Orson Welles and commerical films

[Alan Brody]

What Welles said was that he would give anything for a box office hit, not that he would have directed a "commercial movie" in order to get it. He did try to go for mainstream box office appeal with The Deep in the late 60's, but the result was yet another unfinished film, and by most accounts from those that have seen the footage, rightfully so. Curtis Harrington said he thought is was "very poor".

I forget the source, but I remember reading that Welles was offered the part of Blofeld in Diamonds Are Forever by Harry Saltzman but turned it down. Too bad. DAF's mock Howard Hughes character (Willard White) might have dovetailed pretty nicely with the Hughes scenes in F For Fake.

What was running through my mind while I stared at the current Bond film was the question of what the Coen Brothers would have done with that script

Script? I wasn't aware of much of a script or story while watching it. The whole thing seemed to me like two hours of humorless, pointless nihilism.

[Alan Brody]

One might want to say that a commercial is a film with sure fire audience appeal and expected to open with a minimum of $70 mil the first weekend

I would say a commercial film is any film aimed at a specific audience that Hollywood can market using their normal strategies, which essentially means promoting stars. A film that cost $10 million can be very profitable if it makes only $20 million the first weekend, and still be a commercial film. The Coen Brothers don't really make commercial films, but I don't share your enthusiasm for them.

I submit that a director with a different definition of cinema (and respect for the brains of his or her audience) would have produced a very different set of reels from the exact same scenario and dialogue -Welles demonstrated over and over that even in the most commercial venues his touch made all the difference

Welles could accomplish great things in any artistic medium if he had a strong script and story and was surrounded by the right people. If he wasn't, he coudn't, which is why, for example, Arkadin was such a disaster. I have my doubts that Welles or any one else could do anything with the Bond franchise, which is a comic strip at this point. I mean, you know the character's not going to do die, so where's the suspense? It's like watching a glorified video game. Fortunately, Welles was too smart to ever tread down such a worn out highway.

For reasons too complex to explain I just spent most of today listening to eight different radio adaptations of A CHRISTMAS CAROL - Guess which one holds up the best

Frankly, I don't see how you can judge the quality of a radio show if it's the eighth one you've listened to that day, but that's just me. Sure the Welles show holds up best, but is it possible that it's because we Welles fans tend to look at everything he did through rose colored glasses? Welles actually did two Christmas Carols: one with Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge, which is quite good, and the other with Welles himself as Scrooge, which is quite bad. Which did you prefer?

[ToddBaesen]

Peter makes the excellent point, that Marc Forster "whether intentionally or not, was trying to wedge himself into the Welles mythos, wrapping himself in a KANE poster so to speak."

It appears to be quite intentional to me, but what's really funny is how Forester mis-quotes Welles. He was apparently thinking about Welles comments in FILMING THE TRIAL, where he said, "I would love to have a mass audience... Your looking at a man whose been searching for a mass audience all his life."

Obviously, if Welles had ever directed a Bond movie he would have gotten the mass audience he was searching for, but Forster somehow transposes that thought into Welles's "regretting that he never made a commercial movie." The distinction to be noted here is that Welles never regretted making a commercial movie, but regretted never having had a commercial success, which are two very different things. Of course, Welles was always looking for projects he felt would be popular and successful, especially in the late sixties, when he started to work on THE DEEP, but even if he consciously wanted to make a project with a more overtly commercial appeal, it seems his artistic sensibilities simply wouldn't allow that to happen.

Now, presumably every filmmaker wants his work to be seen and be successful, so we can assume Welles would have loved it if THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and KANE had been huge hits. But if AMBERSONS and KANE had made huge profits, would that have also made them "commercial" movies?

Welles thinking along these lines was brought out in Juan Cobos recent article about the making of DON QUIXOTE. Welles was apparently very concerned about bringing out a film that would be a hit before he felt confident enough to consider releasing DON QUIXOTE, because he felt his little QUIXOTE film would please absolutely no one, and therefore it would almost certainly damage his prospects for raising money towards any future directing projects - which by that time were already at a very low level. However, during this time Welles was offered several very "commercial" assignments, like POPEYE, that Robert Altman made, but of course he refused all those kind of movies, even if he desperately needed the money.


ORSON WELLES MADE MARC FORSTER DO IT!

http://tiny.cc/D4Rnw

[Tony]

Didn't Welles joke about a mass audience in that appearance he made in 77 or 78 which was intended for "Filming the Trial"? He said something like "You're looking at a man who has searched for a mass audience all his life". Many people who new him said he really wanted a hit, especially in his later years, and Welles himself said in an interview (c. 69) that "with The Deep we're trying to get a commercial hit..." or something very close to that.

Welles would have loved to have been commercial- I just don't think he was! And I don't think he ever knew why, and this tortured him. I recall him writing close to the end of his life "I guess I'll never have a big audience- I guess I'm not that kind of director" (or words to that effect).

Welles would have loved to direct a Bond, I think!

[ToddBaesen]

Alan:

Thanks for the info about Harry Saltzman offering Welles the part playing Blofeld in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. I had never heard that before, and if it's true, I find it fascinating for this reason:

Welles was working at that time (1970) with the British actor Charles Gray, who appeared in several of the segments of Welles CBS-TV show ORSON'S BAG. He played the part of Antonio in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE and the haughty Tailor, Mr. Mapleton who takes Welles oversize measurements in the THE TAILORS episode of ORSON'S BAG.

Presumably Gray got little or nothing for acting in these Welles movies, so could Welles have intentionally turned down the part of Blofeld and suggested to Harry Saltzman that he hire Charles Gray for the role instead? (Welles was friends with Saltzman after he gave him the 'end money' to finish FALSTAFF.) In playing Blofeld, Charles Gray would then get a big paycheck and presumably be in debt to Welles for at least a few more weeks of shooting sometime in the future.

In any case, Charles Gray made for a really great Blofeld, and an even better villain as the Satanist in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, which Christopher Lee claims was at least partially based on Aleistair Crowley - who is played by Simon Callow in an upcoming movie!

[Glenn Anders]

Finally caught up with Larry French's entry on Marc Forster, Welles and "commercial movies"; hence the discussion here.

Aside from MONSTERS BALL, which benefitted from tremendous performances, and a primal Southern Gothic theme, I would agree with both French and Todd Baesen that Forster is overrated. That does not mean that the strategy of alternating serious projects with commercial ones is a bad idea, or that a commercial movie is necessarily a bad movie. either. The film industry, certainly Hollywood, was built on delightful, exciting or funny movies designed to bring audiences into theaters.

To me, a commercial movie is simply one made to entertain; historically, by genre: in a Comedy, a Western, a Romance, a Thriller, a War film, etc.

Welles was not temperamentally comfortable with any of those types except for the thriller, which helped him create THE STRANGER and MR. ARKADIN.

These thrillers, and some he acted in, utilized character actors of a kind he was drawn to, classically trained with strong voices and interesting profiles. Charles Gray is a handy new example, whom Toddy Baesen brings up. Besides THE DEVIL RIDES OUT, Gray was also excellent in NIGHT OF THE GENERALS, a movie one might imagine Welles wandering around in.

The Bond series, now little more than a big screen computer game, as someone here observed, should be put to bed. The formula has grown tedious.

And Marc Forster will have to produce better alternate "serious" work if he is going to gain the deserved clever reputation which the Coen Brothers enjoy.

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

Todd, your theory sounds very intriguing and plausible, and if it isn't true, it should be. It probably isn't true though, since my memory may have been a little faulty. I didn't find anything about Welles and Diamonds Are Forever online, but there is this site which claims Welles was offered the part of Blofeld in a remake of Thunderball in the mid-70's, with Connery playing Bond. Eventually the project turned into Never Say Never Again.

http://samuraifrog.blogspot.com/2008/11/james-bond-that-never-was.html

[ToddBaesen]

Looking at a biography feature on Maurice Binder, who designed most of the James Bond movie titles, I was astonished to see that he began his career in movies as an ad director for Harry Cohn at Columbia pictures, right after WWII. Two of Binder's most notable assignments were for the ad campaigns for the Rita Hayworth pictures GILDA and THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI.

Now, looking at the Bond movie titles, and then at the posters for both GILDA and THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, there is certainly a real connection... namely, Binders use of the alluring female form. His work on both the LADY FROM SHANGHAI and the GILDA posters is really quite outstanding.

Later on, another Harry saw Binder's main title design for Stanley Donen's THE GRASS IS GREENER and hired him to design the main titles for the first James Bond movie, DR. NO. Then, the same year that Harry Saltzman was spending $10 million to make his fifth Bond movie, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE in Japan, Saltzman came to Welles rescue with the completion funds for CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT.

So here's to Harry Cohn and Harry Saltzman!

And jeers to awful titles for the new Bond movie QUANTUM OF SOLACE... they match the bad job done by Marc Forster.