The Unknown Orson Welles in LA - Fabulous rare material shown

[ToddBaesen]

-

I flew to LA to see the Welles rarities, and Stefan Drossler has assembled a magnificent collection of Welles material which is absolutely incredible!

Last night I saw two of the greatest performances I've ever seen Welles give - they brought tears to my eyes, they were so moving. The first was his reading of scenes from his London stage play: Moby Dick rehearshed. Mr. Drossler has assembled the takes in a very interesting format, and the previous clips seen in ONE MAN BAND, in no way do the the material the justice they deserve. Here Welles plays four different parts himself, and the material is cut together with intertitles so you get a complete feeling of the overall progression of the play. But with practacally nothing, Welles through his performance has created quite a stunning piece of work. The sparse but quite different lighting in each of the scenes makes the material all the more effective and theatrical.

The second Welles performance which may be the best thing I've ever seen him do as an actor comes incredibly enough, on The Dean Martin Show when he does Shylock's speech (Hath Not a Jew Eyes) from THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. A beautiful done performance, with Welles doing a completely believably Jewish accent, speaking in a full and dynamic theatrical mode, I've rarely ever seen him achieve on film. It's especially interesting to see it juxtoposed next to takes from Welles film version, where he underacts to the point of mumbling!

Of course there's much more to tell about, but these two gems are what stood out for me from last night, and I'm about to see the assemblies from OSOTW and The Deep and so will report on that material soon.
_

[blunted by community]

todd said:
Mr. Drossler has assembled the takes in a very interesting format,

i ask:
can you tell me more about this, how the clips were assembled. and was this what was filmed on the stage at the gate theater, and what year do you think it was?

[L French]

I was in Los Angeles for the Welles rarieties programs and conducted a long and very interesting interview with Stefan Drossler of the Munich film archive.

The plan was to post the interview on Wellesnet, but to my horror, I discovered I left the interview tapes in my hotel room!

I'm just hoping I can recall all of the keys points from memory and have Jeff post them in the near future...

[maxrael]

How very Wellesian!!

Could you not contact the hotel to recover the tapes?!

best,
max!

[blunted by community]

i loved reading the reviews in this thread about the welles convention. thank you all for taking the time to post.

[jbrooks]

Blake Pellarin,

Thanks for your posting on the LA screenings. I hope to catch at least some of the New York program this weekend. Tell me, did Gary Graver suggest that he intends to finish the cutting of Wind himself? Did Oja comment on this topic at all? Peter Bogdanovich told me back in 2002 that Welles had asked him to complete the film and that he intended to do so. Certainly, Bogdanovich would seem to be the only person involved with sufficient talent to even have a chance of putting it together well. Based on what I've seen of Graver's work, he should be limited to an advisory role.

JBrooks

[Jeff Wilson]

my experience with graver was much like what blake p. posted in the locked thread

And? What difference does that make, other than wanting to make Graver look bad? I don't really care what kind of guy he is or what he looks like, so long as the material he was affiliated with comes out right.

[Oscar Christie]

I don't really care what kind of guy he is or what he looks like, so long as the material he was affiliated with comes out right

point taken.
In the locked thread, Pellarin/Arkidin said editors are willing to do the job gratis. I don't think it makes any difference. Walter Murch could volunteer to do the whole thing and it would not address the intellectual property issues. I thought it was impressive seeing Oja Kodar in person and hearing her speak of orson Welles; but she has a vested interest. The agenda was exactly the same as the reason Welles agreed to the AFI program in 1975, to try interest someone in the audience in putting up the money for The Other Side of the Wind.

[Johnny Dale]

From the locked thread on the L.A. screenings:

On a sidenote: I must sadly say that I was surprised to see that alot of the Welles fans in attendance look like homeless refugees, fresh from a downtown soup kitchen.

I can't let this one go unanswered. I don't know who this person is, but the crowd was not like that at all.

[Jeff Wilson]

I wouldn't take much of what that individual says seriously; he's a troll with not much imagination, judging from the email he sent me recently from the address URLame@aol.com.

[L French]

Good News Welles fans: I have located the missing interview tapes with Stefan Drosseler! So all the many questions about the Welles programs that have been posted for Mr. Drosseler in a seperate thread will now be answered on Wellesnet - along with many other fascinating details - once I have transcribed the tapes, and allowed Stefan to review them, since English is not his native language.

I also have conducted a long interview with Gary Graver, and I must say I found both Stefan and Gary to be very nice, down to earth people, with many interesting stories and quite fascinating information on Welles. Of course, once the interviews are posted by Jeff on Wellesnet, readers will be able to decide that for themselves...

I also must say, I found each of the six programs presented by Mr. Drosseler to to be of tremendous interest and excitment, and can't imagine anyone interested in Welles work not wanting to see them. The standout program for me was devoted to the unfinished films, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND and THE DEEP. Having read comments by several people that suggested OSOTW is not very good, or doesn't deserve to be finished - I totally disagree with that negative assesement - especially after seeing the beautiful selections of clips (all edited by Welles) and assembled by Stefan. While it may be true that a completed OSOTW may not play nearly as well as the clips, since a good deal of editing remains to be done on the film - which obviously cannot be done by Welles. However, the six clips shown in LA were all quite brilliant in their conception and execution, and clearly indicate to me that OSOTW would be a Welles masterpiece if he had finished editing it.

Two new scenes I'd not seen before were standouts, and I'd not seen any comment on them previously:

An exchange between Jake (John Huston) and Zarah Valeska (Lilli Palmer) before Jake blows out the candles on his birthday cake. Zarah asks Jake about his leading man, John Dale walking off his picture, and presents him with his birthday cake, telling him to blow out the candles. Hannaford caustically says, we should get Juliette Riche if we want somebody to blow…

The scene contains several beautifully framed shots of Lilli Palmer and John Huston, both lit by the candles on the cake, but they are never seen in the same shot - only in reverse shots - but beautifully edited together - just as Huston describes in his autobiography, since Lilli Palmer had already shot her scenes.


Another scene is set on the MGM studio back lot:

John Dale (Bob Random) is seen standing naked on a raised set, and starts pulling his pants up, as the red Indian actress (Kodar) approaches him. She leads him to an old bed frame with no mattress - only rusty springs, allowing the ensuing sex scene to be shot from below the bed at a low angle. Amid the standing sets of the studio backlot they lie down and begin to make love, while all through the scene, Hannaford is directing the two actors offscreen on how to play it, giving his directions in a increasingly negative tone to John Dale - the handsome young star he secretly covets. Hannaford says: (I'm paraphrasing here) "That's it move your hand slowly across her thigh," then - "Johnny, really stick your tongue in her mouth," etc. Finally as Hannaford's directions become more and more abusive, John Dale gets up from the bed, and runs off down the dirt street of the studio backlot town, stark naked, as the camera pans over and follows him. Hannaford continues taunting him: "that's it, leave now and you'll never work in this town again... Keep the camera rolling boys, I want a complete record of this." Though we never see Huston, his performance dominates the scene with the marvelous vocal intonations of his voice.

We then cut back to Jake's birthday party where the sex scene was being projected, as the camera pans across the long faces of Jake's cronies (Edmond O' Brien, Mercy McCambridge, etc) who are standing in semi-darkness, lit only by the light of the movie projector shining it's image on the screen…

In typical Welles precision, the last slow panning shot in Hannafords movie, from right to left, is matched by a cut to the slow panning shot in the projection room from left to right.



And finally, here is an early scene, that ends on a highly comic note, and recalls the car driving scenes in TOUCH OF EVIL - since we know that the camera in TOE was mounted on the hood of the cars, in OSOTW we actually see the cameraman shooting Hannaford on the hood of the car in the following sequence:

Hannaford is driving a covertable sports car through a twisting hilly road (the Hollywood Hills?) and Brooks Otterlake, a hot young director and protégé of Hannaford's is seated next to him.
In the back seat are two journalists, and on the hood and trunk of the car, are a cameraman and a soundman, who are both positioned to record Hannaford's every word. The opening lines play in overlapping dialogue.


CAMERAMAN
Okay, I'm ready to go.

PISTER
Mr. Hannaford...

SOUNDMAN
Don't mind us.

HANNAFORD
I want a drink.

PISTER
Mr. Hannaford, is the camera eye a
reflection of reality, or is reality
a reflection of the camera eye?
Or is the camera really a phallus?

OTTERLAKE
Take it from me fellows. Our friend
here, he just hates being interviewed.
So I donated a lot of my own tapes.
Save your voice Skipper. It's all here
on the tapes. Right here -- Listen.
Let's scatter them here and there among
you cineastes. To spare him as many
questions as possible.
Answers -- now those are my department.


A glass of whiskey is poured for Hannaford


OTTERLAKE
The Whiskey's for him, Pister...

HANNAFORD
And let's have it.

Hannaford is handed the glass and a delighted look appears on his face.

SOUNDMAN
Mr. Hannaford, could you please slow
down... Otherwise I'm going to fall
off the car.

The camera pulls back to reveal the soundman sprawled across the trunk of the car, holding on for dear life, as Hannaford speeds around a turn in the curving road.

[blunted by community]

L French, excellent stuff.

too bad the show will never play south of where it played.

[Hannaford]

Short description from the script for
The Other Side of the Wind: Jake Hannaford was a vagabond... He worked for Hollywood but he took his cameras around the world... When he didn't find himself in the tropical jungles, the icy tundras, or a country where it was hunting season, the place where he felt most "at home" was in Spain.

[Jeff Wilson]

Can we now direct this thread back to discussion on the unfinished Welles material screened in LA and NY? And please everyone, refrain from using people's real names unless they have allowed you to do so or they are already doing so. Thanks.

Thanks for posting that material Todd, it sounds amazing, judging from the description. Hopefully it will get the wider viewing it deserves, one way or another.



Edited By Jeff Wilson on Feb. 26 2004 at 09:35

[Johnny Dale]

I note Jeff's concern about the increasingly nasty tone of the recent posts, but I still want to respond to the cheap shot taken at Oja Kodar on the locked thread on the L.A. screenings.
I don't think the mischaracterization of Ms. Kodar should stand as the last word at Wellesnet on her L.A. appearance.
For the record, she was dignified and informative and we were fortunate to have had the chance to hear her in person.
There are others who have tarnished the Welles legacy, but Oja Kodar, who dedicated her life to the man, deserves kinder treatment from the members of this board.