out of curiosity...

[colwood]

2. yes, if you can't get ahold of the complete Magic Show, the One Man Band would be your next option. Someone mentioned that on one of the P2P servers, if you're into that, you can find not only the Magic Show, but I think also Don Quixote, Around the world, Hearts of Age, One man band, among others. Check this out,

http://www.wellesnet.com/cgi-bin....l=emule

12. This is Orson Welles and the 1982 BBC interview are the best, I think, for interviews.


16. Like you, I was truly disappointed to learn that there is only a snippet of the voodoo macbeth and nothing of ceasar.

[colwood]

Glenn, the scene you mentioned does sound intriguing, but i don't think it was ever shot.

I have the Citizen Kane Book with what purports to be the "final" shooting script dated July 15, 1940. I haven't yet read all of it, but I was always under the impression that while many little lines here and a few shots there were changed or cut, the only real significant cut of filmed footage was the bordello scene.

Knowing some of the members on the site, i'm sure if I'm wrong, someone won't hesitate to point it out.

[babus]

Orson&Jazz:
Go to the Lilly Library link on Orson and you'll get a detailed list of what they have. I've never been there but hope to go someday and i would be faced with the same dilemma you have: What would i want to see? There are so many things that i would need to spend days there to feel like i got the most of it.

[Glenn Anders]

Dear babus: The discrepancy is easily explained, in that the son referred to is by Emily, in 1907 or so. In late versions of the script, he gets mixed up in radical politics and is supposed to be killed taking part in a Fascist riot in Rome during the 1930's. Hence, his body is returned to Xanadu for burial. In the finished picture, all of that was trimmed, and according to the narrator, the son is explained away (along with Emily) by death in a car accident. [Just reminded me of Paola Mori Welles' real life death in a car accident.]

Colwood: You may be right, of course, about the scene never being shot, but I rather think the residue of this funereal scene is to be found in the Newsreel, where Kane in formal overcoat and Homburg hat is seen trying to cement some kind of capstone, and becoming annoyed when he sloshes wet cement upon himself. If the scene was shot, it would have been at that point.

Orson & Jazz: The funeral scene is insightful, as to the state of the old man's mind shortly prior to his death. I think it is a beautiful scene in itself, but really, one crucial detail which an artist must determine is this one: "When is my work finished?" The scene would have required a whole other subplot to set up. CITIZEN KANE, as it stands, unlike many of the butchered or uncomplete Welles' films, is perfect. It is done. Nothing really needs to be added nor subtracted. That is why it is often deemed, "The Greatest American Sound Film Ever Made."

Glenn

[Glenn Anders]

Orson & Jazz: For a couple of hundred years, pipes were the delivery system of choice for tobacco. Certainly, until late in the 20th Century, it was MANLY to smoke a pipe. MEN often had collections. [I remember I had at least six, "Dr. Grabow's."] Welles probably smoked pipes early in his career. They looked good and were easier on the throat of an actor, if he avoided inhaling. [The evidence of lip and tongue cancer would have been just coming in when we see Welles with a pipe in hand, or on his desk.]

He seems to have favored cigars later, and to the end of his life.

I don't know. People tended to lose their pipes, give them away as presents or wear them out. How many Welles may have had is a question that I don't think his biographers have tackled yet.

Glenn

[Knowles Noel Shane]

The Kane screenplay included in the VHS box set is dated earlier than the one published in the Citizen Kane Book. It is a few steps closer to Mank's original script American (which I've never seen) which he did with John Houseman. Welles radically condensed and rearranged American before filming it. I doubt that the "extra" scenes in the earlier version were ever filmed.

[jaime marzol]

that is interesting that the draft of kane that came with the box set is an earlier draft than the kane book draft. i have 2 drafts of kane, one is that earlier draft written by houseman and mank, where kane is a homosexual, throws big parties with fairies, and kane attends wearing clothes of his own design. i tried to post about it here but a few of our in-house experts stood in indignation and said i was full of shit, and another in-house expert attributed it to a joke screenplay, but this short draft is the one clinton heylin writes about in his book in defense of welles as the real author of kane. in my later draft of kane jed leland has a more prominent role. the short draft has none of the flair of the later draft.

[Orson&Jazz]

Glenn Anders:

Yes, I agree. Citizen Kane is perfect the way it is, and there is nothing I would have wanted to change in it. I just found it amazing that Orson had different story ideas, and I am interested in knowing all the possibilities.

Yes, the pipe thing intrigued me. I have viewed many pictures of him, and in most I always saw a pipe. And by closer inspection, I never seen the same pipe. They always looked different; different style. So, I thought maybe he was some kind of pipe afficianado. And I was curious if there are Orson fans that actually own an Orson pipe or two.



babus:

Thank you for the Lilly Library link. I checked it out, and already I am overwhelmed with the abundance of information it holds. I think that when I do get the chance to visit, I'll definitley need to clear my schedule and devote at least a week to going through the Welles collection. I want to see everything!!

[Orson&Jazz]

one is that earlier draft written by houseman and mank, where kane is a homosexual, throws big parties with fairies, and kane attends wearing clothes of his own design.


Wow! Isn't that the complete opposite of what Kane is in the movie? If that is a joke screenplay, that is one hell of a joke. Funny as hell too! Just imagining Orson actually acting that kind of part is hilarious.

[Wilson]

but this short draft is the one clinton heylin writes about in his book in defense of welles as the real author of kane.

I'm not getting into that debate again since I haven't read the screenplay in question, and no offense here, but arguing that we should take it seriously because someone (who thanked you as the primary source for his book no less) uses it doesn't make it automatically legit, not to mention a conflict of interest. If Heylin had said it was a joke or not worth mentioning, would you still be bringing it up?

[jaime marzol]

i saw it as somebody else reading what i read and coming to the conclusion that i came to. just like the window boxing issue we discussed till it was beat into the ground, where i passionately argued that all classic film fans need to see their favorite films window boxed, but the experts here agued that it made little difference. i buy the STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE dvd, and the "this film was modified to fit your screen" sign came on. i thought, wow, the people that put this film out feel like i feel about window-boxing. they felt the film was bastardized by having it fill the screen. watching kane window boxed, to me, was an exhilarating experience.

as i remember, i was chased out of here like a frankenstein monster when i posted my analysis of TOUCH OF EVIL. then i found a massive 3-part article written by stephen heath that mirrored a lot of what i found. i thought, wow, here is some one else that saw the same thing i saw, and came to the same conclusion. very cool.

i had absolutely nothing to do with anything that went into clinton's book. i never even saw the book till the publisher sent me a copy in the mail. people here at the site were able to buy a copy weeks before i received mine. so no, i see no conflict of interest.

by the way, when i say "the experts," i use it with great affection. i don't mean it as a slight. sort of a wellesian pun.

[Glenn Anders]

Kane as an obvious homosexual does seem outrageous. Not even Welles could have thought his hand was free enough to get away with that. He had trouble suggesting that the girls at Kane's celebration were what might be called multi-tasking now. The Code would have sent that script, RKO, and Welles to the woodshed. Mr. and Mrs America did not know that homosexuality existed in 1941, but if a few did, they would have been down at the Legion of Decency, should CITIZEN KANE have presented a great American tycoon as less than a 200% MAN!

Rebel though he may have been in his 20's, I doubt that the showman in Welles would have ever seriously considered mortifying and insulting his potential audiences with what at the time was considered a disease on a par with syphilis, if not the most damnable sin in hell.

Gay characters were presented in Hollywood movies as figures of fun. No studio would have even discussed green lighting the proposition in the "short script" referred to.

------------------

As for the script I have, all I can say is that it has "by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles" on its cover.

You may be quite right that the scene I quote was not filmed. [There is also a scene suggesting a love affair between Jed and Emily.] But I do find the scene moving and insightful.

Glenn

[jaime marzol]

i never thought welles had anything to do with that draft. my theory is a depressed houseman and a drunk mank wrote it.

mike conner, known as 'steeler' at wellesnet, transcribed the script at lilly. freaking out as he transcribed. he kept looking at me saying, "oh my god, you are not going to believe this!"

later in the hotel room he had me rolling with laughter as he imitated houseman acting out the parts of the gay kane for the typing mank. the theory of the depressed houseman because he was being rebuffed by welles, and because he was exiled to victorville, and the drunk mank laughing and typing away, came to the forefront. it made sense. of course, it's not something i would put in a book, but it is an amusing thought. that short draft has a lot that ended up in the film. i can imagine welles receiving these pages, shaking his head and starting to retype.

[Knowles Noel Shane]

Jaime, is this "short draft" actually Mank's script called American? Is it to be found at The Lilly Library? I guess it's possible that Mank's draft contained such innuendo. According to Marcus Woland's play "The Magnificent Welles" the American script was loaded with jokes at Welles' expense. And didn't Ernest Hemingway declare something about Welles being "some faggot from New York?" So maybe there was a draft with such content, but I'm just grasping at straws, I certainly don't know. But, again, I didn't think American was a "short draft." According to the film RKO 281 (and Gods, do I hate to use THAT as a factual reference) Mank's script was "400 pages of drunken rambling."

"When this was written only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant - and now only God does."

Hey, which thread was it that contained your controversial analysis of Touch of Evil? I'll try the search engine to find it. Even if I disagreed with it, I wouldn't chase you off the board - I like monsters.

[Orson&Jazz]

Didn't Orson say in his and Bogdanovich's book, This Is Orson Welles, that Houseman was known in theatre circles as a closet homosexual?



But, the whole idea of Welles acting out that kind of part is still absurd, and funny. Yes, I too see him shaking his head when reading that script. And yes again to the fact that although Orson was a maverick, he would not have gone so far as to portray that kind of Kane. He would have had to show Kane as more than 200% of a man! 300% maybe.



Ernest Hemingway refering to Welles as a "faggot" from New York? Wasn't Hemingway a homosexual? Or was that just gossip? Why would he say something like that about Orson? :angry: