Yes, Welles DID play Hamlet!

[Terry]

I finally got around to starting Simon Callow's Hello Americans, and I'm already disappointed to see him repeating Robert Carringer's claim that Welles never played The Dane due to some deep-seated psychological reason. This speculative fiction was also propagated by Peter Conrad in Orson Welles, The Stories of His Life.

I'm sick of biographers playing junior forensic psychoanalyst and making hay out of sloppy research and laziness. It isn't hay at all, but rather a less savoury and more odoriferous form of bio-matter with which they should stuff their mattresses and go sleep on.

Here are both halves of the 1936 radio performance, lest I unwittingly feed someone's "fear of completion" theory.

Hamlet part 1: http://www.box.net/shared/kx46fg2h9i
Hamlet part 2: http://www.box.net/shared/sj7seahtem

[RayKelly]

The whole Hamlet bit has annoyed me too. It's a bit of a reach.
Actually, Robert Carringer wrote in his book that Welles had a supporting role in Hamlet at the Gate Theater in 1932 and two years later at Todd School. Carringer adds that Welles directed and starred in the Columbia Workshop radio version in 1936, but abandoned -- without explanation (his words) -- plans to reprise it in 1938 for radio.
Since Welles didn't return to Hamlet after 1936, Carringer reasons there must be a deep psychological reason for him to shy away from the role. (The fact that Welles did readings from Hamlet on talk shows in the 1970s apparently doesn't count). The argument doesn't hold water.

[Terry]

Another (small) gripe I have about Callow's book is that he twice states that Rio is "1000 miles" away from Hollywood. The correct answer is 6,307 miles (which I found online in less time than it's taken to write this much of this paragraph.) Does it matter? I seem to think so. "Meanwhile, 1000 miles away from RKO, Welles was..." Welles was what? In the north of Mexico? Shooting Don Quixote? In 1942?

A curious detail is Callow's description of the release print of Jane Eyre. He cleary states the film opens on a shelf of classic books, of which Eyre is one (uh, not in any print I've seen - though that tacky shot is in the trailer.) He speaks of Welles losing both his producer credit and his top billing, appearing second after the film's STAR, Joan Fontaine (huh? He still has top billing on my print, insofar as his name appears first, on its own page.) Lastly, he describes the last shot of the film being of the novel, emblazoned with "buy this book in the lobby" (the last shot in my print is a page from the book saying "The End" and appended with a blurb about buying war bonds.)

What we seem to be dealing with is an alternate cut, with at the least the opening and closing titles being different. Another domestic/foreign variant, as was the case with Journey into Fear (and according to one report with Black Magic as well.) Has anyone here compared both prints of Eyre to see if there are any other differences?

Also concerning Eyre, he quotes Selznick as stating that Welles was "in charge of the editing." Robert Stevenson had gone off to war, so maybe it was that Welles was in charge of the post production. That would explain (further) to me why the film seems so Wellesian. Did Welles have final cut? Was he in charge of both the domestic and foreign variants? More detail on Eyre's post production is needed.

I'm also curious about the claim of Joan Fontaine (and apparently several others) that Welles took charge of the production on day one, including "directing the director" Robert Stevenson, and that Stevenson only slowly asserted his authority. How long was the shooting then under Welles' authority? Which scenes were shot during this time? Was he functioning as a hands-on Howard Hughes sort of producer or was he defacto director? More detail on principal photography is needed as well.

[ToddBaesen]

Wow... The Orson Welles radio HAMLET is a real stunner... So much for Robert Carringer's theory... If Welles really felt he couldn't do HAMLET because of his father, somebody must have forgot to tell him. I wonder if Carringer even heard this radio show before he wrote his rather dubious essay. In a way, I'd rather hear Charles Higham on Welles, than people like Thomson and Carringer who simply make up their own version of what they think or wanted Welles to be or to do.

After hearing the radio show, I did a search and came up with an interesting Master's thesis on Welles done by someone at MIT, which has a section on Welles radio HAMLET.

Here is the link:

http://cms.mit.edu/research/theses/Clar ... ez2004.pdf

[Terry]

That's a wonderful thesis. It points out that Hamlet marked both Welles' first directorial venture on radio and his first collaboration with Bernard Herrmann. Historic indeed.

Further, it maintains that the famous story Welles told of Benny's music being one cue off in Hamlet does occur in part 2. Maybe, I'll have to listen to it with an ear as to where the cues are placed. Welles told that Benny and Irving Reis had an argument right before they went on air, culminating with Benny throwing his score in the air with no time to organise it again. In the closing credits it's mentioned that Reis was absent and someone had substituted for him. So is that proof of Welles' account, that Reis had stormed out at the last second, or a disproof, that Reis wasn't even present that day?

The cast list doesn't mention it, but that sure as hell sounds like Joseph Cotten at the beginning of part 1, who is curiously absent from most of the Mercury radio broadcasts, most curious for someone who starred in the first three films.

[tonyw]

Again, thank you Store for making this broadcast available to us. It not only questions Carringer's dubious thesis, as you point out, but also reveals Welles's love of Shakespeare and how he wanted to transmit this via relevant adaptations in radio and film. Concise editing represented a key part of his creative genius especially here to get the essence of the tale out to an audience who would not otherwise listen to Shakespeare.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

i enjoyed the show of hamlet i found on a website with all the exception of skips and errors it had. started reading the book now enjoying that.