Welles Trailers

[Tony]

Does anybody know how many Welles films have trailers? I can remember seeing trailers for Kane, Ambersons, Stranger, Shanghai, Evil, The Trial (Desilu TV trailer) and Welles's unsused one for Fake.

Are there any others?

[ToddBaesen]

There are trailer for all Welles Hollywood movies... which includes all you mention, and MACBETH as well. UCLA archives probably has a copy of it.

[Kevin Loy]

There's an actual film trailer for The Trial on the Image DVD.
Though I've always assumed that trailers exist somewhere for Othello and Arkadin (given that they were distributed in the states by big companies, as I recall), I wouldn't be surprised to learn that trailers were never made for those films. Was there ever a trailer for Chimes? (considering that the soundtrack was released -- and later re-released -- for the film)

[François Thomas]

Warner Brothers did a trailer for the European release of Confidential Report. It was done after Welles had left Europe. I never saw it.

The Falstaff trailer is or was available on DVD. I don't remember if it's on the Spanish DVD or on the French, Canal+ DVD that has been only very briefly released as part of a set that also included The Trial and The Third Man.

[Tony]

I'm wondering if Universal made a trailer for the 1998 theatrical release of the Touch of Evil edit based on Welles's memo.

It would be interesting to compile a dvd of Welles trailers.

[François Thomas]

I think Universal did.

Are the trailers for The Magnificent Ambersons and The Lady from Shanghai worth being alongside those Welles did himself for Citizen Kane and F for Fake? They are more revelatory of Hollywood's trailers than of Welles's work, aren't they?

[Jeff Wilson]

Let's not forget the would-have-been trailer Welles had planned for THE DEEP. And was there a trailer done for the re-issue of OTHELLO in the 1990s?

[Roger Ryan]

And was there a trailer done for the re-issue of OTHELLO in the 1990s?

Yes, and it wasn't too bad, choosing the now standard approach of quick fade-in/fade-outs on brief snippets (i.e. soldiers crossing the Venetian bridge as pigeons fly upward). In a way, Welles' propensity for cutting shots extemely tight foreshadowed the modern-day approach to editing trailers.

[Ste]

The Falstaff trailer is or was available on DVD. I don't remember if it's on the Spanish DVD or on the French, Canal+ DVD that has been only very briefly released as part of a set that also included The Trial and The Third Man.

It is on the French Studio Canal boxed set, with a French audio track. Presumably an English-language trailer exists somewhere, although I've never seen it.

[Tony]

Was that Falstaff trailer done for the Harry Saltzman American release, or was it a European trailer?

[Ste]

Correction: the Falstaff trailer on the Studio Canal boxed set is actually Spanish, not French. My apologies; I viewed it only once before, almost a year ago. I just played it through again, and I can tell you that it runs for four minutes, the audio is in Spanish (with forced French subtitles added for the DVD), and the second half contains a Spanish voiceover, listing the stars -- including Beatrice Welles -- and explaining that the film was made in Spain.

[Tony]

Do you know if Welles directed it?

In fact, do we know what trailers he actually directed? These should be added to his official 'ouvre'

[Tony]

Not that I want to derail my own topic, but here's an Italian commercial allegedly directed by Welles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH4iuGZnAxY

We really should make a list of everything we know he directed on film: movies, documentaries, television shows, commercials and trailers.

[Terry]

Looks like Welles' style.

Is that Italian he's speaking? Whatever it is, he sure sounds fluent.

[Tony]

I think he looks really lecherous in this video!
But it does seem his style of directing.