WELLESNET MESSAGE BOARD

Just saw Spielberg's new version of War of the Worlds, and I must say, it's quite impressive, at least from a visual effects standpoint... Storywise, of course it may be a slightly different matter, but it's still a very thrilling and very entertaining movie. However, it certainly IS NOT based on th...

Jaime: You bring up a very interesting point, which is that almost every Welles film exists in two or more versions! (except for CITIZEN KANE). MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS Of course we only have the version that was released, but at least several different versions were considered before RKO finalized the...

Here are Orson Welles comments to a group of American tourists in Spain in 1966, telling them about the film he was planning to make, which at the time was to be called "The Sacred Beasts," which later became "The Other Side of the Wind." As can be seen from Welles comments, one of the main points h...

I'm a bit suprised to read how many people here think the script and excerpts of OSOTW aren't good Welles -- mainly because I myself find it be such fascinating material, and in many cases really brilliant material. Having read about half of the script and seen over an hour of excerpts from OSOTW, I...

So there are only four Houseman produced films that are worth looking at? I disagree completely. Obviously, from Houseman's own point of view -- and the only aspect that would seem to matter to Hollywood, both then and now -- namely, box-office and the critical acclaim -- Mr. Houseman was always a m...

I'll second that motion... How about it Glenn, can you write up your remembrance of things past? Here's the credits to help you along... MOBY DICK – REHEARSED _ Presented at the Duke of York's Theater, London. An adaptation in two acts by Orson Welles, of Herman Melville's novel. Entire production s...

Here's what Ray Harryhausen had to say about Orson Welles and H.G. Wells WAR OF THE WORLDS: LAWRENCE FRENCH: At one point you tried to interest Orson Welles in your test footage of War of the Worlds. RAY HARRYHAUSEN: Yes, I had heard Orson Welles famous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds (1938) an...

Thanks Glenn... Actually, I think it's important to note that F FOR FAKE was finished in late 1972, when the whole Clifford Irving-Howard Hughes affair was still timely. Unfortunately, by the time the film actually got released and shown in America, several years had already passed. The same thing h...

Here's the review from The NY Times for F FOR FAKE, which had it's "official" NY premiere at the N.Y. Film Festival in 1975, after playing at Filmex in Los Angeles in March of 1974. Although Welles had finished work on the editing by October, 1973, when in was screened in Paris, it didn't open in Ne...

While "Shadowing the Third Man" has it's moments, it is really not that good... it's not even on the level of the documentaries that are now routinely added onto DVD's... Perhaps the reason for this can be attributed to the lack of important witnesses who could be interviewed, since most of the majo...

Christopher Lee wasn't in the play version of MOBY DICK REHEARSED, only the film version, replacing actor Peter Sallis (in the roles of the Stage Manager & Mr. Flask). Lee had some further comments in his autiobiography about the filming of the play: Welles had taken a place near me in Belgravia and...

Thanks O.J. for posting the Rick Jason piece. I had never seen it before and it's certainly a very valuable and revealing look at the making of one of Welles hardest to see short films, THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. This little film is quite brilliant, and everyone who sees it thinks it's amazing, so why s...

What is truly strange about the movie business, is that Spielberg will make at least 20 million on his version of 'War of the Worlds' - yet despite his great wealth and supposed admiration of Welles, a simple phone call to the head of any major studio and he could probably get the four million neede...

I talked with Joseph McBride who hosted the recent Welles's tribute with Gary Graver at the Tiburon Film Festival, and he tells me his new book, WHATEVER HAPPEND TO ORSON WELLES?: A Portrait of an Independent Career (Ecco Press) is finished and at the printers. It is tenatively scheduled for release...

The Gary Graver program of unseen Welles material lived up to it's claims, since he showed about 40 minutes of scenes from THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. About half of the scenes I had seen previously in Stefan's Munich film restorations, but there were also many scenes I had never seen before, includi...