"Me and Orson Welles"

[Glenn Anders]

What an astonishing article by Simon Callow!

Is this the man who wrote The Road to Xanadu?

In that book, first volume of an increasingly positive and rather pitying biography of a man and his heroism, Orson Welles is a spoiled George Minafer, a brat who grows up, fueled by egotism and benzedrine, to preside over a series of happy accidents, triumphs which Callow almost always either denigrates or credits to the efforts of others. Familiarity with the full panoply of Welles activities and causes, perhaps seen in a lens of maturity twenty years coming into focus, seems to be breeding in the biographer a belated respect for his subject's accomplishments.

Magentarose67, you may come in time to my conclusion that not only John Houseman but other red flags often mentioned here, and now Simon Callow, are almost like lovers who experienced an incredible exhilaration in associating, or at least admiring Orson Welles, and when he entered another stage of his life which did not include them or their interests, they were filled with bitterness and loss. But as some felt their lives drawing to a close, they might have agree with how Houseman summed up according to Callow: "Meeting Orson Welles [ knowing fully of him] was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life."

And Alan, time will tell you, I believe, that although Callow knows that in ME AND ORSON WELLES "they got it [the details] right," Chris Feder Welles assessment of the entire film is extraordinarily perceptive. She after all was there, at least in her Mother's tummy, and for the years thereafter.

Thank you [doubly], Ray, for kindnesses and for bringing the entire Times article to us. Callow's remark about ME AND ORSON WELLES getting it right has been in print for several days. Perhaps, he said those words earlier in an interview and expanded on them, perhaps he was quoting from his article then in progress.

In any case, Simon Callow has come down squarely in the nest of Wellesnetters!

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

And congratulations, mido505, for earlier expressing more elegantly the ideas I was struggling with.

I would only add in defense of John Houseman that he was fifteen years older than Orson Welles, and when he was not being an often rejected artistic lover, he was fulfilling the role of a Welles' "mentor" (succeeding or supplementing "Dadda" Bernstein and "Skipper" Hill). The professional breakup of Welles and Houseman was damaging to both of them, but Houseman did to go on to some success other than being Professor Kingsfield in THE PAPER CHASE. He was a respected producer of some important films, such THE BLUE DAHLIA, LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, ON DANGEROUS GROUND, LUST FOR LIFE, and ALL FALL DOWN. One can imagine how certain of these projects would have turned out if an ordinary Studio hack had been in charge. He was also for a number of years the Executive Director of the Julliard Drama School, which nurtured important stage and movie talents.

Finally, to buy into your theme, we must never forget, as I've noted before, that John Houseman's first wife was the eternal object of THE MUMMY's affections: Zita Johann [AKA, Helen Grosvenor / Princess Anck-es-en-Amon]. Could Dr. Frankenhouseman have recognized Orson Welles as the reincarnation of Im-ho-tep?

There was also a "Professor Pearson" in that 1932 movie . . . hmm . . . .

In fact, mido505, how do we not know that you, at this late date, are not Ardath Bey?

Just a frivolous pixelation of my gin-soaked brain, I suppose.

Still --

You're right, mido505, time for me and you to follow Orson Welles "down a new path."

Glenn

[Magentarose67]

LOL! Dr. Frankenhouseman! Of course! That's the prefect nickname for Houseman!




Glenn, I completely agree with you. And Houseman - err - Dr. Frankenhouseman - began to see how vital Orson was in his life at the very end of his life. It's pretty sad that Orson was already dead and did not become aware of Dr. Frankenhouseman's last words, but I think he suspected it, because he said "How they'll love me when I'm gone!".

Okay...I've gotten the Houseman bashing off my chest...for now .

I posted this a while back, but since I guess it was too far back, no one had seen it, and I'd really like to hear your thoughts, everyone:

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but I suddenly remembered Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juilet movie from 1996, with Leonardo DiCaprio and - wouldn't you guess it - Claire Danes. If anyone has seen it, it is set in modern times and everyone in the cast wears modern clothes. I was wondering...do you guys think it was infulenced by Orson's Caesar vision, even a little bit - the main concept of "Shakespeare in modern dress", I mean.

[mido505]

Thank you, Glenn; I confess I’m looking more like Ardath Bey every day – I only wish I had the uncanny mesmeric power to go with the dusty, shriveled complexion. You should take my advice and lay off that gin, as I did twenty years ago. It gives you the horrors, don’t ya know, and reeks a bit too much of the Victorian for a proper Dionysian, as I’m sure you are. Stick with the vino – a bottle a day keeps the doctor away. Do they serve wine at the Ha Ra Club, or would I be thrown out for asking?

I certainly don’t mean to denigrate John Houseman’s obvious talents. He was a sympathetic producer, a talented collaborator, and I thoroughly enjoyed his late-career flowering as an actor. I caught every episode of THE PAPER CHASE on TV as a youngin’ specifically because of him; in the past year I have enjoyed Houseman performances in THE FOG, ROLLERBALL, AND GHOST STORY. But let’s be frank; Houseman’s post-Mercury career was hardly remarkable or distinguished; any number of now-forgotten talented producers could have done, and did, what he did. For example, Houseman did a nice job producing JULIUS CAESAR for Joseph L. Mankiewicz ; but Fred Kolmar did an equally nice job producing Mankiewicz’s, to my mind, superior THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (shot by Charles Lang, Welles’s cinematographer on LADY FROM SHANGHAI, and scored by Bernard Herrmann ); does anyone talk about Fred Kolmar anymore? Of course not, because he didn’t found a theater company with Orson Welles.

I have a theory that people like Houseman, and many of Welles’s theatrical collaborators, and Callow for that matter, turned on Welles at worst, and failed to understand him at best, because he was not “theater folk” in the way that they were. Despite what you may think about Welles and his politics, he was a fish out of water in those heady lefty days of the Federal theater project and the Mercury. They were all about the future, and collaboration, and equality, and the group. Welles was a throwback, an aristocratic actor-manager from the nineteenth century. He was a good aristocrat, with a well-developed sense of nobless-oblige, but like all aristocrats he had a healthy ego and a pronounced tyrannical streak. And theater was just a weigh station for Welles, although he probably did not know it at the time; he was there to learn, and then move on; they were there for the duration. Welles’s journey after the early glories that culminated in the glorious Citizen Kane may not have been glorious at all, but it was heroic, and heroism is an aristocratic quality sorely lacking in the lives of any of those folk who want to sit and reminisce about what a “slave driver” Welles was. Well, no “slave driver”, no MACBETH, no CRADLE WILL ROCK, no CAESAR, no CITIZEN KANE, and no beeographers knocking at the door of the old folks home asking about your memories of the “slave driver”.

Falstaff died alone, and Henry V garnered all the glory; who is remembered as the spirit of that age? Welles may have ended his life doing wine commercials, but he wasn’t diminished by them; he was, and is, and shall remain, a giant: Orson Welles, one of the greatest artists of our age.

[Glenn Anders]

Not only did Claire Danes play Juliet in that early [literally] theatrical film, magentarose65, but in 2004, she took on a female variation of Zac Efron's Richard Samuels in STAGE BEAUTY, acting a backstage dresser who fills in as Desdamona in the cross-gender story of a Regency Theater production of Othello.

I also think Houseman knew from early-on that his break with Welles, whatever its source, was an event he would always regret. They tried to get back on a civil basis, if not friendship, a couple of times, but the disagreement would flare up anew, and they would storm away from each other. Their inability to restore at least civility between themselves hurt each emotionally and professionally, not to speak of projects and individuals around them.

-------

In that vein, if you now want me to address you by name again, keats, I agree with you that Shakespeare may be for Simon Callow a way of finding lasting artistic value in Welles' career. His mention of OTHELLO and CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT as two lesser known, underrated works in Welles' later career gives evidence of your surmise.

In regard to your opening sally, keats, you must understand how foolish you appear reiterating this fantasy that I have various avatars who write to me, praising my views and attacking yours. That is a delusion! Your ideas are acclaimed or condemned on their own merits. None of us can be sure who anyone of us really is, true, but no "sock puppets" of which I'm aware exist on this Board. One or two persons in official capacities may have another avatar in order to make useful but anonymous comment, others may have had consecutive avatars over time (as I have) because of changes in browsers and passwords at Wellesnet, but there is no conspiracy against you, comprised of many imaginary figures who hate you or your views. Of that, I am certain.

Whether or not you like my sense of humor, your continual paranoid refrain apparently annoys about everyone here, and it detracts from the occasional real contribution you make amidst your obviously crazy speculations.

Give it up, keats. Come back to us and all will soon be forgotten. A few years ago, I felt insulted and went away. When I was lured back by exciting possibilities around new promised releases of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, all was forgiven, and almost immediately, it was almost as if no unpleasantness had ever existed. Others have had similar experiences here, I'm sure.

Come home, keats. No one hates you or is out to get you. I'm confident that others will second what I write.

We're here to discuss Orson Welles, and at the moment, ME AND ORSON WELLES.

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

You guys are always a step ahead of me!

As a matter of fact, mido505, the Ha-Ra Club does not serve wine, a fact which has indeed gotten Todd Baesen and me in trouble occasionally.

[Robin Pappas, my old student, mother of my favorite new singer, Nellie McKay -- any relation? I wonder -- would have a similar problem with the Ha-Ra Club, which Nellie is desperate to visit again with me. Robin is a red wine drinker and keeps a close eye on her daughter. But it would be wonderful to have Christian McKay and Nellie meet at the Ha-Ra!]

Larry French, in his now glimmering hope of continuing his congenial dialogue with Christian McKay, has been forced to vet other watering holes for the completion of their Frisco interview. [McKay, evidently like yourself(?), favors a large glass of claret or hock to gin or tequila.] Perhaps, The Whiskey Thieves or the more sophisticated Rye will be their Geary Street rendezvous. I have been appealing to Dr. French's better nature not to take him to Todd Baesen's choice, the execrably remodeled Redwood Room of the Clift Hotel. We'll see.

A wine drinker, eh, mido505?

When Larry lifts his glass on Tuesday evening, you may imagine that he is toasting you!

Glenn

[mido505]

Glenn:

How delightful to see you use the atavistic and Anglophile, but thoroughly marvelous term "hock", which I first chanced upon in Colin Wilson's essential A BOOK OF BOOZE, which I have just reread with great pleasure. Knowing your propensity for the occult, I am sure that you are familiar with Wilson's writings; if you have not read A BOOK OF BOOZE I suggest you track it down. It is essential reading for boozers, bibliophiles, occultists, Dionysians, Theosophists, acolytes of the Golden Dawn, Atlantians, and Thelemites; in short, Glenn, it's perfect for you, and for....me? I'm drinking a decent if unexeptional Burgundy right now, how 'bout you? Cheers to you and the other members of this fine board, and Happy Thanksgiving.

[Alfred Willmore]

Is There No Responsible Party Overseeing This Board ?

Come On !

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, mido505: We made our way through a third day of Turkey, accompanied by a really tasty Cauliflower, with cheese sauce on the side, prepared by my Son Guy. We had a nice glass of Yellowtail Riesling, about as close as we can get to modest hock here.

I have read Colin Wilson's early work but not A BOOK OF BOOZE.

Carry on with your holidays, my friend.

-------

Alfie: As I've written you, our Moderator does not deal with unpleasantness gladly. The Board, I understand, has not disciplined anyone here in five years or so.

I've done what I can to make peace.

We see the reaction.

As my Mother used to say: "What can't be cured must be endured."

I guess that remark is its own kind of doom.

Let's attempt, then, to practice Stoicism.

Glenn

[tonyw]

Can not all this inessential debate cease so we can return to
welles? Better, can someone apply for a grant to get travel expenses so we can all meet cordially at Glen's watering hole for hock, booze, or whatever?

[tonyw]

As somebody who has experienced Glenn's tongue-lashing in the past (and I forget the cause and so probably has he), I just move on and try to enjoy informed debate on this Forum. It is sad that a veteran member of this Group and a very informed new member have come to this stage. So, rather than talk about banning, let us try to keep on base, especially at a time when Orson has again returned to public notice, something that may hopefully jump start THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND project.

[Alan Brody]

Well said, Tony.

Glenn, give it up. Keats just doesn't like you.

Keats, you have a right to criticize Glenn's or anyone else's posts whenever you want, but what you can't do is prevent Glenn or anyone else from posting what they want whenever they want. That's not your job. As I've said before, we already have a moderator in case things become EXCESSIVELY unrelated to Welles. A couple of others have complained about Glenn's ramblings in the past, but you're the only one who seems bothered (even obsessed?) by them to the point where you can't just led them slide. Also Keats, you're starting to remind me a bit of Captain Queeg and his strawberries when you talk about Glenn's 'viciousness" and "abuse" and say that he is "attacking you" or "stalking you personally". That kind of paranoia definitely doesn't help your cause.

Thankfully the film itself starts opening wider this Friday, so maybe we can focus on that.

[RayKelly]

Thankfully the film itself starts opening wider this Friday, so maybe we can focus on that.

Thanks for the info Alan. I have been trying to find out online when the film would go wide,

[Alan Brody]

Thanks for the info Alan. I have been trying to find out online when the film would go wide,

Well, that info is from Zac Efron's fan site, and is three weeks old, so hopefully it's still accurate. Here's what it says:

Me & Orson Welles will open in New York City and Los Angeles only on November 25th. December 4th the movie will also be in selected theaters in Louisville, KY, Austin, TX, Chicago, IL, Philadelphia, PA, Boston, MA, Dallas, TX, San Fransisco, CA, Houston, TX, Washington, and San Diego, CA. It has neither been confirmed or denied that the movie will then open nationwide.

[RayKelly]

The film's Facebook page now has Dec. 11 listed as nationwide