dick cavett - youtube

[Glenn Anders]

Skylark: The IS PARIS BURNING? interview is one of Welles' most frank and succinct introspections on what made him tick artistically. That reviewer really seemed to get to him. Thank you.

And . . . wonderful, tonyw! I'm glad you agree with me about "To Build a Fire." Is there any chance you might be able to share it with us?

Glenn

[Alan Brody]

That Paris Burning interview is a good one because the interviewer challenges Welles without being overly rude and gets more candid and interesting answers out of him. There's actually more to that interview which hopefully will be put online also.

[tonyw]

Glenn, By "share" do you mean copy or comment? I can do both.

[Glenn Anders]

Tonyw: I'm sure that many of us would welcome a commentary on "To Build a Fire" from you, certainly a copy, if you can post one.

Both would be most appreciated.

I know that I've seen this production of "To Build a Fire" only once, and that was by accident, years ago.

Glenn

[tonyw]

OK Glenn, I will look for my copy. I have also written on Jack London's work in the past, as well as his film adaptations. If I can't find it, I will refer to what I have written in JACK LONDON: THE MOVIES (1992).

[Glenn Anders]

Thank you, tony.

I shall have to seek out your book. I could not find much that was specific about your study on google, except that it received wonderful reviews.

There was also a long appreciation of the Kingmans, collaborators of yours, for which you contributed remarks.

Larry French and Todd Baesen tell me that they have never seen this TV adaptation of "To Build a Fire," for which Welles provided his marvelous narration -- a cutting of the story itself, I should think. In my memory, the performance was very like the best work that he did for the Mercury Theater on the Air, The Campbell Playhouse, etc., using similar rough and ready methods. Possibly, "To Build a Fire" was another one of those boyhood favorites of his, one that he never got around to having the Mercury produce.

Glenn

[tonyw]

TO BUILD A FIRE was directed by David Cobham and appeared on BBC TV in the late 60s during the appropriate Christmas season. My VHS copy came from a video company in Illinois during 1989. The running time is 58 minutes.

As a short story, London's original lends itself to the type of abbreviation he often did in the Mercury Theatre on stage and radio to arrive at the essence of any narrative. After a brief introduction outlining the historical circumstances of the Klondike gold rush, Welles begins London's narration over shots of the two main characters in the narrative: the "chechako" (tenderfoot) and his dog. With his superb powers of vocal articulation, Welles complements London's text with his description of the limited mindset of the traveler, his much more experienced dog, sympathy with the man's plight, and a cosmic understanding of the man 's eventual fate. The vocal delivery is superbly matched by Cobham's non-flamboyant visual style making excellent use of the snowy landscape and the gradually forming icicles on the man's beard and his frostbitten cheeks.

In many ways, this short film resembles Welles's delivery of lines from MOBY DICK and his other ventures into literature that we know of from THE UNKNOWN ORSON WELLES and other sources. Welles respects the author and delivers a measured, meaningful type of vocal delivery both relevant to the context of the original text in a manner expressing his love of good literarature and his pleasure at telling a good story.

It took me some time to acquire this VHS tape after seeing the original broadcast on BBC TV several years before on its original transmission. I believe it was a collaboration between the BBC and Canada in many ways foreshadowing the later short story adaptations of MR. Lewis such as WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU MY LAD directed by Jonathan Miller.

Cobham later went on to produce a 1981 series TALES OF THE KLONDIKE once available on VHS. They were very good versions of London's short stories. Jack London has not fared very well in most film and television adaptions but this is one of the really good ones aided by the professional vocal commentary of one of America's greatest talents.

[Glenn Anders]

Excellent, tonyw!

I'm not familiar with WHISTLE AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD, but I have read about TALES OF THE KLONDIKE, somewhere.

A search of my fading memory doesn't reveal when I saw TO BUILD A FIRE. It may have been when I was visiting a home in Great Britain. That would explain my almost complete lack of context for the film. I know that I was surprised to see it, and very impressed. It may have been when I was on a sabbatical there with my new wife Grace and children. I recall now that Paul, her son, was very keen on it, too.

I wonder if TO BUILD A FIRE was not intended as a pilot for the later TALES OF THE KLONDIKE. I notice that the IMDb uncharacteristically has only skimpy details on the series, and doesn't mention TO BUILD A FIRE at all, but does list Welles as narrator for the series.

Thank you, tonyw, for jogging my memory.

Glenn

[Skylark]

Welles at Cannes with Zanuck and Negri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8oUzrGWNR8

The Tartars trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9cfq58rH_8

The Trial trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7UmE8wWqqs

Welles play jazz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYsCf1r-HJg

Welles Woodward radio show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ6QkXJszIk

[Alan Brody]

That's an interesting video of the jazz record, which I assume is a 78rpm. Welles was right: Dixieland jazz is great fun to hear live if you can track a performance down. Sadly, that's easier said then done nowadays, and when you do find one, there's hardly a person in the audience under 50, and few under 60. But then, it appears to have been an anachronism even back in Welles's day, so perhaps it will find some way to keep going in the future. BTW, has anyone ever heard the Almanac program recorded the night after clarinetist Jimmy Noone's fatal heart attack? It's mentioned in several Welles biographies, but appears to be one of the Almanac shows that's missing now. Welles is said to have given a very eloquent and moving tribute to Noone. It would be an interesting program to hear if anybody knows how to get it.

[Skylark]

Welles on What's my line?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J7AZ5oagoo

Welles on fake fortune-tellers -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cEadctJdwM

Welles predicts September 11?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri6NfmST3-4

[NoFake]

Just had a chance to watch the "What's My Line?", which I found both an enlightening and ironic bit of history. I wonder how Welles felt, hearing hiimself introduced by Arlene Francis as "one of America's most brilliant actors," with not even a nod to his directing accomplishments, and then have the pain compounded by having the film "The Long Hot Summer" cited as an example? (He later told Bogdanovich that he "hated making" TLHS: "I've seldom been as unhappy in a picture.") At least Bennett Cerf had the acumen to note that it was the "first time we ever had Macbeth on this panel," although even then, he was no doubt referring to Welles's acting. Welles may have taken comfort in the fact that ToE was (I'm guessing) about to come out...

[Glenn Anders]

Your provocative "Welles Predicts September 11?" title for Welles' French interview recalls for me, skylark, that he had made a similar rather more specific prediction in THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW (1980). On my old computer, I had an interview with the director of that quasi-documentary, in which he remarked, Welles had insisted that he re-translate and re-interpret a number of Nostradamus's Quatrains to suit himself. The director said that he went along with the changes. Unfortunately, that interview seems now lost in cyberspace.

Here is a URL for my review of THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW, published in late September of 2001, which provides a salubrious sidebar to the French interview:

http://www.epinions.com/review/mvie_mu- ... 1525546628

Thank you, skylark, for these rare clips. Do you have a date for the "Welles Predicts September 11?" interview?

Glenn

[Skylark]

that he had made a similar rather more specific prediction in THE MAN WHO SAW TOMORROW (1980).

Maybe that's what THEY want us to think. Just kidding, the opportunity to use that line was too good to pass up.

Interesting essay actually- It brings home the idea for me that even Welles' so-called (often by himself) marginal works are worth looking into as there are frequently signs that he invested himself beyond what his role called for.

Unfortunately, there has been comparitively little study or documentation of these works, coupled with a certain negative stigma that Welles' reputation has in the mainstream media, making the study of Welles' prophetic inclinations rather a dodgy subject.

But I think you're onto something - although there would need to be more definite information, methinks.

The 'September 11' interview (the uploader's definition) is apparently part of a French experimental film, from 2008.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer_et_moi
It says that the footage was related to an unfinished film from 1982, Pantheon, involving Welles and Eugene Ionesco.

[Glenn Anders]

Yes, I agree, skylark. I wish the Robert Guenette interview would surface. His recollections would substantiate the prophecy you present. I just can't find it now.

And what has happened to this "experimental French film" you've unearthed? Any film partly written by Bertrand Tervanier and featuring Claude Chabrol should be preserved somewhere.

I certainly think that a case can be made for Welles' often uncanny interest in prophesy and the occult, in both major and minor projects.

Keep up the good hunt.

Glenn