Oxford?

[mteal]

Yes, Welles played Claudius to Michael Macliamior's Hamlet at the Woodstock Opera House, about 70 miles from Chicago. It's a beautiful little opera house, built in 1889, that was restored for it's 100th anniversary. As part of the festivities they had a four week Welles film fest (partly to promote the then-upcoming documentary CITIZEN WELLES which, like so many other Welles projects, never materialized). I caught the last week where they showed CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT, with Beatrice Welles as special guest. I met her after the showing, and as we discussed the film I mentioned the Japanese LD of CHIMES. To my amazement, she had no idea that it existed.

[Tom Reedy]

Are there any videos made from the Japanese or Spanish versions for sale anywhere? I have a video copy made from a print that evidently was put through a sausage grinder. It is unwatchable.

[Jeff Wilson]

Aside from the grey market dealers like the place I got one from (whose name escapes me, but I wouldn't recomend dealing with them), no. You can always trade with people here who have a copy of either one; I have both versions, and others have either/both as well.

[Welles Fan]

Didn't the Japanese LD of Chimes have Japanese subtitles running vertically up the side?

[Jeff Wilson]

Yes, it did. The copy I got that was being sold on the grey market was from that version, and it's not too distracting, but why they didn't do it across the bottom I'll never know.

[LA]

Well, to my knowledge, Japanese is traditionally written top-to-bottom in a vertical column, so, often, Japanese subtitles are written vertically at one side of the screen. Of course there's been some westernisation, and so now it's often left-to-right, but the top-to-bottom arrangement is still used quite often. I think some of it depends on which "alphabet" is being used. It's a complicated thing.

[Jeff Wilson]

It's true that Japanese is often written vertically, but in all of the Japanese DVDs that I have none are formatted in that fashion. All are done across the bottom, as with English. So it seemed odd to see something done that way, as it does hide some of the picture.

[LA]

Ah, I see. Well then, I agree, that is pretty odd.