Welles "Library"

[Tony]

Just purchased "The Orson Welles Library", a collection of 4 cassettes recorded in 1985.Each story adaptation is 30 minutes long, and the collection includes Wilde's "Happy Prince", H.G. Wells' "The Red Room", Saki's "Shredni Vashtar", Conrad's "The Secret Sharer", Kipling's "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", Hawthorne's "Wakefield", Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart", and Stevenson's "Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde". I was dissappointed, though, when I realised (via page 452 in This is OW, 1st edition) that several stories are missing:

Twain's "Huck Finn"
Waugh's "A Handful of Dust"
Beerbohm's "A.V. Laider"
Bemelman's "Grapes for Mr. Cape"
Capote's "Miriam"
Cheever's "The National Pastime"
Collier's "The chaser"
Dinesen's "The Old Chevalier" and "The Heroine"
Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz"
Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flats"
Hemingway's "Ten Little Indians" and "In Another Country"
O'Hara's "Malibu From the Sky"
Saroyan's "The Summer of the Beautiful White Horses"
Irwin Shaw's "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses"
and OW's "My Father Wore Black Spats" (from the Vogue article)!
Also included is some poetry by Byron, Graves, and Kipling.

Wheeew! By my count, this is about a 12 hour presentation of very fine literature, selected I believe by OW, as it contains 2 selections by Dinesen and one by OW himself. According to Rosenbaum, this was recorded for the Japanese market; however, my "selection" of 1/3 of the recordings, was released in 1995 by Dove audio,and it doesn't say "Volume 1".
I think this is a fascinating late project by OW; it was recorded in May '85, after which he narrated a documentary on Yiddish cinema (in August), shot a little more of "The Dreamers" (on Sept. 21) and narrated "The Transformers" (released Oct.) Does anyone know if the rest of the stories have been released on the North American market, or has anyone seen the Japanese package?

Thanks

[Peter Tonguette]

Tony,

Much thanks for the run-down. I must ask, of course, where did you purchase the tapes?

Peter

[Peter Tonguette]

...and I just answered by own question once again. "The Orson Welles Collection" is available, painlessly enough, through amazon.com. I think I'll have to add this to my collection.

Peter

[ChristopherBanks]

I'll have to get this too.

We used to have "The Happy Prince" record when I was little, I loved that story. I was very young at the time, but I can still remember the vivid pictures conjured up by that reading, OW really did have a fantastic voice.

[mteal]

Christopher, the record of The Happy Prince you mentioned is probably the version he did with Bing Crosby. At Welles memorial tribute Gary Graver also cited it as a childhood favorite of his.

The Orson Welles Library is a good tape set. I think my favorite is probably "The Red Room", which is preceded by Welles doing a short but moving tribute to H.G. Wells. Box 7 of the Welles archive at Lilly has over 70 short scripts (10-20 pages) which were prepared for the Lady Esther radio series, but never used, including stories adapted from Tarkington, Saki, Poe, Dorothy Parker, Conrad, Hans Christian Anderson, O. Henry and others. If the series had lasted longer, they might have gotten around to making radio plays of these. It makes me wonder if Welles referred to any of these scripts while preparing the readings for the Japanese project.

That is an impressive list of readings that have yet to be released. Hopefully we'll get those available before too long.

[Tony]

Had an interesting experience this week: in the car, to and from work, I listened to a 5 part CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) program from 1942, entitled: "Nazi Eyes On Canada" (released on cassette in 2000). The programs were designed to help raise money for a war bond drive, and the stories were dramatic presentations of what could happen if the Nazis won the war, and took over Canada (and the States) as colonies. Lorne Green (Bonanza) was the host and, in one program, I believe an actor. The first four programs are pretty good, but a little bland. Some Hollywood actors came up to guest star in programs, for instance Vincent Price, Helen Hayes, Judith Evelyn and others. And saved for the last program was the biggest guest star : Orson Welles. From the get go, Welles establishes himself as a master of narration: he is so different from the others, it's like night and day. For example, he focusses on every word, and gives it emotion, and at the end of narration sections, he suddenly decreases volume down to nothing so one strains to hear: this focusses concentration, increases suspense, and has a poetical dimension. He is endlessly creative.

After that, I began listening to My Orson Welles Library: "Wakefield" by Hawthorne, and "The Red Room" by H.G. Welles. The change in voice from 1942 to 1985 is inevitable but welcome: the warmth of Welles' autumnal voice is like rich, aged honey (no voice before it's time): it pours from the speakers (the car is an excellent place to listen to Welles: he surrounds one: its a very sensuous experience, as these tapes are beautifully recorded; it really is as though he were sitting next to you). And, as in '42, Welles pays closes attention to every single syllable: he was, really, a virtuoso of narration. In addition, it seems as though he selected these stories (as conjectured in my first post, above), therefore he loves them very much. This clearly is not a hack situation which he is rushing through; this is a late project which reminds me of Jaglom's "Someone to Love"; it's the same spirit, but I believe his voice is slightly stronger here, as he doesn't have to project in a theatre: he's up close and intimate to a microphone. A lifetime of experience is concentrated on every word, and what words! Listening to "Hawthorne", which is a very beautiful and strange story, there is (and this is not hyperbole) more meaning in one sentence than there is in many whole movies and books of today. And to have a great reader put everything he's got into each word, is really an astounding experience; as Dietrich said of Welles "After talking with him, I feel like a plant that's been watered", and I feel the same after listening to Welles read. It's a shame he didn't do more; now I yearn to find out more about the Japanese project: was it released? Is it still in print? Might anybody have the stories missing off the Dove edition, such as the Dinesen, the Hemingway, the Twain and the Welles?
In 1985, he couldn't make "Cradle" or "Lear", but he did make these readings of several great works of literature, and clearly, it was a labour of love.

P.S. I got mine in an auction, but apparently you can order them through Amazon.com.

[jbrooks]

Has anyone had any luck in finding out if Welles' other recordings for the Japanese market (the ones not included on the tapes released in the US) have been put out anywhere? (Here is a question -- why was there a Japanese market for English language audiobooks in the first place? That strikes me as a bit odd.)

Also, I wonder if the voice-over of Welles in "One Man Band" discussing his almost-meeting with Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) is taken from these recordings -- it sounds to me as though it might have been taken from an introduction to his reading of one of her stories. Does anyone know?

For anyone who hasn't listened to the recordings that are available, I highly recommend them. They're fantastic. I am particularly fond of "Rikki Tikki Tavi."

It's really a shame Welles died right before the big audi-book boom. He was really a master of the dramatic reading.

[Glenn Anders]

How true, jbrooks. Audio books might have been invented with Welles in mind. He would be working every day, if he wished.

Of course, he did an immense amount of work in sound. If it were brought all together, in its entirety, it would be astounding in its amount and scope.

The narration that he did for the short film of Jack London's "To Build a Fire" could almost be added to your collection. It's all London, as I remember it.

He loved words even more than he did images.

My guess is that the Japanese market craved models for learning English at the time, and the tapes were intended to supplement study of these masterpieces of short fiction in the language.


Glenn

[Peter Tonguette]

jbrooks,

The narration you hear in "One Man Band" of OW discussing Dinesen was to open his film of "The Dreamers."

Regarding OW's radio programs, are any episodes of "Orson Welles' Almanac" or "Orson Welles Commentaries" available on audio cassette?

Peter

[PT Caffey]

On a tangential note, Radio Spirits is now offering a 9-hour CD set of Welles in "The Third Man: The Lives of Harry Lime."

http://www.radiospirits.com/

[Jeff Wilson]

Peter:

if by Orson Welles' Almanac you mean either the Lady Esther sponsored show of 1941-42 or the Mobil sponsored show of 1944, then yes. A handful of Lear Show (technically known as Orson Welles' Almanac also, aka the commentaries series) episodes are in circulation as well, most of them, fortunately, being the Isaac Woodard episodes.

[Kubed]

The Museum of TV and Radio put out a collection of radio shows. It was a mixed bag of shows.