By RAY KELLY
Beatrice Welles introduced a handsomely restored edition of her father’s Shakespearean masterpiece Chimes at Midnight before an enthusiastic capacity crowd at the Film Forum in New York City on January 8.
Orson Welles’ youngest daughter, who played Falstaff’s page in the 1965 film, praised the restoration work undertaken by Janus Films and revealed she had been interviewed hours earlier for a DVD extra to be included in an upcoming Criterion Collection release.
The restored Chimes at Midnight, which is being distributed domestically by Janus, is an upgrade of the 2015 Filmoteca Española restoration. Criterion is expected to release the film on home video later this year as it continues work on an even grander restoration of Welles’ masterpiece in the years ahead.
“Talking about and presenting this movie is a dream,” Beatrice Welles said before the start of the film. “You’re going to see it at its best. It’s never been this good. You can finally hear the words, you finally see it and enjoy it.”
Janus Films has made significant improvements to the Filmoteca Española restoration, including removal of scratches and stains and corrections to the contrast and black levels. It is light years ahead of the many inferior bootleg prints and questionable home video releases, exceeding even the fine out-of-print StudioCanal release distributed a decade ago in France. Most striking on the Janus restoration is the sound, which is far clearer and consistent than past releases.
Following the screening, Beatrice Welles engaged in a Q&A with the audience moderated by Bruce Goldstein, repertory director for the Film Forum.
She discussed her unsuccessful efforts with Castle Hill’s Julian Schlossberg in the 1990s to convince the family of the late producer Emiliano Piedra to restore and re-release the movie.
Beatrice Welles brought her typewritten script for Chimes at Midnight to the screening and passed it out for filmgoers to inspect first hand.
She spoke warmly about her childhood experiences on the set of the film, noting that some of the extras in key scenes were waiters from a Spanish restaurant or crew members, and shared amusing anecdotes about co-star and longtime friend Keith Baxter, who had introduced a showing of Chimes at Midnight on Wednesday at the Film Forum.
Among the related tidbits was that she recently came across a 1937 script for the 1939 stage play Five Kings and that outtakes of Chimes at Midnight were likely ruined or destroyed by tenants at Welles’ Madrid home in the 1970s. The house was trashed by a diplomat and his family, she said.
She traced her father’s love of the character of Falstaff back to his days at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois. She dismissed theories that Welles’ interest in Falstaff was tied to his father, the hard drinking inventor Richard Welles. Rather, she said she thought the Prince Hal/ Henry IV/ Falstaff might have been appealed to him because of his relationship as a young man with guardian Maurice Bernstein and mentor Roger “Skipper” Hill.
Beatrice Welles said her character had more lines in the final scene, which she said she nailed on the first take. However, when it was discovered she had been sitting on a plush pillow, the scene had to be reshot and by her own admission it took more than a few takes to get it right.
Following the Q&A, Beatrice Welles continued to answer questions from movie-goers in the theater lobby where she discussed a several projects, including a New York exhibit of Welles’ paintings planned for late fall.
Below are two brief videos shot during the Q&A portion of the evening.
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