As the title says, the second volume of Simon Callow’s biography of Welles has been released in the UK; the American release looks to be pushed back to August, according to Amazon.com; reviews are starting to be published: the Times the Telegraph The Observer I am not sure how long those links will remain active, […]
Ages ago (okay, early last year) I picked up a bunch of film magazines that were being thrown out. I had intended to somehow use them on the site, but put them in a box and consequently forgot about them. I stumbled over them again recently, and seeing as how I hadnt posted in a […]
I received my review copy of the Criterion Complete Mr. Arkadin set last week, and after a cursory walkthrough, I can say its pretty much everything we hoped it would be. While it isnt absolutely Complete (something that has to be a bit of a gag on their part, given the project at hand here), […]
Sent to me today was this rather exciting bit of news regarding the Italian TV channel RAI, which is planning a Mr. Arkadin fest on April 1; the translation from their Web site, as provided to me: “Among the films completed by Orson Welles, this is certainly the work that’s presented in the largest number […]
As you’ll have seen if you peruse the message board, a post linking to Tim Lucas’ Video Watchblog column about the new Criterion Collection Mr. Arkadin DVD set resulted in some less than adulatory (but hardly vicious) words being written about Lucas, which in turn resulted in him ripping those of us who dared to […]
At the Home Theater Forum chat with Warner Home Video tonight, the usual “when is Ambersons coming out” question was posed to the Warner reps present; the answer was the same old “we’re still looking for materials” bit, which is rather frustrating, to say the least. How long, exactly, does this process take? Surely there […]
Per DVD Times, Richard Fleischer’s Compulsion, which featured Welles as a Clarence Darrow-type attorney defending a pair of Leopold & Loeb style murderers, will be making its DVD debut on May 23, in an anamorphic widescreen transfer. Extras are basically nil, but for those who want the film, this is good news.
Warner Bros has announced an “aggressive” release plan in 2006 for their catalog titles, of which The Magnificent Ambersons is one; a preliminary list of many titles was posted over at the Digital Bits site today, and Ambersons (not surprisingly, at this point) was not among those titles listed. With 200 titles on the cards […]
I’ve only recently seen over on the Criterion Forum forum that the excellent UK label Masters of Cinema will be releasing F for Fake, and that this release will include an interview with critic/Welles scholar Jonathan Rosenbaum; no date was given. Considering their usual high standard of work, this should be a very good release. […]
A few days ago I suggested voting for the unreleased Welles titles listed in Turner Classic Movies’ database (see below). How has the voting been going since? Not too bad, thanks in part to threads on several other sites as well as this one (he said modestly). Ambersons is up to 90 votes (from 31), […]
Per a couple other sources, the Criterion Collection’s release of Mr. Arkadin has been removed from their “Coming Soon” section, but remains on the site, listed on its own page simply as “Coming Soon,” with no given date.
If you visit the Turner Classic Movies Database, you can look up titles they hold and vote to see them on DVD. I have no idea if it will make any difference to the powers that be (probably not, the cynic in me says), but why not go and vote for the unreleased Welles titles […]
From time to time, I’ll give a look to biographies of people who played roles in the life of Welles, however small, and the most recent and interesting of these is Samantha Barbas’ The First Lady of Hollywood: A Biography of Louella Parsons, telling the story of that infamous gossip columnist who did her best […]
…Which of course begs the question, “Why bother?” But Mind City Productions decided that an animated version of Welles’ Mercury Summer Theater broadcast of Lucille Fletcher’s radio classic “The Hitch Hiker” was needed, and so we’re here to provide a look at it. First off, the disc appears to be a DVD-R, and two of […]
In addition to the upcoming Welles books by Callow and McBride, 2006 will see another Welles title, this time a look at six of Welles’ films from a “scene by scene” viewpoint. I have to admit I’ve been working on something like this for the site, so I’m curious to see how this compares. The […]
I think if you’re a filmmaker, one fate you must avoid is having your work fall into the public domain. Because you will then be subject to an endless parade of shoddy cash-in video releases from every guy with a dream of being a high roller in the home video field. That’s a generalization of […]
As posted in several places, not the least of which is the Wellesnet message board, here are the official specs of the upcoming Arkadin Criterion DVD set: SPECIAL EDITION THREE-DISC SET FEATURES – New, restored high-definition digital transfers of three versions of the film: the Corinth Verion, Confidential Report, and a new Comprehensive Version – […]
Still no official word on this via Criterion’s site that I could find, but multiple sources on the web have listed preliminary info about this worst-kept secret in Welles DVDs. The set will be three discs, and retail for $49.95, which will be much cheaper at several online vendors. Frankly, I’m surprised they’re going the […]
Welcome to the first installment of the Wellesnet NewsBlog. I like this format for its ease of updating, which also means I can do it from anywhere. It will hopefully mean more frequent updates. Everything else about Wellesnet remains the same, and the old News page is exactly where it always has been, if you’re […]
