TOE thread

[jaime marzol]

i cut heston no slack, but slack is in the eyes of the beholder. this is what i saw:

heston used to be an artist and he claimed he was orson's friend. when the estate said that no one had approached them to see if it was alright to rearange TOE, which might be viewed as proper protocol, chuky said, "Beatrice is sniffing around for a hand out. i suppose if universal were to offer her $30,000, she would walk away happy, but they are not inclined to, and i don't think they should give her anything!" i remember watching this on tv and thinking, 'what a jerk!'

then chuck appeared on numerous magazine entertainment shows, wagging his finger, saying orson did 'no nos!'

and he outright lied about how things took place. i have 5 books that say orson was first barred from the editing room, then was barred from the lot, then left america to film Don Q in mexico. chucky had a different order, mangling the events saying orson left for mexico during the editing then was fired. that's when he said, "that's a no, no. you don't do that".

being familiar with the events in TOE i was angered by chucky's rearangemet of facts. memory failure? outright lying? we'll never know, but undoubtedly, it angered the estate enough that it drew the thomas white/beatrice dragon out of it's cave, and they neutered the TOE dvd.

at the time of the restoration anouncement i had been working on the TOE book for about a year. my original intention was to shed some light on this incredible but ignored film. when i heard about the restoration it made me physically ill. my book now seemed like the work an opportunist; i was like another slyme writing an OJ book, so i put it aside for about 2 or 3 years. i only pulled it off the shelf in Feb, dusted it of, checked it out, liked it again, so started it again.

MY HESTON STORY:
some years back a freind went to some function at the Lincoln Center, and heston was one of the guests. after the ceremony all the people mingle and chit-chat. he said that the loudest noise in the room was heston slapping himself on the back. my friend cracked me up, he said heston displayed a marvelous talent for blowing himself, and he was never at a shortage of ears, they were lining up, eagerly awaiting his words; he was like moses!

he did part the red sea but no one told him it was a special effect.

SO I DON'T ONLY BAD-MOUTH HESTON, HERE IS MY CLAUDE AKINS STORY:
i'm at the Doral Country Club in South Miami. there is some charity function going on and there are a few famous people about the lounge. i'm taking a piss, and who comes in the restroom to piss, but claude akins. i'm thinking, "wow, i'm pissing beside a washed up actor who has pissed beside some of the greatest movie stars that ever lived; john wayne, montgomery clift, burt lancaster, dean martin". cluade finishes peeing, and doesn't wash his hands, just walked out with penis-hands.

i exit restroom, go back to the lounge and see claude shaking hands with dennis james.

would have been funny to write dennis james a letter and tell him this.

[ToddBaesen]

I too was annoyed by Charlton Heston comments that TOUCH OF EVIL could have been finished by Welles, if only Orson didn’t leave the editing and run off to Mexico to work on DON QUIXOTE. I guess what Heston didn't realize is that Orson didn't run off to Mexico, but was asked to leave by Universal. Heston claimed that Universal called him on the set of William Wyler's THE BIG COUNTRY and asked him if he knew where Orson was, which doesn't quite make sense, since Universal had not only asked Welles to leave the editing, but eventually refused his request to direct the re-takes.

However, despite that, both Welles and Heston agree that he is the only reason Orson got to direct the film in the first place. (Zugsmith of course tells a different story). The problem is which story do you believe? Like the differing stories about how Welles came to direct the film, how he left the editing is very much open to interpretation, with Welles himself telling several different versions of how and why he left the film.

However, I agree completely with Heston about Beatrice. If she was at all concerned about her Father's legacy, how could she not agree to implement his own suggestions, which he so desperately wanted for TOUCH OF EVIL? To accuse Walter Murch of being unqualified to do the re-edit, and say that she owned the rights to the memo - well that just boggles the mind. Clearly, she just wanted a payment, and that is what Thomas White specializes in: getting studio payments for his clients.

[jaime marzol]

undoubtedly welles was no day at the beach. putting him in the director's chair was like opening a can of worms.

from what some one posted on the other wellesnet board, beatrice doesn't need the money. regardless of murch's loyal intentions, heston was helming the project in the press. murch, an award winning craftsman, and loyal welles fan got caught in the crossfire between beatrice's rage and heston's ever flapping jaw. unfortunate for us, and for the disc. from day one i felt an affinity for the beatrice camp, so i guess that is where i stand.

todd:
don't you think before someone's work is jumbled around to be released, that some permision and overseeing rights should be observed? look how the screwed up the TOE restoration. what beatrice did by keeping commentary track and docu off the disc was nowhere near as fatal as the letterboxing, which was a total sham.

beatrice is also no day at the beach. look what happened with OTHELLO; rerecorded soundtrack, a snip here, and a snip there, and we have the flacid version of OTHELLO.

[jaime marzol]

i should also mention that i am anti-conglomerate. anytime the deserving outsider gets to deal a sharp elbo in the face to the bloated, self important establishment, i am right there cheering.

i'm only stating my opinion here, not trying to sway anyone; everyone has their own prejudices, and opinions, this is mine:
after reading hestons books and hearing him on tv, he became the personification of bloated, self importance. ever read any of his books? i've read parts of 3 of them. you always get that feeling that he is the great white father regaling the little people with his tales.

[dmolson]

Jaime, you've got a good case to beat Chuckie over the head with a petard, he has blown his own horn enough that he could play the late great Dizzy Gillespie. However, as a senior citizen who's good days are long gone and now must scrape by on Christian bible readings and the odd pro-gun blast lobby charity. Just as OW was prone to telling a new story, perhaps Charlton has his order/facts twisted. I haven't read any of his books, but maybe he's just like us fans; he wishes the TOE episode had ended one way and can only point his finger at the one whom he feels fudged it, and Beatrice is his target. I just wonder what's the big deal? The movie wouldn't have been made/been what we cherish without him. I'm finished playing out my Canadian peacekeeper role.
Oh and mr. webmaster, just as I'm getting ready for my dot promotion you go and toss the whole system!?! My crayon kingdom for a #### dot! (irrelevant kvetching for those new; just another annoyance for those familiar with my postings:>)

[dmolson]

by the way Jaime, great Claude Akins tale. For more fishy dish stories on big-headed celebs like Adam West and Telli Savalas, check out www.findadeath.com

[jaime marzol]

DMOLSON:
No peace keeping forces needed, we are just enjoying the chat expeience.

And yes, Heston is old, short tempered, gets irrtated easier, probably feels like crap when gets up in the morning,. My Grandfather said horendous crap in his later years. You can't judge old people too harshly. But I've trashed Higham, and Kael at wellesnet, so let me throw chuck in the fire for a bit of fun. What was it welles said in THE STRANGER,”the objectionable opinion of an objectionable historian', or something like that; that sums up my opinion on chuck.

The good case about chuck blowing his own horn is so funny. It paints such a vivid mental picture. It's something we come in contact with quite often in life. I used to work with a guy like that, he worked 2 hrs a day and blew his trumpet the other 6 hrs; what an irritating bastard he was.

Glad you enjoyed the claude story. He was an odd looking bird. Sitting at the bar you can't miss him, squished red face, smallish, round head. Then he gets up and he's probably 6 feet 2 inches, with that tiny head perched up on his shoulders. His head looked bigger in movies. As he grew old his head shrunk I guess.

Adam West story, and Telly? How interesting. Telly seemed like a man with a dark side. will check that now.

[jaime marzol]

DMOLSON:
what a depressing site that was; the horrible deaths of people i liked on tv and didn't know they were dead. why just the other day i saw dinah shore dancing and singing on tv. she seemed so alive, and perky. and next thing i know she's dead.

[Fredric]

Wally Shawn was reading Chuck Heston's autobiography in My Dinner Wuth Andre. He said he was enjoying it very much.

That's all I have to offer.

[jaime marzol]

heston has 3 bios out so far, and all are very enjoyable because he has worked with some of the best directors around, not because he has himility, and grace.

he will write 6 more bios befor we lose him i'm sure.

[Richard Head]

I'm sure this has been covered, but...

What does everybody think about the TOUCH OF EVIL restoration? It would seem absurd to agree with Bea Welles that Murch was unqualified to do it, BUT, i have some major quibbles:
The new sound is of a totally different audio quality to the old. This doesn't matter much in the opening shot, which is a long sequence of mostly new music effects, but on the bridge, the added music cue jumps out as much louder, more clean and with a wider range than the surrounding effects - it's massively distracting. Ut would have been simple to record the music or treat it in such a way that it matched the original 1950s music and fx. why was this not done?
The remaining rear-projection scene: since this had to be included as Welles' original didn't exist (the TOE restoration doc was the first time I heard that Welles HAD shot a version of this - why was it replaced in the first place? My understanding of this previously was that Welles just hadn't bothered to shoot a couple of Heston-Leigh scenes) the restoration isn't a total fulfillment of Welles' wishes. It's unavoidably only a part-restoration. Mightn't they have been better just cutting the Harry Keller version?
I guess the cutting of a few shots of the Grandu gang entering the motel room prior to the near-rape is in accordance with Welles' wishes, but I found the original cut more horrifying and not in the least ridiculous. Personal taste, I guess.
I'm glad to see the back of the hotel lobby scene, the titles on the opening shot, and I love the re-ordering and the cutting of the the pianola halfway through Dietrich's first scene. But I wish they'd stopped at that, or made a better job of the new sound.
Thoughts?

[LA]

"What does everybody think about the TOUCH OF EVIL restoration?"

Personally, I think it's wonderful. 11 out of 10.

Re: The Heston-Leigh scenes, if they had cut the Keller versions, it would have been even less of a fulfillment of Welles' wishes. Welles didn't ask for those scenes to be cut, just replaced with his versions. The restoration team were unable to do that, so they left those scenes as they were. If they couldn't do what Welles wanted, they didn't do anything at all. In my opinion, that's admirable, when they could have so easily gone to town with the technology.

[jaime marzol]

I'm not one of those 11 that think the restoration is all that. it was a noble effort on the part of Murch. I don't think the subtext of beatrice's rage was that Murch was not qualified, it was that heston kept flapping his jaws saying ignorant stuff. Murch go caught in the crossfire.

the restoration did not replace the previous version; there wasn't extra footage available to effectively devide the scene in UNCLE jOE'S office. there wasn't extra footage to sufficiently edit the thugs entering Susan's room, etc, etc.

and of course, the letterboxing issue will never go away.\

nothing replaced anything. both versions should be enjoyed, .

[Welles Fan]

I only saw the "restoration" once, after seeing the "Restoring Evil" documentary, and I have to say I was not really blown away with it. I probably need to watch it some more, but I've seen it about a gazillion times the old way, and I guess I'm used to it. I actually sort of missed the music during the first scene! In my mind, the first scene and the music are so locked into my memory that I even "hear" it when I'm watching the restored version. I guess it was better splitting up some of the scenes for more tension, but I didn't say "wow!" when I saw the restored version.

Somehow, the fact that this was a "B" movie project elevated to classic status by Welles' invovlement seems more apparent in its old form. I really need to watch the new one again.

I'm not familiar with Heston's involvement in the restoration "controversy". I only read his first book "The Actor's Journals" or something like that, which covered his career from about the time of Touch of Evil through the seventies. There was interesting stuff about movie-making in it.
The trouble with Chuck these days is that he never stops acting. Every statement, comment, anecdote, joke seems totally scripted, and his "readings" are almost always the same. I wonder if you surprised him with a "How's it hangin' Ckuck?" type of question if you would get a response or another memory of working with Wyler where he (altogether now) "made damned sure that chariot race was fixed".

[jaime marzol]

WellesFan:
what you said about hearing the music over the opening shot is very funny; i do too, every time.

the look of the restoration also has a milky quality, it's not stark, contrasty B&W like the other version is.

i did find a few things preferable in the restoration: the ambiant music removed when quinlan is asking tanya about the bombing, the removal of the non-welles scene in the honeymoon hotel lobby, and a slight rearrangement of footage in the end when tanya looks up and quinlan is gone.

heston's involvement in the restoration controversy:
he spoke his mind every time some cheese-doodle reporter shoved a mic to his face. he spoke it over and over and over till he drew beatrice's wrath. had chucky limited his jaws to only flap, "it was a wonderfull experience working with orson." just said that over and over, it might have been a different world for the TOE disc's supplement.

but it's no big loss. the documentary about the making is nothing special, it's just another generic grade, standard issue documentary. and how groundbreaking could a commentary track with chucky and janet leigh be?

it seems to get real quality documentaries on classic Amarican Films, we have to go to England and get Thames, or The BBC to make it. These two brits companies are passionate on the topic and have made some of the best documentaries about American Films i have ever seen.

also:
the deitrich character, in the screenplay she's named Tanya. in the film, i hear Tanner. does everyone else hear Tanner? or are they slurring Tanya?