Orson Welles delivered a memorable performance captured in a single day’s shoot back in 1966.
Welles played Cardinal Wolsey in A Man for All Seasons, which arrived in theaters on December 12, 1966. Years later, he told Peter Bogdanovich he was grateful to be cast in the film and appear opposite Paul Scofield.
Film scholar Peter Tonguette (Orson Welles Remembered) recently penned the excellent A Man for All Seasons at 50 for National Review.
Tonguette noted the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which has not made a habit out of honoring films with spiritual matters or religious figures as their subject, took special note of A Man for All Seasons. It received six Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. (Tonguette’s full piece can be found at nationalreview.com/magazine/2016-11-20-1950/a-man-for-all-seasons-fred-zinnemann
Based on the Robert Bolt play and directed by Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here to Eternity), A Man for All Seasons centers on the struggle between Sir Thomas More and his monarch, King Henry VIII (Robert Shaw), who seeks to break with Rome so he can divorce his current wife and wed again.
While More objects to the plan, it is supported by Cardinal Wolsey (Welles) and Thomas Cromwell. (Leo McKern).
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