Chimes at Midnight Production Details?

[LostOverThere]

I'm interested in learning more about the production details of Chimes at Midnight. Specifically about what motivated the producers to pick up the project, budgetary information and a general history of the production.

Does anyone know of any resources I could use to find out this information? It's been many years since I've read This is Orson Welles but I presume these sorts of things were discussed there.

[mido505]

I have never run across a thoroughly adequate account of the production of CHIMES, but Frank Brady gets the basic facts correct in CITIZEN WELLES. Essentially, Welles accepted an offer from Spanish producer Emiliano de la Piedras to script and star in a production of TREASURE ISLAND, to be shot in Spain, if the producer would also finance CHIMES. De la Piedras contributed $1,000.000.00, while James Bond producer Harry Saltzman ponied up $1,500,000.00 for world distribution rights. Barbara Leaming reports that CHIMES cost around $800,000.00, which sounds about right, leaving $1,700,000.00 for TREASURE, which was not completed until much later for reasons explained below.

Wellesnet contributor Robert Monell has posted some interesting insights into the production of CHIMES on various threads. Monell is writing a biography of Jess Franco, who was Welles's assistant on CHIMES, and who was supposed to be the credited director of TREASURE ISLAND, although everyone, including Franco, understood that Welles would run the show. According to Franco, whom Monell has interviewed extensively, Welles, as was his wont, fiddled so long with the editing that the producers yanked the film from Welles's hands, in return for urgently needed completion funds. Welles was reportedly so furious with Franco for being complicit in this betrayal that he physically attacked him. Editor Frederick Muller confirms some of this account in ORSON WELLES REMEMBERED.

Welles never spoke to, or of, Franco again, and TREASURE ISLAND was put on hold until 1972, when the project was revived by ubiquitous producer Harry Alan Towers. John Hough directed, with Welles's script substantially rewritten by Wolf Mankowitz. Despite all the talent involved, neither the film, nor Welles in it, is very good.

Interestingly, one of the credited producers on TREASURE ISLAND was Andres Gomez, who went on to play a very interesting role in Welles's life and career.

According to Gomez, F FOR FAKE was conceived during this period.

Welles never disowned CHIMES, stating frequently in interviews that it is his favorite of all his films. CHIMES was taken out of Welles's hands while he and Muller were in Paris doing the sound effects and the post-synchronization, which may account for a few of the film's rough spots and the notoriously patchy dubbing, but CHIMES seems to have gone out in essentially the form that Welles intended.

[LostOverThere]

Hi mido505, thanks for the thorough reply!

You mention that Welles was meant to effectively "run the show" with Treasure Island. Was he ever meant to do anything more than act and write, such as direct or co-produce? After all, the Chimes + Treasure Island business would seem to be a very generous deal if all they wanted Welles to do was write and act.

I also mention this because Wikipedia has a rather baffling description of Chimes' production.

[mido505]

Hey LostOverThere! Hope you are well.

I believe that Welles was only supposed to write and star in TREASURE ISLAND, although Frank Brady reports that Welles was originally slated to direct. Jess Franco, one of Welles's Spanish assistants on CHIMES, ultimately assumed the director's role; whether this was intended from the outset, or due to the vagaries of Spanish production, or because Welles was absorbed by CHIMES, or by default, remains an open question. The now notorious Franco, then early in his incredibly prolific and controversial career, had recently directed DEATH WHISTLES THE BLUES, a stylish, low-budget homage to TOUCH OF EVIL that Welles had seen and admired. Pre-production on TREASURE occurred simultaneously with the production of CHIMES. According to Robert David Monell, who has interviewed Franco extensively, a nervous and wary Franco asked "that if just acting (in TREASURE...) was going to be any different than if he (Welles) were directing himself. Welles answered, "It's the same..." and went on to tell Franco that he would be the creative force and to do as he was told."

That Wikipedia article sure is odd. It claims that Welles never intended to shoot TREASURE, and never wrote the script, but I'm not sure I believe that. Welles was vague about his plans for TREASURE, and the impetus was surely to gain financing for his beloved CHIMES, but a script did exist, used later for the ill-fated 1972 production, and TREASURE was something of a pet project for Welles, according to Brady. Juan Cobos, who worked closely with Welles on his great cinematic obsession, DON QUIXOTE, mentions TREASURE in one of his articles, and I think Welles may have conceived TREASURE as the great commercial project that would allow him to release the highly experimental DQ without critical opprobrium. Leveraging TREASURE to acquire the financing for CHIMES, and then piggybacking the release of DQ on the back of TREASURE's (hopeful) commercial success, would have been an awesome one-two punch for the so-called has been.

It was not to be. Although Brady writes that Saltzman came in early, most sources insist that the Bond producer was late to the party, purchasing worldwide rights after Piedras had nearly gone broke, with the proviso that Welles stop editing and hand over the film for distribution. Evidently, Franco had some part in this deal, which so infuriated Welles that he physically attacked the Spaniard, before shutting him out of his life forever. This is the event, I believe, that demolished TREASURE ISLAND, the pieces of which were only picked up, very haphazardly, by Harry Allan Towers (who produced both Welles and Franco at various points in his interesting career) in 1972.

[LostOverThere]

Thanks again for the excellent reply.

I'm inclined to agree with you about Treasure Island. It would seem unlikely that Welles, a great lover of Treasure Island and someone who struggled to find funding for film projects, had no intentions to direct the film. Likewise, surely Welles would have seen it as a great opportunity to "show them we can make some money".