By SETH ALEXANDER THÉVOZ
August 3 saw a treble-bill around Orson Welles at London’s British Film Institute, with talks by actors Simon Callow and Keith Baxter sandwiching a screening of Welles’s favourite of his own films, Chimes at Midnight.
The evening opened with an ambitious, broad-brush lecture by Welles biographer Simon Callow, on ‘Welles and the Theatre’. Unfortunately, Callow’s lecture proved to be seriously disappointing – a long, rambling appraisal of Welles’s childhood and 1930s theatre work, with no particular theme or argument, just a disjointed series of observations, jumping from one play to the next. Callow didn’t seem terribly well prepared for his talk, repeatedly stammering and hesitating at length over the topic, and at times he seemed to be bored by his own lecture: more than one person fell asleep in the middle of the session, though Callow made up for this somewhat by being amusingly animated at the start and the end of the session.
Curiously, Callow’s talk didn’t exude much preparation, often just being a sequential list of stage productions, occasionally stumbling as he recalled at the end that he’d forgotten to mention Too Much Johnson. Originally, he was introduced as planning to speak for an hour, followed by questions, but Callow glanced in alarm at his watch to find he was already eighty minutes into the session and had only got as far as Danton’s Death in 1938, and so he cantered very briefly through Five Kings, The Green Goddess, Native Son, Othello, Moby Dick, Chimes at Midnight and Rhinoceros in the last five minutes, and had no time for questions. Nothing was said of major later Welles shows like Around the World, The Lady in Ice and King Lear. It was an underwhelming presentation, punctuated by repeated, heavy-handed reminders that his Welles books were available in the BFI bookshop.
Callow was most at home when telling “the old favourites” – raucous, diverting tales of Welles as a pushy teenage director, dominating his casts. There were a few interesting judgements, such as Welles’s early theatre criticism columns, written at the age of ten, which were apparently “terrible”, being written in a faux-septuagenarian ‘voice’. Where Callow was most engaging was in discussing what mattered to him: his own love of the theatre, and how he had first fallen in love with the feel of the theatre through reading the descriptions of the Mercury Theatre in John Houseman’s memoir Run-Through (1972), and how Houseman had become a hero of his; and later, a friend. The significance of this – with Welles branding Houseman a dangerous enemy, for Houseman’s credible-sounding denunciations in his memoirs – will not be lost on Welles scholars.
Next up was Welles’s own film, Chimes at Midnight, with an introduction by Keith Baxter. Baxter thoroughly charmed the audience, speaking for ten minutes on how the film came about, and about Welles’s sleight-of-hand when convincing producers who wanted to fund Treasure Island – but had no interest in a production of Chimes at Midnight – to fund both films in one go, on the same set, with the same cast. Baxter recalled considerable press ballyhoo around the arrival of the cast in Madrid, and how they proceeded to the coast to commence filming on day one: a shot of a sail on a ship being lowered, and cheers from a crowd as the ship set out to sea. Delighted at this preview of the promised Treasure Island film, press and producers alike then left the set. Baxter recalled, “That was the first scene shot for Treasure Island. It was also the last I ever saw.” Work switched to Chimes thereafter. To conclude his opening remarks, Baxter theatrically pulled out the original letter he received from Welles in 1963, and read it. It had been three years since they had acted together in the stage version of Chimes at Midnight, and Baxter had not fully believed Welles when he had been told that one day, a film version of the play would be made. Sure enough, the letter arrived, begging Baxter to join Welles in Madrid. “It probably won’t make sixpence for any of us but it would be worthwhile and fun, I think”, and it concluded, “Remember always that there is a garden in your heart.”
Chimes at Midnight was enormously well-received by the BFI audience, garnering a protracted applause, and it was followed by the third and final part of the evening, which was its real highlight: a Q&A session with Keith Baxter.
Baxter was on excellent form, light-hearted, expansive, outgoing, and brimming with anecdotes. He was asked to compare Welles the theatre director to Welles the film director, and noted that while Welles wrote and starred in the 1960 Chimes at Midnight play that ran in Dublin, that version was actually directed by Hilton Edwards, so he never saw Welles the stage director in action. But as a film director, he recalls Welles being remarkably hands-off. “I don’t recall a single time when he told me how to do a line reading”, before correcting himself, “There was one occasion, it must have been the only time. When I stumbled over some lines, he smiled at me and said ‘Don’t forget to breathe. The punctuations are there for you to breathe. Breathe during them, and the rhythm of Shakespeare’s prose will come to you quite naturally.’ ”
Baxter noted the rather unusual, lengthy post-production process long after filming had ceased, stating “The entire cast, all of us, we all recorded our parts several times over again”, noting that he himself had recorded Prince Hal in three separate studios across Europe, experimenting with different line readings in the process. He also remembered doubling for several other people during shooting, including Gielgud in a scene that was between him and Gielgud.
In particular, what came across from Baxter’s account was the real energy and fun of the production. “None of us thought we were working on a masterpiece, but we felt it was going to be a good film, with a good cast and crew.” Lunchtime hours were eccentric, at the whim of the director, who proceeded to eat gargantuan al fresco lunches prepared by his wife Paola, and would then have a siesta lying across the dining table, before resuming work.
Sir John Gielgud was remembered with particular affection, showing a mischievous sense of humour throughout his scenes. The ruined castle used for a set was without basic amenities including sanitation, and one day Gielgud boasted “I’ve found the most marvellous spot, dear boy!”, proceeding to relieve himself in some bushes in full view of the crew in his full Henry IV costume, complete with crown. Gielgud’s Hungarian partner Martin Hensler was present throughout Gielgud’s scenes, and “was in a foul temper throughout, complaining of a stinking cold”, with Welles once leaning over to Baxter and whispering “When you have a Hungarian for a partner, you don’t need enemies.” Nonetheless, Hensler was placated by the director, who Baxter remembers being quite uncharacteristically shy and deferential around Gielgud, always being very gentle and whispering his directions around him, and assiduously referring to him as “Sir John”, explaining his shyness to Baxter, “He’s the greatest living Shakespearean actor!” The bald Gielgud himself was reluctant to perform the role of Henry IV without a wig, and was somewhat dismayed to arrive for his first day of shooting only to find that there was no budget for costumes or makeup, the costumes being either homemade, or else made up of leftovers from old epics including El Cid. “Perhaps Henry IV was bald?”, suggested Welles to Gielgud, who then conceded the possibility. “What about my own hair flapping in the wind? It’s windy, and you can see how young Keith’s hair is flapping in the wind? What about how my own hair will flap around in the wind on camera?” asked Gielgud. “Then it will look real”, answered Welles, apparently to Gielgud’s satisfaction. Baxter noticed how much more realistic and less staged the film seemed than the better-known Laurence Olivier Shakespeare films. Indeed, Baxter contrasted the popular reputations of Olivier as outgoing and convivial, and Gielgud as withdrawn and restrained, and noted that in real life, nothing could have been further from the truth, with Gielgud being especially jovial and charming on set.
Baxter noted with regret how few of Welles’s collaborators were still alive today, and how most Welles biographies were written by people who had never met the director, and so it was not lost on us that at 82, this living link with one of Welles’s greatest films, still twinkly-eyed and conveying enthusiasm, was an exceptional treat for the audience. While Callow had underwhelmed with a talk that struck this reviewer as lazy and chaotic – “He’s no Keith Baxter!” quipped a friend of mine at the end – Baxter exuded an infectious enthusiasm and charm, a man still clearly fascinated with the process of making this most unconventional and original of films, over fifty years ago.
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