel free to send your impressions, or post them on the message board. In site news, my apologies for the recent post reversal thing again; I tried innocently to see what the main page would look like with a widget installed, and the widget served only to make things go into ReverseLand, which was bad and couldn't be fixed whatever I did. It so happened that Wordpress needed to be upgraded again anyway, so that has straightened things out for the time being, until the next time MySQL goes wonky.

While it may seem unfair to single out Mr. Lucas and Mr. Spielberg for such a plea, I think that given the fact they both supposedly loved Orson Welles and his work, and that their new film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is being made for Paramount Pictures, who control all the rights to It’s All True, it's actually rather appropriate. And don't forget, that in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy's adventure begins in South America, and ends with the famous warehouse homage to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane.

Ironically, Frank Marshall, the producer of all the Indiana Jones movies, got his start working as the production manager on Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind. So you might think that between these three very wealthy men, they would have the clout to, at the very least, ask the head of Paramount Pictures to come up with the meager funds (about $150,000) that are needed to preserve the 100,000 feet of negative footage Orson Welles shot for It’s All True that has never even been printed!

I find it especially ironic that Mr. Spielberg would spent about half of what is needed to preserve It’s All True, ($60,000), on a little sled called “Rosebud.” Wouldn’t or shouldn't Mr. Spielberg be more interested in seeing what the director of Citizen Kane shot in South America only a year later, and what has never been seen by anyone else, including Mr. Welles? My God, if I were Steven Spielberg, I'd go to Paramount and say, "Print this material or I'll never make a film for you again!"

Well, maybe if the new Indiana Jones movie grosses over $200 million, Lucas and Spielberg might consider donating the small pittance of $60,000. each to the restoration of Orson Welles It’s All True. Or better yet, insist that Paramount fund the restoration of all of the footage they have deposited with the UCLA film archive. In any case, It’s All True needs a wealthy patron, because there is about 100,000 feet of nitrate footage shot or supervised by Orson Welles in Brazil, that has never even been seen! Now, to be quite clear, this is mostly documentary footage, and may not startle the average viewer or even be terribly exciting footage. But on April 13, Joe McBride showed a reel of silent rushes I’d never seen from It’s All True at the Pacific Film Archive, in Berkeley. It was mostly shot by Harry J. Wild, in high contrast black and white, showing couples dancing at the Urca Casino in Rio. Joe read the audience Catherine Benamou's description of the footage:

(more...)

The question is not whether we are to support art, but rather whether we are to bear it, bear the existence of the artist. It is not we who have the right to demand something from the artists; the right to demand is entirely on their side.

–Dr. Werner Schmalenbach

_________________________

Sequence of stills highlighting the diverse cast of THE TRIAL

From ORSON WELLES AT WORK

_______________________________

Dr. Schmalenbach is a noted art historian who wrote books on Kurt Schwitters and Amedeo Modigliani, so I’m sure he would agree that filmmaking is among the most commercial of artistic mediums. Certainly studio heads like Harry Cohn (Columbia), Edward Muhl (Universal) and Charles Koerner (RKO) didn’t fund an artistic director like Orson Welles because they wanted him to create a work of art, but rather to make a movie that would hopefully turn a profit for the studio. Of course, if the film happened to be considered artistic by critics and also made a slight profit, that would usually be enough to keep the director working. Ah... but therein lies the rub, for all of Orson Welles movies (except The Stranger) never turned a profit on their initial release. So depending on your point of view, Welles was either unwilling to compromise his artistic vision enough to make a picture that would appeal to the great masses, or, in the words of that “noted Welles biographer,” David Thompson, “Welles fed on failure, like a Shakespearean actor thriving on tragedy!”

Now, with those two very divergent views in mind, it’s my pleasure to report that Jean-Pierre Berthomé and François Thomas have delivered a wonderfully even-handed treatment of the great director. It focuses solely on Orson Welles at Work. Of course, the title of their new book is also the key to their approach. Unlike many past books on Welles, their volume contains little speculative writing on what went either right or wrong in Welles career. That has already been done to death in several other Welles biographies, chiefly those written by authors who got their facts confused or did little original research. In fact, those books about Welles might easily be titled Orson Welles at Play. And to be fair, Welles unofficial motto could easily have been, “Work hard, play hard.” But in the life of an artist, whether you are Pablo Picasso or Orson Welles, what really matters is the final piece of art. So while it may be fun to read about the many tabloid escapades Welles may (or may not) have participated in during his sojourns across four continents, I’m happy to say that Prof. Thomas and Prof. Berthomé sidestep those sometimes dubious reports and focus solely on the process of artistic creation. As the noted art collector and actor Vincent Price (who worked with Welles), told me once: “I really find the revelation of people’s personal life, unless it has to do with their art, to be boring. Like Shelly’s Winter’s autobiography. For that you just get a large bed!”

So in place of all that "boring" personal information on Welles, the authors have gone for the meat of Welles career, done some meticulous research, and go through all of Welles films in vivid detail. The result is an extremely readable and very interesting “making of” story about each and every one of Welles movies, including the major unfinished projects, such as Don Quixote and The Deep.

(more...)

Orson Welles at Work is a stunning new collection of rare and beautiful images from the films of Orson Welles, as collected by co-authors Jean-Pierre Berthome and Francois Thomas. To put it simply, this is the Welles book I've been hoping to see for quite some time. It's certainly a must have volume for anyone interested in the cinema of Orson Welles.

Despite the misgivings the authors Francois and Jean-Pierre have detailed in their letter to Tony, posted below, I do not quite agree with their assessment. The Phaidon Press, as they have done in their previous stand-out volumes, Magnum Cinema and Bill Krohn's Hitchcock at Work, deliver us another sumptuous visual treat.  So for all true Welles aficionados, I think you'll easily find this to be the best visual compilation of Welles work that has yet to see print.

Contained within it's 320 large size pages are nearly 400 black and white illustrations and 40 eye-popping color frame enlargement and stills.  Given the vast number of books on Welles that have already appeared, I would have expected that about half of these stills might be retreads of what has already been widely seen, but to my great surprise, we are given a huge wealth of images and studio documents I've never seen before! What is more, they are all so beautifully reproduced (many in full page format), that even if you have seen them elsewhere, it's quite unlikely you've ever seen them in such rich detail.

I'd estimate I had only seen about one-quarter of the images before this, and I'd certainly never seen most of them in anywhere near this kind of high quality resolution.

I had hoped to talk to Francois and Jean-Pierre in more detail about putting the book together, but sadly they have boycotted their own work, because of the way their intentions were totally ignored by the original French publisher.

In the meantime,  I've only had a chance to glance at the text of the book, so here is the table of contents, along with the introduction, to give you some idea of the treats that are in store for you, should you decide to purchase the book.

ORSON WELLES AT WORK - Table of Contents

____________________________________________

First Steps in Theatre and Radio

Conquering Hollywood

Citizen Kane (Mercury-RKO) 1941

Three Films on Two Continents

The Magnificent Ambersons (Mercury-RKO) 1942

Journey Into Fear (Mercury-RKO) 1943

It's All True (RKO) 1943

The Struggle to Remain a producer

The Stranger (International-RKO) 1945

The Lady from Shanghai (Columbia) 1947

Macbeth (Mercury-Republic) 1948

The First European Period

Othello (Mercury-UA) 1952

Mr. Arkadin (WB) 1955

Discovering Television (The Fountain of Youth)

Touch of Evil (Universal-International) 1958

Don Quixote (Welles Enterprises) Unreleased

The Second European Period

The Trial (Astor Pictures) 1962

Falstaff (Peppercorn-Wormser) 1966

The Immortal Story (Albina Films) 1968

The Heroine, The Deep & Orson's Bag

The Last Years

Rough Sketches & Last Unfinished Works (The Other Side of the Wind )

F for Fake & Filming Othello

(more...)

Thanks and many kudos to Lamont Cranston (The Shadow Knows) for posting the links to these two fantastic scenes of Paul Mazursky and Henry Jaglom from The Other Side of the Wind, on the Wellesnet message board.

They are now available for viewing on YouTube. Also a special thanks to Shoudriot for posting these videos on YouTube in the first place!

Henry Jaglom and Paul Mazursky – Length: 5:35

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wppeHCDKk4k

Henry Jaglom and Paul Mazursky (alternate takes with an additional scene of Dennis Hopper as another young director from the Easy Rider era of Hollywood) – Length: 6:29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOVOXhvdKD4

A few years ago, Paul Mazursky told me about these scenes in some detail. He recalled them as a drunken night spent with Orson Welles at his house in Hollywood, but of course at the time, I hadn't actually seen the scenes. Now, after looking at them, and seeing what Mazursky said about the scenes, his comments have proven to be extremely accurate! According to Mr. Mazursky, he and Henry Jaglom spent over four hours at Welles house in 1971 improvising these scenes. After watching the scenes and reading Mazursky's comments, you will see that over 30 years later, Mazursky remembered his night of work with Welles extremely well, considering the amount of brandy he consumed... you will even see him lift up a brandy glass (very briefly) at the end of the second scene!

Now, for someone who doesn't know the context of these two scenes, they probably will prove to be less than satisfying viewing. But when you realize that Jaglom and Mazursky are talking about the great Hollywood director Jake Hannaford, the major character in Orson Welles The Other Side of the Wind, they make much more sense.

What is also interesting to note, is that Welles apparently told Jaglom much more background about the story of Jake Hannaford (or else Jaglom had already read the script), than what Welles told to Mazursky (who says he did not read the script). But in these two scenes, Jaglom seems to know much more about Jake's fascist-like tendencies, and speaks with more insight about Jake's background, while Mazursky (who seems to be out talked by Jaglom), may simply not have been given enough information about Jake to ad-lib his replies. However, Mazursky does cite a key plot point when he says, "are you saying (Hannaford) is homosexual?

In the script, it is brought out that Jake Hannaford can only make male stars, because he always seems to find some young and attractive leading man to star in his movies who he eventually falls secretly in love with. So actually, maybe that would be a good angle to get the film finally released. Orson Welles makes a gay movie, long before Brokeback Mountain!

Welles also told Mazursky and Jaglom that since John Huston wasn't available the night they were shooting their scenes, that he would be the one who would feed them their off screen lines. Welles assumed the role of Jake Hannaford (who is supposed to be in the scene with them), so it is indeed Welles voice you hear in all the off-camera dialogue.

Another notable aspect of these scenes, is the beautiful way they were lit and shot (in black and white) by Gary Graver in 1971. Seeing the scenes for the first time, I was struck by how much they anticipated the style of Robert Mapplethorpe's still portraits, as both Jaglom and Mazursky's faces stand out against a pure black background. Of course, that makes perfect sense, since in the context of the movie, all the lights have supposedly gone out at Jake's ranch house, so naturally, they would only be lit by candlelight or lanterns.

After seeing these two brilliantly improvised scenes, directed by Welles, along with all the other footage I've seen, I find it absolutely criminal that this great piece of cinematic art still remains unseen. For me, Welles screenplay for The Other Side of the Wind is a masterpiece of screenwriting acumen. It seems only logical that the script, as filmed by Orson Welles would also have to considered as Welles' final masterpiece.

Below are Paul Mazursky's comments about his single night of work on The Other Side of the Wind in 1971, which will certainly place the YouTube scenes in better context for anyone who has not read the script. And apparently, Paul Mazursky himself has never even seen this footage, so hopefully he will now get the opportunity to do so. So speaking on behalf of Mr. Mazursky, many thanks to Sboudriot!

_______________________

(more...)

Dear Tony,

Yes, we are ready to explain to you why we refused to take part in the promotion of our book Orson Welles au travail when it was published in France in 2006.

The text is 100% ours, except the one on the jacket. However, our original concept for the illustrations was rejected by the publisher.

We had three principles:

1. The book is called Orson Welles at Work, so let’s have as many production documents and photographs showing Welles and/or his team at work as possible. Let’s also have stills and frame enlargements allowing to better understand the working methods on a particular project.

2. We had gathered a tremendous collection of rare or never published photographs and production documents, regarding the American films as well as the European ones. Inasmuch as there are so many Welles books, including albums, let’s use these rare or never published items. Although we must also have some better-known photographs so that the reader recognizes the Welles he already knows and which will facilitate his entry into the new material.

3. We conceived the text and the illustration as a whole, even in the writing procedures. There would be no need to develop certain aspects since they would be explained by the documents and captions. Our written explanations on a double-page spread would lighten up because of the documents on the same double page. Conversely, the documents and their captions would give a certain immediate information, which would be enhanced once the reader reads the double page.

In the final book, there is a huge number of stills (many of them not particularly related to Welles at work), and even publicity material (that has nothing to do with Welles at work). A lot of them are very well-known or found their way in every Welles book, so that we really are ashamed of some chapters. We did not find the choice very apt, at that: many bland photos found their way into the book.

Above all, any direct link between the text and the illustration has been cut out. The text and the illustration give separate discourses, and, in some cases, conflicting discourses. (This is especially true of The Lady from Shanghai: we insisted that Welles wanted stark realism, the publisher insisted on glamour, so that they were true to Harry Cohn’s conception of the film, not Welles’s.)

Also, there are fewer production documents. They don’t match the text, so you may have to turn ten pages to find them.

We refused to take part in the promotion of a book we no longer considered ours. Orson Welles at Work is a book written by Jean-Pierre Berthomé and François Thomas and designed by the editor from Berthomé’s and Thomas’s photograph and production document collections.

As far as we know (we did not receive a copy), the British edition simply duplicates the lay-out from the French edition. Actually, the illustrations were sent by the French publisher to the British one. The latter had apparently little or no say in the selection. Six months before the British edition appeared, we offered to replace at our own cost a dozen photographs by new ones that we had discovered in the meantime, but the French publisher did not take the offer. We have the same feeling toward the British edition as the French one, but we were grateful to Phaidon for allowing us to carefully check the translation. From our experience, they really respect authors.

All this was an interesting experiment. It helped us understand how directors can survive losing battles over the final cut: what matters is the next project. And we can love certain films by Welles even though we know that he did not see them as his anymore, so we just hope that part of our original dream still filters through the book.

That’s the story. Thanks for asking !

Very best wishes,

Jean-Pierre Berthomé and François Thomas

I would like to thank the authors for their direct and informative statement; nevertheless, regardless of the book's shortcomings and however short it falls from their original conception, I feel the book is still well-worth getting, for both the neophyte as well as the Wellesian: for the neophyte, it has both textual and visual beauty with an accessibility and clarity of expression. And for the Wellesian, it is, again even with its shortcomings, one of the most beautiful books on Welles ever produced, and in addition it has some information that has not been published before. In other words, I can enthusiastically and without reservation, recommend this book.

Tony

Rare behind the scenes shot of Orson Welles, Charlton Heston and camera operator Philip Lathrop during the shooting of Touch of Evil.

________________________________________

Actor Charlton Heston has died, at age 84, in his home in Beverly Hills. The heroic actor won many honors in his long and prolific career, but for Wellesnet readers, perhaps his greatest claim to fame is stepping up and asking that Orson Welles be given the directorial reigns for Touch of Evil.

As we now know, Universal executives complied almost instantly, and the result was to be Orson Welles last film made with the technical resources of a major Hollywood studio at his command.

Unfortunately, Heston and Welles were only to make that one film classic. Afterwards, despite their having established a great working rapport and their both having high hopes for a continuing partnership, it was not destined to be. Welles asked Heston to appear in his version of Don Quixote, and Heston later asked Welles to direct a film version of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, but neither of these collaborations were realized.

Welles and Heston also wanted to collaborate on a science fiction film based on the novel "Earth Abides" by George R. Stewart, but could not get the funding.

However, over the years they remained good friends and it was undoubtedly Charlton Heston's role as chairman of the American Film Institute, that led to Orson Welles becoming only the third person to receive the AFI's life achievement award in 1975.

Since Charlton Heston's many other great roles as an actor will be celebrated and easy to access elsewhere, we elect to focus on Heston's commitment to the genius of Orson Welles, by reprinting these very interesting pages from his published journals, which indicate the depth of his respect for Orson Welles.

(more...)