Cradle Will Rock screenplay unfilmed

[Wellesnet]

BARBARA LEAMING: On a Fall day in New England, with the trees a dozen shades of gold and brown, yellow, red and burnt orange, I keep thinking about Orson Welles describing to me the colors he intended for the portrait of his lost youth, the film of "Cradle Will Rock" he would never make. Orson would talk, his voice soft with memory, about how it would all be burnished gold and brown. His past now the color of falling leaves.

[Le Chiffre]

Orson Welles came incredibly close to directing a film version of the making of THE CRADLE WILL ROCK shortly before his death. Here is a look at the budget and production plans for the ill-fated movie.
Orson Welles’ thrifty budget for aborted ‘Cradle Will Rock’ film
https://www.wellesnet.com/cradle-will-r ... on-welles/

With an experienced producer at the helm and funding in place, Rupert Everett (Another Country) was tapped to play a 22-year-old Welles and Amy Irving (Micki + Maude) was cast as his first wife, Virginia Nicolson Welles.

Irving told The Washington Post in November 1984 that filming would start in two months. By January 1985, she was telling syndicated columnist Marilyn Beck shooting would begin the following month in Italy.

Welles pal John Huston revealed to The Los Angeles Times in May 1985 that The Cradle Will Rock producer Michael Fitzgerald — who had led Huston's Wise Blood and Under the Volcano — was "having trouble getting a deal on a simply wonderful project called The Cradle Will Rock to be directed by Orson Welles. Orson! Can you imagine how many people want to see any picture Orson makes?"

Set construction was underway in Italy when the project collapsed that spring, according to executive producer John Landis, who laid the blame with Fitzgerald.

It has been reported that shortly before Welles' death The Cradle Will Rock budget was slashed to $3 million in an unsuccessful bid to attract European investors. (Welles infamously tried to entice Steven Spielberg, Irving's then-husband, into backing the film over lunch at Ma Maison.)

1988 interview with Amy Irving:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ ... f59fd09e4/

It was three movies and a baby for Irving. While she was filming "Heartbreak House" with Rex Harrison (in 1984), she was publicizing her Blake Edwards comedy "Micki & Maude" and preparing for a role in Orson Welles' "The Cradle Will Rock."

But wouldn't you know it, Welles couldn't deliver. "It was a wonderful project. A friend of Orson's called and said, 'Orson Welles wants you to do this movie playing his first wife.' And I said, 'I'm pregnant.' And they said, 'Oh well, never mind.' And then about a week later, I got a call. 'Orson wants to know how impregnated are you?' I said I was in my fourth month. And he rewrote the role to say {the wife} was pregnant.

"We started having lunches and dinners together at Ma Maison and I'd just sit and enjoy him. He had so many stories to tell and he was such a lovely man, and I had the great pleasure of introducing Steven to him. Steven was such a huge fan. And I got to bring the two of them together. And the two of them were just all over each other, they were just such huge fans. Then the money fell through."

From Wellesnet Facebook:
Chad Bracke: "Anyone know why Spielberg refused to help Welles financially?"

There are several theories, but one of the most interesting I've heard was that Irving and Spielberg's four-year relationship came to an end in 1980 when she was rumored to have had an affair with Willie Nelson on the set of HONEYSUCKLE ROSE (something she later denied). As a result, Spielberg had little enthusiasm for letting her go to Italy to do a movie after they reunited in 1984, just as Cradle was being prepared. Of course, if filming had begun in February 1985, Irving would have been five months pregnant, so that theory seems less plausible. Spielberg and Irving got married in November 1985, about a month after Welles's death, when their son Max was about five months old. They were divorced four years later, in 1989.

But there's another interesting angle here, seldom discussed: the Twilight Zone tragedy of July 23rd, 1982. Is it possible that Spielberg was reluctant to support Cradle because it was being produced by John Landis? Here's an interesting excerpt from Wiki:

Landis spoke about the accident in a 1996 interview: "There was absolutely no good aspect about this whole story. The tragedy, which I think about every day, had an enormous impact on my career, from which it may possibly never recover."

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg co-produced the film with Landis, but he broke off their friendship following the accident. Spielberg said that the crash "made me grow up a little more" and left everyone who worked on the movie "sick to the center of our souls". He added: "No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now than ever before to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn't safe, it's the right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell, 'Cut!'"

Landis stood trial on manslaughter charges for the accident a year after Welles's death, and was acquitted in 1987, although the studio wound up losing millions in the subsequent civil suits. Interestingly, one of his co-defendants (producer George Folsey Jr., also aquitted) was one of the other producers on CRADLE WILL ROCK.

I can remember reading at the time Cradle was announced that Welles had come out publicly in favor of the defendants. Of course, Welles himself was no stranger to on-set tragedy, specifically the drowning of Jacare during the filming of IT'S ALL TRUE. Interesting also that Welles described Jake Hannaford as the kind of macho director that has caused at least one death on every one of his pictures.

[Wellesnet]

John Landis on his involvement with "Cradle Will Rock":


John Houseman on the original Cradle event itself:


Marc Blitzstien on the original Cradle event:

[nickleschichoney]

I can remember reading at the time Cradle was announced that Welles had come out publicly in favor of the defendants. Of course, Welles himself was no stranger to on-set tragedy, specifically the drowning of Jacare during the filming of IT'S ALL TRUE. Interesting also that Welles described Jake Hannaford as the kind of macho director that has caused at least one death on every one of his pictures.

Yeah, but with Welles, Jacare's death was the exception, not the rule. With Hannaford, it's the rule. Hannaford is the sort of director who, consciously or otherwise, looks for ways to harm people and animals in his work, because he lives off others' misery to fill the holes in his own heart. Welles didn't do that.

I'd like to read the article where Welles said he was in favor of the defendants. Do you remember where you saw it?

[Le Chiffre]

No, I don't, unfortunately. It may have even been something I heard on radio. But it makes sense, since Welles had to justify why he was making a film with two producers who had just been indicted in the deaths of three people, including two children.

In the Landis interview above, he blames yet another producer on the film, Michael Fitzgerald, for the collapse of the financing. Interesting that Fitzgerald has no Wikipedia entry, even though the Taos Film Festival thought he was significant enough to give him a retrospective in 2014. Fitzgerald is the one who got Welles involved in the project. There's not a whole lot of info on him online. He was the son of the renowned poet and translator Robert Fitzgerald, but i couldn't even find out when Michael was born. He did get his start in film by producing a couple of John Huston pictures in the late 70s/early 80s.

[Wellesnet]

Cradle Will Rock excerpt from the 2013 Jaglom/Biskind book "My Lunches With Orson" (Google books):
https://books.google.com/books?id=qJ2XP ... on&f=false

[Le Chiffre]

OW: Well, anyway, I said to Michael Fitzgerald, “Pretty soon I’m going to have to have a contract, because you’re making your deal. And artistic control in a note from you is not the same as a contract. I must have final cut. And he says, “No argument. I’ve told them.” Apparently, when he told Paramount, they said, “This is a collaborative art form.” And Michael said, “Not with Orson Welles. Final cut or nothing.” He claims we’re set. But there may be a question about his authority. I have to have a commitment from everybody. I will not make the movie without it, and I know I’ve got them by the balls, because of all the money they’ve put into it already. But unless it’s in the contract, they have tricks.

I hope that Welles's demand for final cut was not the thing that finally sank the film's financing, but a gut feeling tells me that that's pretty much what happened.

In the Marc Blitzstein video above, he has high praise for Welles's ingenuity, unlike the Tim Robbins film, which like the Ring Lardner script (reportedly), tended to marginalize Welles's involvement in the event.