Welles interview 1947 - Hedda Hopper

[Eve]

a nice little 'interview' ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Grafic-MAGICIAN-GWYNN-Orson-Welles-JIMMY-STEWART-A-Ross_W0QQitemZ250436886358QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMagazines?hash=item3a4f339f56&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A10%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A0%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50

[Roger Ryan]

Interesting how diplomatic Welles is when discussing "taking the time" to ensure Hayworth's performance is top drawer in LADY FROM SHANGHAI when, in fact, he was forced to do retakes/inserts by Cohn which were diluting his original vision for the film.

I was surprised, as well, to hear him discuss his plans for a bare-stage MOBY DICK performance this early.

Thanks Eve for providing us with this link.

[Alan Brody]

Welles also mentions wanting to do a film of Ben Hecht's short story The Shadow. I tracked it down at the library and it's a good little 12-page read, with a doppelganger theme of the type that ran through some of Welles's work. He actually did do it on radio, but changed the title to 'The Marvelous Borastro'. I think it's likely Hecht wrote the original story with Welles in mind:

"... But Sarastro was the true charlatan and one forgave him this. One even demanded it of him.
--Often, while listening to his Mother Goose mysticism, his Munchausen adventures, his garbled and pompous chatter of genii, sylphs, and undines, I have grown annoyed at my own skepticism. How much more marvelous was the Marvelous Sarastro if one believed him? How much more entertaining this Arabian Night in which he lived, could one accept it with the heart of a child rather than the dull incredulity of a modern author." (from 'The Shadow' in The Collected Stories of Ben Hecht, 1945)