Magnificent Ambersons Radio Program

[Tony]

How can one see Roger Ryan's version? I feel like I haven't been picked for the ball team!

Tony

[Jeff Wilson]

Tony, I have no problem with discussion of Welles' politics or how they are portrayed in his work. The discusson at hand seemed only loosely at best relate to Welles.

[Glenn Anders]

Tony, Tashman, [now there's a name for a movie star]: In deference to Jeff, I shall be brief.

There is an avalanche of books, Tony, on Welles' long standing concern [the tendency of America and Americans to justify totalitarian methods] now falling from the presses. Here are just a few eye-witness and scholarly works, I recently saw well reviewed:

Lawless World: America and the Making and Breaking of Global Rules from FDR's Atlantic Charter to George W. Bush's Illegal War by Philippe Sands (Viking); Lawless World: The Whistle-Blowing Account of How Our Leaders Are Taking the Law into Their Own Hands [update of the above) by Philippe Sands (Penguin); War Law: Understanding International Law and Armed Conflict by Michael Byers (Grove); Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq by Stephen Kinzer (Times Books).

So you, Welles, and the irascible Chomsky are not alone, Tony.

The gist of these books seems to be that America's thirst for Empire is little different from that of Napoleon's France or Hitler's Germany, but that the methods which we have increasingly employed begin to resemble more those of the latter dictator than those of the former.

I think you will find, Tashman, that the Welles' quotation cited from Callow's book came after World War II. A man of his political prescience, one who had thought long and deeply about the rise of fascism, one who had discussed the dangers with the likes of FDR, knew exactly what he was saying. Obviously, if a majority of Germans had realized in 1935 what would happen by 1945, they would have booted the Nazi Party out of power. By the time Welles made his remark (I believe), his knowledge of America's use of the Atom Bomb, no matter its justification, would have been added to his ruminations.

The shadow of that bomb is cast across both ends of his statement.

It was Emerson who said that there is always change but not necessarily progress. You do contravene human nature to suggest that "it can't happen here." It can happen ANYWHERE.

All we have is the Bill of Rights. And in the best of times, most Americans could not name them; therefore, not surprisingly, they don't miss one or two being ignored, here and there.

Welles would have known that from at least the time of THE STRANGER.

"Go along to get along," eh? Not my style, Tashman. I would have been in a concentration camp with the other idealists.

As for the rest, we seem in fair agreement. It is more in the degree of danger that we differ, not in the kind of danger.

THE END, indeed! I hope that it is one of those happy ones, not a Wellesian puff of dark smoke.

Glenn

[mteal]

Thanks for the link to Chomsky's latest, Tony. I remember him saying once that after WWII, the U.S. basically picked up where the Nazis left off. Hyperbole perhaps, but I wonder how much Welles would have agreed.

Although he was not afraid to warn about the growth of America's atomic arsenal, or note the parallels that could be drawn between the Third Reich and the KKK, I think Welles's warning about the 'American Century' and world supremacy referred primarily to economics and post-war moneylending. Here's the full excerpt from Naremore's MAGIC WORLD OF ORSON WELLES:

(After the war) the new, more liberalized economic arrangements being made for the world were being theatened by official hypocrisies. Welles was especially concerned about the fate of the Bretton Woods proposals, which would slash interest rates and allow all countries to borrow from a world bank "without secret, war-breeding deals". The Bretton Woods idea was aimed at preventing the rise of speculators like the "match king" Krueger, who had grown rich after the first world war, but it was being opposed in the U.S. by Senator Taft and the Republican right wing - or, as Welles put it, "by that little Wall St. Camarilla who once did so very well by floating foreign loans at fat fees." Taft had wanted to substitute another plan, whereby the U.S. and Great Britain would reach an agreement on the dollar and the pound, extending credits to other countries. What they offered, Welles remarked, was "the old 'key' notion and currency gag - and behind this gaudily altruistic facade one notices that something is missing. Something called the Soviet Union." Even the British, Welles noted, were to become "junior partners in the firm, playing an emphatically minor role, and one bound to get smaller through the years." Welles shuddered at what might result:

"We are the world's greatest production plant and the largest creditor nation. Without sensible economic agreements between England and the U.S., Mr. Luce's prediction of an American century will come true, and God help us all. We'll make Germany's bid for world supremacy look like amateur night, and the inevitable retribution will be on a comparable scale."

I have to admit I don't really understand what is meant by the 'old key notion and currency gag'. Glenn?

[The Voice of Cornstarch]

Glenn,

I have enormous respect for you as a reviewer, which is why I'm so disappointed that you would only give the extisting Ambersons two or three stars. Even in its butchered form it stands head and shoulders above any other film I've ever seen and is the primary reason for my interest in Welles.


With regard to the political discussion of the board, again meaning no disrespect to Glenn, I'm pleased that Jeff has cited the rule book.

I'd like to see the discussion of Ambersons moved to another thread, to end the politicization of the discussion.
For reasons I don't fully understand, those of us who are not left of center can quickly be made to feel like we haven't been picked for the ball team when the discussion turns political on a Welles board.

Two things then I'll shut up.

1) Glenn, I'm second to none in my admiration for your knowledge, writing and lifetime of experience. But it is simply innapropriate for anyone, even someone such as yourself with a living memory of those times, to write that the United States of America is comparable to nazi Germany.

2) I'd appreciate not having to read about Chomsky here. I come to this board to be educated and entertained not nausiated.

[Tony]

Glenn and mteal:

Suddenly, while reading your guy's fascinating posts, something that Welles said to Bogdanovich on those tapes popped into my head: it's a statement I've always been fascinated with, but it might just be a throwaway: Welles is talking about how he was dubbing Ambersons in that Florida studio and rushing to get the plane south, etc., and he says: "...and to the end of civilization as we knew it." And then he laughs uproarously. It seems quite a strange moment, as it was the end of a period of his life, of his greatest popular sucess, as well as a change in the world. And this links in my mind to something that william burroughs said, something about the huge change in human society was not the rennaissance, the reformation, the intro of democracy or the industrial revolution, but rather the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945: THAT would be, and is, the demarcating point from civilization as we once knew it, and the "Brave New World" we're living in now: something terribly dark had been introduced into the world on a previously unimaginable scale.

And Ambersons got caught right in the middle of that, as America lost it's innocence and was coarsened by it's new world power. I'm reminded of Rome, which for it's first 500 years or so was the Republic of Rome (I hope I've got this right), and then became the "Roman Empire" complete with the Ceasars for the next 500; sometimes I wonder "Is this happening now to America?". And I remember, of course, Eisenhower's warning about the growing "military-industrial complex", which was such a stunning thing for an ex-general to say.

Lisetning to his radio shows, reading his columns and reading his interviews, one realizes what an incredibly politically astute man Welles was. I have a cd of his 1946 "Orson Welles Commentaries" radio show on ABC, and it's amazing how much he was a serious student of politics, and so into the condition of the body politic. No matter the quality of Callow's latest opus, I salute him for shining the light on Welles's liberal politics and values, and how they so deeply influenced his directorial work. :;):

[Glenn Anders]

Cornstarch: It may be that seeing THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS only a year or so after CITIZEN KANE was too much of a letdown. The first picture, which I saw at the age of ten, impressed me more than any other film I've seen. Cynicism creeps up fast, and after so looking forward to another picture by this marvelous Mr. Welles (known to me through Radio since I was seven), THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS was a disappointment. Naturally, at that age, I could not really understand the complexity of what Welles was about, as I had the brilliant montage of . . . KANE. I liked some scenes in . . .AMBERSONS, not others. Most of the scenes I liked turned out to be ones Welles had shot. The ones I didn't like tended to be done by the hacks. But my overall impression was of a talky picture, not terribly different than one I might see every Wednesday evening with my mother at Shea's Theater.

I've never been able to shake that impression, but today, I fully respect what Welles was attempting.

You may be happy to know that I can take Chomsky or leave him on a number of issues.

I know that many people, Cornstarch, perhaps almost all Americans, react with indignation when anyone hints that a comparison between Nazi Germany and Post-War America is possible. America trumpets its belief in freedom so loudly, used to condemn empire so soundly.

[Note: In my childhood, teen years, and most of my years into my prime, I was continually derided, even shouted down, if I observed the possibility that the United States might have an empire in Cuba, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Philippines, the Canal Zone, etc. "No, No, NO!" people said. "You don't understand. We're different. We are just holding these lands in trust." I eventually took a degree in Political Science, in part to figure it out. Latterly, as we gradually released physical power over these places, I tried the tack of "Economic Imperialism," but that was as roundly condemned. Now . . . all of a sudden, in just five years actually . . . .]

Americans have a tremendous sense of pride, and though we may reluctantly admit to bad things, there is something infuriating about the suggestion that the United States could commit the kinds of acts that Nazi Germany did.

Yet, since World War II (since the Spanish American War, if you believe a book I cite above), we have overthrown duly elected governments, occupied foreign lands, abrogated treaties, set up concentration camps, opted out of the Geneva Conventions, threatened to dump the United Nations, held ourselves innocent of International War Crimes, denied that Global Warming exists in the face of decades of evidence to the contrary (eventually drowning out large populated areas of the World) and employed torture methods we had earlier attributed to the Nazis and Japanese -- and the Russians, later. Should we count the two atom bombs, we have been responsible for the deaths of six or seven million innocent civilians. Innocent, in the sense that the Dutch burgers were in the Nazi invasion of Holland, when Hitler bombed the Open City of Rotterdam in 1940, the first truly monstrous crime laid at Hitler's bunker door. "Collateral damage" (a rather lately coined term) in Vietnam, Central America, South America, Africa, and the Middle East, etc.

We now have declared that we shall preemptively attack and conquer up to sixty sovereign nations, using atomic weapons if convenient to us, should we be displeased with them. "All options are on the table," as the Administration likes to say. We are now moving to control Earth from Space, and to prevent others from using Space, if we don't want them to. Absurdly (and I do throw this in for ho-ho-ho's), in the early days of President Bush's First Term, NASA gave a contract to Halliburton to develop mining equipment for use on Mars!

[Who said we couldn't strike back at those little green men?]

If all that doesn't form a basis for comparison with Nazi Germany, Cornstarch, Ray Bradbury and I have some hot dog stand sites on Mars we want to sell you.

That was what Welles meant (as more fully amplified by Tony and mteal) when he said an American Century would make Germany look like amateur night. And the comparable retribution, he speaks of, will come because Russia and China will not patiently temporize forever. Our acts are covertly directed at them, and will eventually focus openly upon them, for they have the minerals we need, and we want to control the oil in the Middle East and Central Asia they will need. Meanwhile, "the war on terror" is largely a smokescreen, a very costly smokescreen because we didn't realize that it was going to be more than a convenient excuse.

That's the scenario, as I see it, and one way or another, we all go BOOM, if we continue on the present course. Welles will have his ending to THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND.

One does not have to be a Left-winger, Cornstarch. (I don't know what that means; there have been few who would admit to being of the Far Left in America since shortly after the War). One does not have to be a Right-winger. (Almost all of us are at least a little right of Center, whatever that means today, because the acts described above are done in our in our names, as citizens of a supposed democracy.) We should all deplore these acts as Welles did, or would if he were alive. We should express our shame, instead of pretending "only Nazis would do things like that."

That's how I see it, and believe me, I see it with the deepest sorrow. It weighs on me every day.

Perhaps, it began, as George and Eugene appeared to agree in . . . AMBERSONS, with the automobile and its oil hungry, polluting engine (which we learned could also be put in planes and tanks as part of "The Arsenal of Democracy," now "The Arsenal of the New American Empire.")

Sleepy. Good night, Cornstarch, Tony, mteal.

Glenn

[Tony]

Well said, Glenn. And Welles will have his ending to Don Quixote, too!:O

[Clive Dale]

Glenn,

As always you write most impressively.

I'm sorry that in years gone by you were derided, even shouted down for your views.

I have to point out that in today's academic environment I have experienced more significant retribution for views that are not extreme, just not "progressive." I note that most 'Wellesians' who post and publish have left of center views reflecting the perspective of most academics. You have to know that today there are real and strong penalties that are imposed on those academics who state publically the views held by half of the electorate of the USA.

[Glenn Anders]

Interesting, Clive Dale.

I'm sorry to hear your report from the academic trenches.

In my years of teaching, we were governed by the California "Controversial Issues" regulations, which require balanced presentations. I always attempted to be scrupulous in giving both sides of the questions discussed here, and only when the students raised questions or the material was germane. There were certain incidents of retribution, but I weathered them.

I trust that you will be able to, also, Clive Dale.

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

Here is a concise record, drawn from my review of TOUCH OF EVIL, covering some of the major efforts that Welles made to combat fascist behavior in America:

"Welles had been identified with Civil Rights themes long before the general public or government became aroused to this kind of injustice in American Society. From 1935, when the 20 year-old true Boy Wonder produced and directed a Harlem all-black adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, to the end of his life, Welles fought fascism in all its forms; and for the rights of minorities, women, and people of faith.

"In March 1941, following his earlier promotion of black artists, he directed the landmark Mercury Theater Broadway Production of Richard Wright's Native Son, starring Canada Lee (Banquo in his 1935 Macbeth). In April of that year, a month before the release of CITIZEN KANE, he wrote, directed and narrated a controversial radio play "His Honor -- The Mayor," about a Mexican Border political leader's fight against a racist, anti-union group: The White Crusaders. A week later, FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover sent a memo to U.S. Attorney Mathew F. McGuire detailing Welles' activities and associations.

"Hoover would also become interested in Welles' close relationships with Delores Del Rio and Lena Horne, and in the fact he married Latina Rita (Cansino) Hayworth in 1942.

"That year Welles brought the marvelous Miss Horne with seminal Jazz Artists Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington to Hollywood, under contract, to work on a Jazz Segment for his proposed IT'S ALL TRUE.

"This segment of IT'S ALL TRUE, I've recently learned, became the basis of an early mixed-race film NEW ORLEANS (Rubin, 1947), with Arturo de Cordoba (playing the proposed Welles part), Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Meade Lux Lewis, etc. (It has now become available on Kino Video.)

"While Director Norman Foster (JOURNEY INTO FEAR, with Welles, 1942) worked for him in Mexico on another segment of the project, MY FRIEND BONITO (never finished), Welles himself flew to Brazil to film two opening sections: one a history of the Samba, featuring a racially diverse cast; and a documentary about a group of revolutionary fishermen who sailed 1000 miles, entered Rio Harbor, and pleaded with Brazilian Dictator Vargas for economic reforms.

"IT'S ALL TRUE was to be Welles' first use of technicolor, and although Nelson Rockefeller encouraged the project on behalf of the U.S. Government, the film never came together. It is the project that ended his autonomy in Hollywood, and dogged the rest of his career with charges that he was undisciplined, could not complete pictures. Welles reflected, years later, that his resolve to use people of color, some of them unknown, in key starring roles was completely unacceptable to the new management at RKO.

"Welles' interest in Civil Rights and Freedoms did not abate, however, especially in radio, where he continued to feature Afro-American and Latin American themes.

"In the summer of 1946, Welles became involved in two significant early Post-War Civil Rights incidents: "The Sleepy Lagoon Murder Case" in LA, and the beating and blinding of Black Naval Veteran Isaac Woodward, Jr, by police in South Carolina.

"In the murder case, Welles acted as spokesman for 17 young Chicanos arrested and beaten for murder when a man was run over by a car. This is one of several incidents that form the basis of the police scandal early in LA CONFIDENTIAL (Hanson, 1998). In the second case, Welles used his radio commentary program to help bring to book a policeman who administered the beating to Naval Veteran Woodward, and to publicize the policeman's eventual sentencing to a year in jail for the atrocity.

"Nine years after these incidents, on the Orson Welles Sketchbook (BBC-TV), May 7, 1955, Welles related Woodward's story and commented: "I am willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job. But it's the essence of our society that a policeman's job should be hard. He's there to protect the free citizen, not to chase criminals -- that's an incidental part of his job." (An unconventional view, not often heard in media, and the basis for Welles interpretation of TOUCH OF EVIL.)

"In 1958, returning to Hollywood to direct his last completed Hollywood film, with the help of Cinematographer Russell Metty (Welles, THE STRANGER, 1946), and with a first major musical score by Henry Mancini, Welles re-fashioned Whit Masterson's novel Badge of Evil to illustrate the above stated theme.

"In TOUCH OF EVIL, a border town police captain, Hank Quinlan (Welles), is called to investigate a car explosion, which has killed a prominent citizen Rudy Linnaker and his mistress. Quinlan, as he has many times before, makes a quick assessment; in this case that a Mexican shoe clerk has committed the murder because he is romantically involved with the dead man's daughter. Quinlan then sets about, also as he has done before, to manufacture the circumstantial evidence that will complete his case."

The complete review of TOUCH OF EVIL may be found here:

http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-56EB-4CC3BE-38C95F91-prod4

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

I wonder what Welles would think of the present immigration controversey, more specifically, the rise of "The Minute Men"?

[But that may be Off Topic on this thread.]

Glenn