Cut footage from LfS and Stranger

[Tony]

Jamie:

Here's an article on the stranger you might not have:

"The Politics of Genre in Welles' The Stranger" by R. Barton Palmer, in Film Ctriticism, Vol. 9, No. 2, Winter 1984/85

it's a bit heavy-going, but pays intersting dividends, IMO.

[jaime marzol]

a million thanks. i love it when it gets heavy. i have not found a lot of excellent stuff on the stranger except in the usual books we talk about here.

[R Kadin]

Speaking of lost footage from, "The Stranger", according to Sam Spiegel's biographer, the very gracious Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, producer Spiegel actually hired director Robert Siodmak (who was also helming the film noir classic, "The Killers", that same year) to shoot some additional footage for this production, none of which was used in the final print.

Alas, she also mentions that Spiegel's personal papers from the time are scant, offering no revealing insights or further hints into the making of this production. For a time, I had rather hoped we might get lucky in that department but the search must turn elsewhere, it seems...

[noirio]

Naive question - but how likely is it that the LADY-bits will ever re-surface?

As for the fun house sequence... I must say I thought it seemed as if only little was missing. The cuts seemed to flow pretty well into each scene. If this was really MUCH longer, then it was cut in a way where it was almost impossible to say what and why elements were cut.

[Roger Ryan]

Naive question - but how likely is it that the LADY-bits will ever re-surface?

As for the fun house sequence... I must say I thought it seemed as if only little was missing. The cuts seemed to flow pretty well into each scene. If this was really MUCH longer, then it was cut in a way where it was almost impossible to say what and why elements were cut.

I would say it is not very likely that Welles' earlier cut still exists, but, depending on Columbia's practice of retaining footage, there might be a better chance at finding this than in finding anything more of AMBERSONS (for which documents exist that describe the destruction of extraneous prints and footage). Critic James Naremore claimed he saw a somewhat alternate version of LADY FROM SHANGHAI in the late 50s or early 60s, but little is known how this version actually differed and it doesn't appear to have resurfaced.

After repeated viewings, the abruptness of the fun house sequence becomes more apparent (to me anyway). Keep in mind that Welles' original cut did not contain narration so this sequence was meant to play out as more suspenseful than it is. Now it is just as a series of disorientating images meant to accompany O'Hara's jumbled attempt to explain the plot on the soundtrack. Because Welles actually re-shot things himself at the studio's request, I suspect that the long shot of O'Hara walking past the rear-projected scaffolding shadows was not part of the original cut, but was included to cover the space taken up by the new narration.

Missing are the sections showing the multiple female legs hanging from the ceiling and the appearance of the skeletal Elsa image. I'm not certain if these sections appeared early or late in the sequence, but you can tell that the tracking shot that follows O'Hara into the distorted "Caligari"-type room is joined "in progress" by a dissolve, so footage was removed prior to this. Camera movement was always very important to Welles and he rarely chose to use a dissolve transition during a tracking shot. When this happens in his films, it's usually because footage has been removed from the beginning, end or middle of an elaborate tracking shot and a dissolve is used to cover the deletion (a particularly frustrating example of this is during the scene in THE STRANGER where the female spy descends the dock ramp - this was clearly intended to be one continuous tracking shot that ended up having its middle portion chopped out).

I agree that the continuity is pretty good from the "Caligari"-type room through the drop down the slide (and here the narration works well as O'Hara explains he was the "fall guy" just as he is seen falling down the slide). However, there is more footage missing after he exits the slide. As you can see in the long shot, there are no distorted mirrors near the platform O'Hara lands on. This is because O'Hara was meant to enter another room where he finds himself on a spinning platform painted to look like a map of the world (another lost visual metaphor showing the globe-trotting O'Hara actually on a globe spinning out of control). This is the room where the distorted mirrors are (look at the reflection of the spinning platform and you'll see glimpses of that world map). There is a really bad edit when the camera cuts to a close-up of Elsa just as she and O'Hara enter the mirror maze proper. This shot looks like it was taken from later in the intended sequence and I suspect it's placed where it is to cover a spot where some footage has been cut. Otherwise, everything from this point until the end looks like it honors Welles' intentions although I believe Welles' original cut had more dialogue between O'Hara and Elsa before Bannister shows up that explained the plot in more detail (this was probably considered redundant once the narration had been added to the beginning of the scene).

As I've mentioned a number of times on this site, the existing "cutting continuity" for Welles' original edit demonstrates that LADY FROM SHANGHAI was a much more carefully structured film than the re-edited/re-shot 87 minute version would suggest. Astonishingly, many of the scenes that clarified character motivation or guided the viewer from one locale to another were left on the cutting room floor.

[Le Chiffre]

Very interesting info, Roger. I knew the Lilly Library had several scripts for LFS, but I didn't know there was an actual cutting continuity that survived. Is it in the UM archive?

[A Sled in Flames]

As I've mentioned a number of times on this site, the existing "cutting continuity" for Welles' original edit demonstrates that LADY FROM SHANGHAI was a much more carefully structured film than the re-edited/re-shot 87 minute version would suggest. Astonishingly, many of the scenes that clarified character motivation or guided the viewer from one locale to another were left on the cutting room floor.

All these cut scenes sound really interesting. Though I believe Lady from Shanghai, as it is now, still is quite a strong movie; the structure leaves a lot to be desired. I always feel like the pacing is off and the movie can be woefully abrupt at times, no doubt due to the excised material...

[LostOverThere]

This is all very interesting. How well documented is the existence/destruction of Welles' original edit for Lady from Shanghai? I always assumed (for some odd reason) that it was "well known" to be just blatantly destroyed, but if there wasn't any well documented destruction of it, the prospect of it "merely" being lost, and potentially still existing is very fascinating indeed.

[Roger Ryan]

mteal - Yes, the "cutting continuity" for SHANGHAI is part of the U-M collection (not sure if a copy reside at Lilly or not). The document is dated "December 2nd, 1946" and details the assembly of the film "as shot" up to the funhouse climax (which presumably hadn't been filmed yet). I'm guessing that since the funhouse was the film's most elaborate set, this sequence was pushed to the end of the schedule and there was enough time to assemble everything else that had been shot. Now it's important to note that this "cutting continuity" does not represent a finished Welles edit; however, there are enough complete (or near-complete) sequences in the released version that perfectly match their description in this document that I consider it to be an excellent barometer for how Welles initially wanted the film put together.

LostOverThere - I'm not aware of any documentation that specifically states the destruction of the deleted footage, but given that nothing has turned up in the past 60 years does not bode well for the footage surviving. I'm pretty certain the negative of Welles' long edit was re-cut to create the released version (standard procedure). There's a weird anomaly during the picnic scene in Mexico where the film cuts from a shot of the boats paddling down a river to a (stock footage?) shot of two cranes, but the bird shot actually begins with two or three frames of an unknown shot before dissolving to the bird footage. Now, either this shot was sourced from another film that contained that process dissolve or what we're seeing is an abridgement of a previously edited sequence that was finalized enough to contain a process dissolve (these kind of visual effects were normally saved for fine edits, not rough cuts). Either way, the editing here is sloppy work.

In addition to the deleted footage, LADY FROM SHANGHAI suffers from a plethora of studio rear projection process shots (mostly close-ups) that Welles was forced to shoot after his initial edit was rejected. While there are examples of creative rear projection in the film (notably in the aquarium scene), Welles normally avoided this practice, preferring to shoot on location. The majority of these rear projection shots are ill-matched with the footage they are inserted into to and the result is a very un-Welles-like disjointedness.

[Le Chiffre]

Thanks Roger, I'll have to check that CC out next time I get to Ann Arbor. Here are two other things about LFS that I would be interested in finding out:

The original George Antheil music used in the Welles version that was previewed to an audience. Welles said it was far preferable to the score the studio eventually commissioned from Heinz Roemheld, a studio hack composer with over 200 film scores on his resume, most of them "B" pictures.

The preview cards filled out by audience members after the preview. These exist for Ambersons; why not for LADY FROM SHANGHAI?

[Roger Ryan]

The preview cards filled out by audience members after the preview. These exist for Ambersons; why not for LADY FROM SHANGHAI?

Perhaps Richard Wilson wasn't able to get a copy of those preview card remarks. Those familiar with the Welles archives at the Lilly Library and at U-M will know that the majority of the collection comes from Wilson, who was Welles' right-hand man during the 40s. While Welles himself held onto certain items that he had personal affection for, he had little-to-no interest in studio documents. Fortunately, Wilson did think this material was important and retained originals or copies of scripts, contracts, production reports, etc. Maybe Columbia's policy was to sequester preview cards after they had been reviewed and not allow copies to be made.

[major pepper]

Thanks for these interessant informations!

Even without the preview cards, several elements make me think that the public should have been puzzled in 1946-48 because of the camera movement (the MA's previews cards already talk about a "camera crazy") and the nightmarish or morbid stills during the fun house sequence.
Of course, it's impossible to know...

Several documents make me believe that a lot of experimental or violent elements disappeared from Lady from Shangaï :

- « In one shot Lawton and his operator, Irving Klein, slid on their stomachs down the 125-foot slide with the camera on a mat, to give the subjective view of Welles sliding down. »
(Charles Higham, The films of Orson Welles, p.113, University of California Press)

There is a photo shoot with a crane carrying two men and a camera over the spinning platform which look like a globe. As mentioned by Roger Ryan, we can see mirrors in the background. The crane take a high angle shoot of it. In two publicity stills, we see Mike in the Caligari's room, looking around with the same horrified expression. Behind him, a skeleton painted hold him at sword. Unfortunately, the photographs don't indicate what really happened with the camera during these sequences.

In the theatrical trailer, you can see one second of the deleted footage : Mike slap Elsa a little more longer.

- "Every Welles’s characteristics touch were removed as efficiently as if they were flattened by a steamroller. (…) It’s really a tragedy that the movie became mediocre. Maybe should I nuance this. I still think that it’s a good movie, but it is mediocre if you put it on his potential. »
(Richard Wilson, quoted by Jean-Pierre Berthomé, François Thomas, Orson Welles au travail, p. 142, Cahiers du cinéma)

I wonder if a lot of footage was deleted during the finale scene with the broken mirrors. In Orson Welles's script, there was more dialogue in the beginning of this sequence with Bessie.

[Roger Ryan]

...Even without the preview cards, several elements make me think that the public should have been puzzled in 1946-48 because of the camera movement (the MA's previews cards already talk about a "camera crazy") and the nightmarish or morbid stills during the fun house sequence.
Of course, it's impossible to know...

...I wonder if a lot of footage was deleted during the finale scene with the broken mirrors. In Orson Welles's script, there was more dialogue in the beginning of this sequence with Bessie.

A lot depends on the audience that was chosen for the preview. It wasn't like everyone was turned off by nightmarish or morbid imagery. Just a year earlier, Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND featured an extended dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali and, yet, the film did very well at the box office. Watching both films now, I find the Dali sequence quite extraordinary but it feels at odds with tone established by the rest of the film, whereas the fun house sequence feels well-balanced with everything else in SHANGHAI. Of course, that consistent sense of the grotesque could be the problem (as Chris Welles Feder alluded to in her TCM interview): no one is particularly likable in the film. O'Hara is too much of a dupe to be heroic and, apart from Gus Schilling's "Goldie", the remainder of the characters are uniformly foul.

The one truly good character is Bessie who was featured much more prominently in Welles' original edit. From the one scene left in the film that features her, you can tell that she was meant to play a more important role in the film, similar in a way to the character of Menzies in TOUCH OF EVIL.

[Le Chiffre]

Very interesting, Roger and Major Pepper. I suppose most of Bessy's part had to be eliminated so the film could play south of the Mason/Dixon line. I'd like to see Chris's TCM interview sometime.