Lord Mountdrago

[Harvey Chartrand]

I was idly navigating the blogosphere when I came across this item on Lord Mountdrago from Shadowplay, amusingly titled "Film Directors with their Trousers Off #1".

The author, David Cairns, is most impressed with Welles's performance as the British lord in Three Cases of Murder (1955). Cairns writes: "Welles is really good in his segment of this anthology film, as a Tory MP persecuted by a rival (Alan Badel, very Welsh) in his dreams. Orson even steps outside his usual comfort zone of dramatic pauses and voice-going-up-at-the-end, as when he resolves to murder his enemy in dreamland, certain that this will eradicate him in life also."

Read more at http://dcairns.wordpress.com/2009/03/22 ... ers-off-1/

The other film director with his trousers off is John Huston (not, as one might expect, in the erotic scenes of The Other Side of the Wind but in William Richert's 1979 thriller Winter Kills) – http://dcairns.wordpress.com/2009/03/24 ... ers-off-2/

[tonyw]

Shadowplay is a very good blog discussion site. I remember seeing that episode and note that Alan Badel later played a version of Michael Foot in the 1976 ITV series BILL BRAND written by Trevor Griffiths. Although Foot has his constituency in the Rhondda Valley he was not Welsh.

[Terry]

Badel also played the Fool to Welles' Lear in the 1953 TV production.