Best books on Orson Welles?

[Glenn Anders]

Yes-s-s-s . . . or Professor Moriarty¡

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

I admit it, you two have discovered the truth: I'm actually David Thomson! And while I appreciate Glenn's coming to my defense, I must agree with my alter-ego, Todd Baesen when he notes all the factual mistakes I've made in my writings about Orson Welles.

Of course, I made many of those "mistakes" intentionally. What better way to stir up a little harmless controversy and get Welles fans talking.

It certainly seems to have gotten Jonathan Rosenbaum's attention!!

[Alfred Willmore]

Dear Mr. French,

I am writing to report to you, as Sheriff of Wellesnet & wellesnet.com, a direct violation of express written wellesnet policy.

Somewhere in the archives, you may read a finding by Mr. Wilson to the effect that no persons may under any circumstances use a "sock puppet" or other false identity / alias for their wellesnet sign-in.
All persons are only to use their own names, or a derivative of their given legal names, as their wellesnet identity.

In the preceding post, the infamous Orson Welles opportunist, David Thomson, has, at last, acnowledged, what has long been suspected - namely that he has been for some time posting to this board under the assumed name "Todd Baeson".
Perhaps, just a guess, the first name is taken from The School for Boys in Illinois.
Anyway, I wanted to be sure you were aware that in addition to a multitude of offenses against the memory and good name of Orson Welles, Mr. Thomson has been regularly trashing this board with the incoherent ramblings posted under the handle "Todd Baeson".

Sincerely,

Alfred Willmore
Willesden, London

[Alfred Willmore]

Keats wrote:

remarks are best directed at topics of discussions rather than victimizing particular members of the forum. . . Unfortunately, there is something true in all this. I am more than certain that there is a poster here using two identities for his own agenda.

Make no mistake.
I am calling on Larry French to banish "Todd Baeson" from this board forever for exactly the violations that Keats has enumerated here.

By the way, Keats,

Why Don't You Lighten Up ?
and
R . e . l . a . x

[Alfred Willmore]

.

[Harvey Chartrand]

People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the visitors to this site?...It’s just not right. It’s not right. It’s not, it’s not going to change anything. We’ll, we’ll get our facts straight....Please, we can get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while, we don't have to agree on everything. Let’s try to work it out. Let’s try to beat it. Let’s try to beat it. Let’s try to work it out.

It's like we're all suffering a bad case of the DTs or something. Can't we all just get along?

[Alfred Willmore]

.

[Roger Ryan]

I usually avoid commenting on the various digressions that occur on message boards including this one, whether those digressions are intended to be humorous asides or personal attacks. But I think "keats" has a point about the value of keeping this site as scholarly and informative as possible. That's not to say it has to be stuffy, but staying on topic is important to the success of Wellesnet in general. A couple of months back I was exchanging emails with a Welles fan who frequented another site. I recommended he check out Wellesnet as I am normally proud of the wealth of information to be found here. "I've gone there a few times," this fellow responded, "but all I ever see are in-jokes and in-fighting. It's not worth my time." Of course, I don't feel that way as I find this site to be one of the more civil ones on the web, but I hate to think other fans of Welles coming here and being turned off by what they see.

[Alan Brody]

Is there a better Welles site then this one, despite the occasional digressions? I can't think of one. Where does your friend go, Roger? It sounds like he didn't give this site much more then a superficial look. Todd and Glenn's occasional ramblings about the "Ha-Ra club" or "vodka gimlets", or all the petty arguments between various members don't bother me. I find them rather amusing sometimes, although obviously if that's all there was here I wouldn't bother with this place. As long as I can remember, this site has always vacillated between flippancy and serious discussion, with the latter vastly outweighing the former.

And BTW, concerning David Thomson, any Welles fan who is too stupid or lazy to read or listen to someone besides that professional troll is probably not going to be much of a Welles fan for long anyway. Do we really need them?

[Roger Ryan]

[quote="Alan Brody"]Is there a better Welles site then this one, despite the occasional digressions? I can't think of one. Where does your friend go, Roger?quote]

The other site I mentioned was not devoted to Welles nor to films at all, but the subject of Welles came up there nonetheless (the man still has a pretty high profile in our culture as far as I can tell). I was taken aback by my contact's dismissive attitude towards Wellesnet and do not agree with him, but it was an opinion I thought I'd share with the posters here.

Anyway, enough of my own digression...back to "Best books on Orson Welles". Given that the majority of this thread was active prior to 2006, I'll add that Joseph McBride's "What Ever Happened To Orson Welles?" (2006 - University of Kentucky Press) contains an excellent study of the man's later work and does much to counterbalance the notion that Welles simply stopped working sometime after TOUCH OF EVIL.

[Glenn Anders]

First of all Peter (keats): Thank you for the compliment -- and compliments you extend to Terry (store hadji), Stanley Rosenbaum, and ones you might have extended to Jeff Wilson, Roger Ryan, The Night Man, tony, mido505, tonyw, Alan Brody, NoFake, Harvey Chartand, Rick Schmidlin, or a score of others. These are our little band of talented lovers of things Wellsian. As are you, at your best.

I apologize for not picking up on Todd Baesen's evident intention, aeons of posts ago here, to introduce Christopher Welles Feder's memoir, In MY FATHER'S SHADOW, as a candidate for the best book on Orson Welles. I have just finished reading her work, in less than two days, no easy task for me right now.

Mrs. Feder may consider Frank Brady's book the best one on her father, as David Thomson predicts that Simon Callow's trilogy will eventually take the honor, but I agree with Todd (presuming here again, I'm afraid} that IN MY FATHER'S SHADOW is at least the most informative study of Orson Welles, in a personal sense. Christopher was there "at the beginning, [almost] before the beginning," but as she so brilliantly and movingly admits, she was not there at "the end."

Christopher's opening chapter on the end of Welles' corporeal existence elicits the famously missing final sequence from THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. She gives us a heartbreaking portrait of muted virtual exclusion, the kind that Aunt Fanny would have understood. And then, she goes back in time to Hollywood, when she first saw Rita Hayworth -- being sawn in half by her father in 1942! From there, she proceeds to tell us of the often unrequited, sometimes neglected, but always proud and magically transforming love she had for her father. And she comes to reveal how she gradually understood only after his death the Orson Welles most of us know a bit about, partly with the help of people like Jeff Wilson, Roger Ryan, and Stefan Droessler, creators of, or contributors to, Wellesnet. That is the kind information and insight no outside observer now alive can fully equal.

She chooses to make her book "a story."

In fact, she writes in "A Note to the Reader" (which reminded me of the opening of NAKED CITY):

The book you are about to read is not another biography of Orson Welles. It owes nothing to scholarly research and everything to firsthand knowledge . . . .

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

And that's my kind of book.

I hope you are right, keats, that we shall all be unmasked in 2015 (assuming we survive 2012), but I'd much rather live in the present so long as I can. Meanwhile, let me assure you that Todd Baesen and Alfred Willmore are not the same person. One must have personal knowledge of each to make such a statement.

Harvey puts it right, as does Roger Ryan and Alan Brody, we should all try to get along here, even if the "real" Orson Welles described by Chrissie Welles in such poignant detail was closer to the one imagined by Storyteller David Thomson than the one we are so certain of "in our heart's desire."

And, keats, let me add an item for your scholarly file of postmodern allusions to Orson Welles and things Wellsian:

I have just been watching a collection of movies by the BBC's Adam Curtis (THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES: THE RISE OF THE POLITICS OF FEAR), possibly the most significant of modern documentarians about the American scene. His latest, "IT FELT LIKE A KISS (2009), "starring" Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Enos the Chimp, Saddam Hussein and other avatars serving the American myth of the Unexamined Life, contains a series of hilarious and chillingly ironic media, and shows how they lulled self-satisfied Americans in their ignorance, and created mazes which enchanted and enflamed various portions of the Non-American World.

One of them, a central one, involves Songwriter Carole King, who in 1962, after listening to her babysitter Eve [Narcissus] Boyd's tale of boyfriend abuse, wrote "He Hit Me (and It Felt Like a Kiss." Phil Spector, long before he put a loaded .45 in a lady's mouth, produced that song, which enraged America. But Spector then made a star of the babysitter as "Little Eva," and went on to sponsor and exploit dozens of other songs obviously or subtly abusive to women.

The connection for your file, keats, is that Spector, after marrying another of his lead singers, kept her locked in a closet [in an estate surrounded by attack dogs and barbed wire, I understand] while he watched, over and over and over again -- what else? CITIZEN KANE!

So much for changing attitudes, or helping others, through "the Lessons of Art."

Finally, Peter, the problem of the avatar is not mine, nor yours, nor Wellesnet's. Not exclusively. It is an age-old device which has bridged the line between Religon, Art and Culture to permeate our modern history and political system. It threatens our democracy, not just your sensibilities.

Really . . . get used to it, or fight against false uses to which avatars may be put.

In the immortal words of Sasa Devcic: "Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music."

Glenn

[Alfred Willmore]

. . . Anyway . . .

keats wrote concerning Chris Welles Feder's wonderful new book:

the other small thing, well maybe not so small, is the completely fleshed out picture of the Hills and the Todd school. As we move towards the centenary this as got to be some of the richest ground for further study. I knew Todd was important but now I see that importance in three dimensions and over a vast amount of time, the man's entire life and beyond.

The best source of information, aside from Chris Welles Feder's memoir, on the Hills relationship to Orson Welles would be the recorded phone conversations, decribed by Hascy Tarbox II here, in 2002:
http://www.wellesnet.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=132

Although I do not wish to continue the previous digression, I can confirm Glenn's statement above regarding the identity of another Wellesnet participant.

[Glenn Anders]

"Yes, I am very grateful to Christopher for her frankness and sensitive sharing --"

My dear Keats, that's what I was hoping you would say in the first place.

I was not mocking your appraisal of the book's format, nor the importance of the Hills and Todd School. My hope was that you would go right away to the heart of the book, its lasting value, as you do above. [You can do that by reading its first couple of pages.] Not just the appearance of the book (which in a zen way does have a positive affinity) or the peripheral importance of the Todd School as an experiment. [I was a teacher for thirty years, after all; I can appreciate the significance of Todd School by what the journals will call "the educational product" it turned out.] I would just much rather savor the keen understanding and solace Christopher Welles drew from the both practical and idealistic traits of Skipper and Hortense Hill.

Again, you expressed those insights perfectly in the line of yours I quote at the start here.

You see, keats, once we have matters ironed out, we have little disagreement.

We should try it more often!

Glenn

[NoFake]

I am green with envy that just about everyone has read the book, and I have yet to see one. Was there something else I needed to do besides tell Larry, in response to his request on the Wellesnet homepage, that I wanted one? I expected a request for payment, but never got one, and have been so busy with other things, I simply forgot till now.

[Alan Brody]

"As for Alan's remark about not minding; I have to respectfully submit that not minding is beside the point; there are many things that people don't mind that are still wrong or even destructive. I'll give an example that will reveal, perhaps too much, about my own personal compulsions; I pick up litter, I cannot walk past a cigarette pack on the ground without bending down and picking it up. I've reached the point where, even when I'm in suit and tie, I carry gloves and a trash bag - My wife, bless her heart, tolerates it because she's knows I'm right - People back home think it's strange but I've noticed others beginning to do the same thing - People in Asia think I'm insane but I now live in the cleanest park in the city because EVERYBODY is picking up his own trash."

Well, I'm glad you use gloves when you do that, Keats. We can't afford to lose too many more good people around here then we already have.

"As for the discourse on this forum, it is worth making the effort to clean up our respective acts; it will help everybody - The comments I made about creating a fog around the Thomson issue I stand by - Those remarks attacking Mr. Benson, whether by intent or by accident, hide the terrible impact that people like Thomson had/have/will have on Welles' legacy"

Yes, we should keep our acts clean, but we do have a moderator here in case things get TRULY out of hand. I guess everyone has a different standard of exactly what that means, but I trust Mr. French's judgement in that regard. I think you may be overestimating Thomson's clout, Keats. Higham has been pretty much forgotten now, and I suspect Thomson will be forgotten as well. After making a fool of himself a couple of years ago with his chicken-choking bio of Nicole Kidman, I'm surprised he still has the nerve to show his face anywhere. I guess some people have no shame.

"- I stand by my comments, ALL of them, including the presence of a dual poster, including the incredible importance of work by people like Store H, including the potential of this forum to have no small influence in shaping what people think of Welles in 2015 when editors all over the country start asking "Who is this Welles guy anyway?""

I think most educated people (in America anyway) know who Orson Welles is, and I would hope that's not going to change by 2015. Not to cross you again, but I don't really care about dual posters here either, as long as they have something interesting to add, as either identity. I don't think we need an "unmasking crusade" just yet. What concerns me more is an excess of spam and, on the other hand, an excess of dictating how people are allowed to post around here. I don't think either has been that much of a problem so far, and it would be nice if we kept it that way. But I agree with you that the wonderful effort of people like Store Hadji and others is very important and could really make a difference in 2015 and beyond. As wonderful as this Wellesnet Forum is to us however, I fear you may be overestimating it's potential influence as well. Aside from Schmidlin and Stefan Droesler, we've had very few Welles "insiders" post here with any regularity, and both of those guys have stopped. In fact, I've seen little evidence that people of genuine influence in the Welles world even read this forum. But on that I would be sincerely happy if you were right and I was wrong.

Back to the original topic: I appreciate yours and others' words on Ms. Feder's new book, and am seriously tempted to buy it, although I'm already up to my ears in Welles books. The parts related to the Todd school and Welles's work in the educational field sound interesting and valuable. Too bad the book didn't come out before they decided to tear down Grace Hall. There is another book that explores to some extent this same neglected angle of Welles's career: Michael Anderegg's Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture, which devotes an entire chapter to Everybody's Shakespeare, that magnum opus of Welles's teenage years, which was done in collaboration with Roger Hill at the Todd School.