Callow Vol. II - Callow Vol. II: the release of the year?

[Jeff Wilson]

The above linked photo is of Welles and Colbert, from 1951, if I remember the credit, taken in Venice. It's among the Welles photos at Getty Images. They didn't have the pic from the Callow book, though.

[dmolson]

Callow does his drippiest glowing dissection on Brigitte Timmermann's book The Third Man's Vienna, published last month in the Guardian's book review section.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews....00.html

Here's an excerpt, giving you a basic flavour of his impression of Welles' enthusiasm for the Harry Lime role (one which could have bankrolled him and a few movies had he taken the offer of a piece of the pie instead of a straight wage... but at least, through its radio spin-off and general popularity, it did supply Welles with more than a few extra sheckles and improve his profile amongst the movie-loving public)...

"...His notorious and, apparently impromptu, interpolation of the lines about the cuckoo clock being the sole achievement of 400 years of peace in Switzerland was an act of defiance, Welles signalling to Reed that he didn't have absolute control."

I've read a few differing versions as to what Welles felt about this project and working with Reed. He could be a troublesome sort to direct, but I also had the sense (sorry, can't remember which book/article it came from) that he felt Reed was highly skilled and very diplomatic, that he did take to some of Welles' suggestions. OW's friendship with Cotten also smoothed things over, too.
I'm not overly dismayed that Callow seems to be entrenched in this spin of Welles being controlling and somewhat difficult; there's plenty of supporting evidence to suggest he had his moments. But there is a tone in his writing that just rubs me as being sour. Don't get me wrong, if I have the $ I'll be in line and buy the book. I'm dying to find out how the saga of our man turns out... :;):

[Store Hadji]

First time I've heard the Cuckoo Speech referred to as "notorious." We all live in our own little worlds, but Callow's doesn't overlap with mine on this point...

[Tony]

It just occurred to me: how many Brits have written books on Welles? There's Peter Noble and...

Maybe what some are objecting to is the British "tone" of Callow's writing; I have his book on Laughton and it's a masterpiece of research and writing.

Maybe we're just used to Yanks, or Frenchmen translated by Yanks, writing on Welles...

I can't imagine Callow spending 15 or 20 years on a subject he doesn't have some degree of love and admiration for. And Vol. 2 took 10 years, and it just covers 7 years of that subject's life! ???

[Store Hadji]

There's a biography of Carl Sagan I bought and recently threw in the trash...

The biographer obviously hated Sagan, so much so that I couldn't imagine that he'd actually spend the time writing a book about someone he hated so much. Similarly, only someone who hated Sagan would want to read such a book, but then again such a person wouldn't be buying a book about someone he hated to begin with.

I don't doubt that Callow has a degree of love and admiration for Welles. I don't doubt either that writers write and publishers publish negative attack-biographies.

Callow's tone is snotty and superior. Is that British? The US tone is to make fat jokes and say Welles was a burnout and Hollywood's youngest has-been. I don't like either tonality.

I'll read Callow for the research, and I'm prepared for the tone.

[tonyw]

I don't think the tone of Callow's writing reflects a particularly ethic mode of writing. After all many British people have written ob jective biographies and critical works which avoid that type of thing. Possibly, the tone of Callow's prose represents a particuylar type of professional jealousyt against a man whose achievements he can never match. Also, from the circles Callow associates with, it is also possible that a particular type of gay bitchiness rises to the surface which overwhelms the value of his research.

BTW. I'm British and hetero but try to be far and objective in what I write, the only excception being my detestation of the films of Quentin Tarantino. I find THE THIRD MAN often marred by Reed's obsessive use of canted angles. Hitchcock used the device much more sparingly in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. But with all the problems, Orson's performance in THE THIRD MAN is a brilliant "tour de force" in screen acting. So, eat your heart out Callow!

[Store Hadji]

Usually, the foreknowledge that an author is a jealous, gay bitch would steer me away ahead of time, but Callow is an exception. I was very impressed with the research in Volume 1. I expect Volume 2 to contain many factual relevations I had not known and many subjective surmises that will make me cringe. However, there are some monsters I can't take my eyes off (and others I never look at in the first place.) Magnificent monsters are worth pondering over.

[dmolson]

I loved vol. 1, by the way. it was truly well researched and featured some interesting theories, obviously biting almost wholeheartedly into the John Houseman version of the world around Orson. I did get the sense that Simon was digging around in hope of 'outing' the great director... Not that there's anything wrong with that (being gay... outing the dead based on pure gossip is malarkey -- but if Cesar Romero had really written a tell-all memoir, i'd have lapped it up!)

[Glenn Anders]

We should remember, too, that, in the first decade after the War, upper class or professional Britons tended to think of Americans as amusing fellows, but lightweight. A favorite pastime among "silly asses" I observed at that time was, "Let's find a Yankee cousin, and see if we can take the micky out of him." I was forewarned on several occasions to expect that kind of behavio, by friends I made.

One can also see it, in interviews of the time, when an Englishman says, in true astonishment: "You know, this American chap was really AWFULLY bright!"

In this regard, remember, too, that the gods of the British Theater, whom Callow would have looked up to as a young actor, didn't think much of Welles in the acting department. For instance, Olivier said or wrote, in a number of places, that Welles could never "build a performance." And Ralph Richardson seemed to agree with him.

We shall just have to wait to see what Callow writes.

Glenn

[Tony]

Glenn:
I totally agree with you- and though I never saw Welles in a theatrical performance, except Lear on TV, my guess is that Olivier and Richardson were right, which is why he was better in films, where the architecture of the "building" is in the hands of the editor.

Also: your observation that there is a British perception that 'Yanks can't really do Shakespeare, etc., because they're really just a bunch of provincials' is also, I believe, absolutley accurate, to this day, which makes one wonder why Callow would take on Welles in the first place; not only take him on , but really take him on , to the tune of possibly 4 or 5 volumes worth; if he finishes, what will the series look like?

Vol. I: 1915-1941: "The Road To Xanadu" (672 pages)
Vol. 2: 1942-1948: "Hello Americans" (656 pages)
Vol. 3: 1949-1955: "Goodbye Americans: The International Gypsy, Part I"
Vol. 4: 1956-1959: "Return To Hollywood, Part I: Anyone Need A Director?"
Vol. 5: 1960-1970: "Don Quixote and his Friends:The International Gypsy, Part II"
Vol. 6: 1970-1975: "Return to Hollywood, Part II: This Time I'm Staying"
Vol. 7: 1975-1985: "The Homegrown Gypsy: Searching For Money, Movies and Magic"

At about 660 pages per volume, that makes 4,620 pages! This, if completed, makes it one of the projects of the century. Even if Callow doesn't follow my plan (and I can't see why he wouldn't!) and only does 3 more volumes, that's still well over 3,000 pages, and at his current pace of one volume every 10 years, it would take him to 2036!! ??? However, Callow was born in 1949, so he is 67 this year, and would be 97 in 2036, so I think he should....speed up!

Seroiusly, nobody would take on this kind of commitment just to take the mickey out of someone; I believe Callow is a serious fan, far more than any of us!

After all, he's doing it!

[dmolson]

Although Callow may be a spry '57' -- sorry to correct your typo Tony -- I'd bet he'll fall short of your wonderfully clever opus schedule... my guess, after Vol 2 'Hello Americans' (656pgs), he'll do some scrabble editing with the next bit, coming out with Vol 3, 1949-1970 'Dining and Dashing on the Continent' and finally Vol 4, 1970-85 'Wound up and winding down, sideways style'.
There certainly is enough material for your 7 volume 'Forsythian Saga' biography.

[tonyw]

Following Glenn's comment, I'd like to add a line from THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1980) where Harold shand (Bob Hoskins) tells his aristocratic mistress (Helen Mirren), "The Yanks don't really know that they've arrived in England until the aristocracy treat them like shit."

[Glenn Anders]

Wonderful, Tony! And from the depths of my movie memory, I can hear Hoskin's delivery of that line. Yes, in regard to British knights looking down on their Americn squires, we are speaking of British-American relations before Canary Wharf (which is the subtext of THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY).

Michael Caine once said that there were three great British gangster films, and that either he or Hoskins were connected to the three of them.

[He was ignoring Jules Dassins' NIGHT AND THE CITY, a grievous oversight.]

I fairly agree with dmolson that Callow will have to condense his
Welles effluent. Possibly in Volume Four, which seems do-able, being then a very old actor, he will gain some compassion for how exhausting the multitudinous commitments of Welles' professional life must have been as he approached 70.

Rosebud, indeed.

Glenn

[Harvey Chartrand]

This is no Callow youth of whom we speak, but a man for all seasons embarked on a "décade prodigieuse" commitment to document Welles' life and career in unprecedented detail. Sounds like the author should retitle this epic work THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SPIN!

[Tony]

Here's Peter Noble, (a British author who wrote books such as 'The British Theatre', 'The British Film' and 'The British Film Yearbook', and who also wrote a very flattering bio of Welles called 'The Fabulous Orson Welles in 1956) talking about Welles's Macbeth and its reception in England:

"Macbeth's showing in England was held up for several years, Orson himself expressing dissatisfaction with the American accents of most of his cast...During the production of Othello, Welles re-recorded some of the dialogue of Macbeth, changing the American accents to a strong and rather weird Scottish brogue...British critical reception was fairly unfavourable...Traditionally our critics have never liked Holywood's interpretations of Shakespeare...Some of the critics hated the gloomy settings. Some hated Lady Macbeth. Others hated the alleged Scottish accents. Several of them disliked Orson..."

"The truth is," stated Campbell Dixon, in the Daily Telegraph, "that though America can do magnificently some things that we do badly or not at all, the Elizabethan drama is generally outside their range. Our best players come to it with the priceless advantage of a tradition and a method built up through the centuries and not to be improvised even by the brilliant Orson Welles. It is not just a question of inteligence; Mr. Welles is probably a more brilliant man, certainly a more inventive man, than Forbes-Robertson ever was, who is said to have confessed that all his life he had been saying 'absent thee from felicity awhile' without knowing what the words meant, [but nevertheless] could go on acting Hamlet with every appearance of the most sensitive understanding...it is a matter of technique."

I particularily like the last comment: even if the British don't know what they're saying when they play Shakespeare, they still say it better than an American because of their "tradition".
My bet is this attitude still persists today, even among non-British. Welles must have been quite an effrontery to traditionalists, with not only his style of playing and directing Shakespeare, but especially with the all-black "voodoo" Macbeth. :;):