Orson Welles & Buster Keaton

[Orson&Jazz]

Hello again.

I have come across a documentary on Buster Keaton when he was here in Canada filming The Railrodder in 1965. It is called Buster Keaton Rides Again, and it is a National Film Board of Canada production, as is The Railrodder.

Now, I have become interested in Buster Keaton as of late, and I when I noticed that this doc was going to be on tv, I just had to watch it. What was even more interesting was that the information on the doc said it was narrated by Orson Welles. The problem is that Orson is not in the credits of the documentary. When I looked deeper into the doc on the net (IMDb), it said that the narrator was Michael Kane. I haven't heard Michael Kane speak prior, in fact I haven't heard of him at all, but I know Orson's voice. And the narrator in this doc sounds an awful lot like Orson.

Now, I ask for some help in clarifying this. Does any body have any information on Orson regarding this documentary? I did a search here on Buster Keaton regarding this documentary, but I never had any luck. I need to be more specific maybe?

If this has been brought up before, I apologize for the re-run.


EDIT: The credits for the doc does not include Michael Kane's name for narrator either. It does not include any for narrator.

[Terry]

If you recognize it as being Welles' voice, then it probably is. He did tons of voice-over work, though I've never heard of that project.

Regarding Michael Kane, well, is that a misspelling of Michael Caine (who has a fine voice but doesn't sound like Orson) or is it an alias for Welles (as in the case of O. W. Jeeves co-writing Treasure Island.)

I haven't done any digging. I'm just shooting my fingers off, as usual.

[Orson&Jazz]

What was even more interesting was that the information on the doc said it was narrated by Orson Welles.

I think I need to explain this further, in case this part confused any one. I have satellite, and prior to watching this program, I used the "info" button to see what the program entailed. It was this "info" that informed me that Orson narrated the documentary, which was a bonus for me; Buster Keaton and Orson Welles! Two legends for the price of one so to speak.

Now, when the documentary credits rolled, no Orson Welles credit. No Michael Kane either. Although the satellite info states Orson narrates, and IMDb info states Michael Kane narrates. Two conflicting sources. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059000/

Regarding Michael Kane, well, is that a misspelling of Michael Caine

No. I can recognize Michael Caine's voice, and there is no confusion between his and Orson's. And by looking at the above link, this Michael Kane guy is real.

It is confusing, but when I listen to the narration, it is distinctly Orson's. And I was thinking that maybe Michael Kane was an Orson alias. Michael Kane=Citizen Kane, coincidence? But also, I have never heard this Michael Kane's voice, so maybe his is exactly the same as Orson's and he is the "poor man's" alternative to Orson.

But, I came here to get any information I can regarding this documentary. And I know that there is a possibility that Orson has done narrations that he did not receive credit for. Orson was named narrator for The Last Sailors which came out in 1983. And, there is no title for this at IMDb, and no credit for this under Orson's filmography. By the way, has any one else heard of this video? This is another one I have seen, and another voice distinctly belonging to Orson. I hope this title is easier to recognize!

Thanks for any help; again.

[Elmyr]

I checked the National Film Board of Canada site and I guess that this is the answer.

On the french DVD of Buster Keaton's The General, there's a bonus disc full of extras, including those two films (The Railrodder and Buster Keaton Rides Again) AND ALSO footage of Orson Welles introducing a 1971 television showing of The General. It's sure worth having.

[Roger Ryan]

The Welles introduction to "The General" is on the bonus disc included in Kino's "The Art Of Buster Keaton" DVD set (U.S. release) and ably demonstrates Welles' admiration for Keaton's work. The disc, entitled "Keaton Plus", is available as a separate purchase as well, but is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, it contains the nearly complete restoration of the 1921 two-reeler "Hard Luck" (a must-have); on the other, it has lots of drab incomplete snippets from Keaton's television work and later films which give the impression the producers were just trying to fill the disc up with whatever they could find.

[Orson&Jazz]

I appreciate the help. Thank you very much. I guess Michael Kane is a Welles carbon-copy, because he sure sounded like him. Perhaps even closer to the real voice than Maurice LaMarche?

I am looking forward to purchasing the "Art of Buster Keaton" set. I am thrilled that they have a Welles intro to "The General". This makes the set even more precious. Welles and Keaton. What a fantastic pair.

The French DVD sounds fantastic as well. As Roger mentioned, it seems Welles was a definite admirer of Keaton. Is there any books out there that covers Welles' admiration for Keaton? Have they ever met?

I am very curious about the two.

EDIT: If Welles covers his relationship or encounters with Keaton in his intro on the "Art of Buster Keaton" DVD, or the French DVD release, just let me know.

[jaime marzol]

if you can find it, the american masters series on buster keaton is fabulous. i don't know if it's available on dvd, i have it on vhs and plan some time soon to turn it into a dvd.

i also enjoyed THE RAIL ROADER very much. they have it at netflix

[Orson&Jazz]

Thanks for the input Jaime. I too enjoyed the Railrodder. I think it is classic Keaton.

I have seen it mentioned before on these boards, and it definitely piqued my interest, but just how in the heck do you go about putting a VHS movie onto DVD? How do you do it? I know this is showing my ignorance a bit, but darn it all, I don't care. I want to know. Because there are a few movies I'd like to transfer from VHS onto DVD, but I don't know how to go about it. Is it as simple as buying a combination VHS/DVD player, or does it get much more complicated than that?

Thanks for any info. again.

[jaime marzol]

one way is to buy a dvd recorder, and i'm not real familiar with them but i think if you use a dvd recorder you just get the movie on a dvd with no menus or anything like that, and if it's from a program with commercials i don't know if you can take them out. they are very cheap now. walmart has them for 99 bucks

a member from here, wellesfan, took all my welles odds and ends that i had on 22 vhs tapes and put them on dvds with menus and everything. he used nero, and i know he does not have a capture card. i don't know how he did it, but he did it so i know it can be done, but nero i think only makes menus from stills.

i have an editing computer with a capture card. i have the pinnacle dv500 plus. it's a workhorse for non-commercial stuff. you hook up your vcr to the card and play the stuff to the hard drive. then using adobe premiere i cut out the commercials, and make 60 second menus. then i use mydvd 6, i drag the minute menu in, then the film clips, and i have an authored dvd with motion menus and icons. premiere does all kinds of other stuff besides edit. it's like having a post production facility in your comp.

you can also play your vhs through a digital camcorder that hooks up to your comp with fire wire. then you edit that as you wish, export as an mpg file, and burn to dvd.

there are easier ways. i know wellesfan does not have editing software, or a capture card, but he made me some fabulous dvds using nero. i don't know how he got the image into his comp. if he used a dvd ripper, it puts the files on your hard drive as vob files, then nero must support vob files, but you can't edit vob files.

if you are thinking of getting a capture card, don't, you don't need one. get a digital camcorder and have a fire wire card put in your comp. the fire wire card costs about 16 bucks. you can go to ebay and purchase adobe premiere for a very reasonable price. the current ones are 6.5, and pro, but you can get 6.1 very cheap, and it works fine.

i know all this sounds confusing as shit, but it's really not. after you mess around with it for 2 months, you will be an editing master.

i took all my favorite hitler documentaries from the history channel, played them to the hard drive. cut out the commercials. made motion menus with looped footage of hitler saluting vigorously over and over and every time he raised his hand i put in a farting sound. the clips are the footage between the commercials. when you drag them in each has it's own icon.

i don't know how clear this is but feel free to ask any question, will gladly reply. maybe i can save you from having to buy everything 2 or 3 times like i had to as i was learning. a few others here are also familiar with digital media and i'm sure we'll get more input. maybe we should start a thread for that. it's great to know before you lay down your hard earned bucks so you don't have to rebuy.

[Orson&Jazz]

Wow, it all seems overwhelming, but I trust that if I was to fool around with the different methods of transferring from VHS to DVD, with time it will become easier.

I do have NERO on my computer, but I use it mainly for making CD's. I never thought that it could be used for transferring. I do hope this is NERO Express you are talking about, and not a newer, snazzier, upgraded, version of NERO. And I do have a DVD ripper also. I will have to look around for Adobe Premier.

One question I do have, and it may seem silly, but with the transferring from VHS to DVD, how does the quality of the picture turn out? I guess it all depends on the quality of the tape doesn't it? I guess there isn't a way to snazz it up so the picture becomes clearer? I am just wondering because with time, tape wears, and I know from repeted viewings of a favourite movie on tape, the picture gets kind of grainy doesn't it?

All in all, it still seems kind of overwhelming, but I am determined to try it out.

Thank you so much for the input Jaime. Plus, I like your fart saluting Hitler. The image of it seems hilarious.

[jaime marzol]

mydvd has a feature that you can hook up your digital camera to the comp by fire wire and will record your vhs right to dvd in real time, no need to put in premiere, unless you want to edit, make menus, and add effects.

premiere 6.5 has adobe mpg encoder, so when you edit your stuff you can export right from the premiere time line to mpeg one time, you don't have to export as avi then convert the avi to mpg. if you do that you lose quality. the more times you have to export you lose quality because of recompression.
you import one time into premiere as avi, you add the farting sounds, put a big happy face on hitler, then export as mpg2, you ratain the same quality as you had going in.

you drag the mpg2 file into mydvd, you make 60 second menus, and your stuff looks great.

i have not had any problems with quality. it looks coming out as good as it looks going in. you know the old saying, shit in shit out. you can enhance a few things, color correct, brightness, contrast and a few other features to help it along. in some cases you can sharpen the image but you can't make it look new again. crappy looking tapes when i tinker with in premeire, i zoom back on the image to 87 percent. it gets rid of tv overscan, and by reducing the image in size you sharpen the quality.

after i made my last post i discovered my nero supports dvd fiddling! i will experiment with it and report back.

the best way i think to get the image in your comp is with a digital camera. you hook up your vcr to your cam, and your cam to the comp, hit play, and you are rolling. be aware that win98 is fat32, and win2000, and winXP are ntfs. with fat32 you can only capture 4 gig files which is about 16 minutes of footage. with 2000 and xp you can capture as long as you want. add a second hard drive to comp to use as a slave. they are so cheap now. 99 bucks get you 200 gigs. your avi files don't like sharing a drive with say MS office files.

once you get rolling with this even on an entry level, you will see that it really is so simple, and you have so much control, it will inspire you to do all kinds of stuff that you never thought possible.

a capture car has the advantage that you cut out one step, no need to hook up vcr to cam and cam to comp, you just plug in to back of card, but with capture card you have one more item and drivers, and software in your comp. the less you have in your comp the less that will go wrong, so the digital cam road i think it the better way unless you want to spend medium to big money on a capture card. the bottom shelf top quality capture cards start out at about $1500. the canapus dv storm is an excellent capture card, and comes bundled with premiere and a bunch of other software. i think i'm going to go the the canapus on a new
editing comp i'm building. the reason i'm going with a capture card instead of just the digital cam is because it's quick to just hook up to the card, and because the comp is just for editing, no word processing, no web, nothing, just digital editing so adding the card will not be overloading it. and you should also have 1 gig of ram, a fast processor, and a good motherboard. but this just makes your experience more enjoyable. you can do without all this.

intell pentium 4 is a great processor, asus is the motherboard to get, and dual monotor cards are so cheap now, it would be a shame to build an editing comp and not have dual monitors. the matrox graphics cards are the industry standard. so for about $1200 in parts, you can build a race car of an editing comp that will give you tons of enjoyment and inspire you to tackle all kinds of projects and even inspire you to do real stuff that you can put out commerically.

[Harvey Chartrand]

Michael Kane was a journeyman actor who often appeared on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Television in the fifties and sixties. The last film I remember seeing him in was the dreadful Canadian tax shelter movie THE KIDNAPPING OF THE PRESIDENT (1980). I'm not sure if Kane is still alive. He had a wonderful voice, often used in National Film Board of Canada documentaries. Kane's voice was almost as good as Richard Basehart's – the finest narrator in film/TV history.
To witness another mighty stag brought down by jackals, read BUSTER KEATON: THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T LIE DOWN by Tom Dardis, which details the descending career arc of the Great Stone Face, from his triumph on THE GENERAL in 1927 to the coming of sound and MGM's inexplicable decision to relegate Keaton to the role of second banana for Jimmy Durante. Keaton was tagged as a silent film director who couldn't make the leap to sound pictures, except as an actor. Near the end of his life, Keaton's genius was rediscovered by Samuel Beckett, Gerald Potterton and others. Keaton had a lot of creative input on THE RAILRODDER, and it's all documented in BUSTER KEATON RIDES AGAIN.

[jaime marzol]

harvey

you cleared up the kane mystery.

i saw a documentary about the making of the railroader. is this included as part of the railroader, or is it a seperate offering. showed keaton, wife, and a few others traveling in a train discussing what they are going to be filming, and yes, buster had lots of input.

[jaime marzol]

the other reason to go with a capture card is because you don't have to capture in avi, you can capture in mpg2, edit mpg2, and export mpg2, so less quality loss. with digital cam you have to capture avi, edit avi, and export mpg2, some quality loss, but not big enough to make a difference for your own personal stuff.

[R Kadin]

Another route, in the $100-$120 range, might be to use a programmable interface device like the WinTV-PVR (personal video recorder), USB 2 version. It offers the advantage of being able to live-capture broadcast television and radio content (giving it a one-up on TiVO, especially if you've got a digital satellite radio service) as well as hooking into cable/satellite feeds, a laserdisc, VCR or a DVD player. It allows for S-Video feeds, as well and captures all its content in MPEG-2.

Not as robust or versatile in other ways as a capture card, of course; but I have found it does a pretty good job.