Oscar-nominated director and classic film enthusiast Peter Bogdanovich has recently uploaded more than four dozen five-minute video shorts to YouTube touting various directors, actors and films under the banner Peter Bogdanovich Recommends. Naturally, there is a Peter Bogdanovich Recommends: Orson Welles short, which is with illustrated with scenes from Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The […]
By RAY KELLY The RKO corporate archive Welles material that was presumed lost in the sale to Turner has now been restored in a workable digital version and should be available online soon, Wellesnet has learned. Wellesnet has reached out to WarnerMedia, the current rights holder, for further details. Orson Welles was signed by RKO […]
The French newspaper Le Monde has published an update on the hunt for Orson Welles’ fabled original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons. Le Monde interviewed Josh Grossberg, who began his quest for the lost Ambersons footage when he was a 21-year-old film student at Northwestern University in Chicago in 1995 — and not given up. […]
By RAY KELLY The story surrounding a little known, and unfilmed, Orson Welles screenplay will be explained at a forthcoming literary conference in London. Matthew Asprey Gear will deliver his paper, Surinam: Orson Welles’s Unproduced Victory Screenplay, at the Joseph Conrad Society Conference at the University Women’s Club at Mayfair on Sunday, July 7. Surinam […]
Updated on June 19: BSGU says it will not reconsider its decision. _____ Nearly a dozen prominent Wellesians were among the more than 50 artists, writers, and film scholars calling for the restoration of actresses Lillian and Dorothy Gish’s names to a theater established in their honor 43 years ago at Bowling Green State University […]
Orson Welles scholars on the East Coast will be happy to know the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University includes scripts and papers related to four early Orson Welles film projects. The movies — two filmed and two not fully realized — span the years 1940 to 1943 when Welles was under […]
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group of Maryland will publish “Marching Song” in August.
Janus Films has revealed its poster and trailer for the U.S. release of Mark Cousins’ acclaimed documentary The Eyes of Orson Welles. The film, which begins its run Friday, March 15, at the IFC Center in New York City, explores Welles’ life and career through a trove of paintings and sketches he created throughout his […]
By KATHLEEN SPALTRO During the Spanish Civil War, three Chicago-associated artists and supporters of the Spanish Republic— John Dos Passos, Ernest Hemingway, and Orson Welles—intended to raise money for the Republican cause by working on a film, Joris Ivens’s documentary The Spanish Earth. Dos Passos, born in Chicago, initially joined with such other American writers […]
By RAY KELLY A series of Friday night dinners gave birth to a six-part documentary series, which will look at the private life of iconic director Orson Welles. Life with Orson Welles: The Man Behind the Legend comes from his youngest daughter, Beatrice Welles, and director Dax Phelan (Jasmine). The two were involved in the production of The […]
By RAY KELLY Wellesians will remember Chris Wade for his 2017 book Orson Welles: The Final Cut. Now, the writer, musician, filmmaker and illustrator is back with a hour-long documentary film examining the final two decades of the late filmmaker career. The Immortal Orson Welles boasts new interviews with actor Norman Eshley (The Immortal Story), personal assistant Dorian […]
Hot on the heels of The Criterion Collection’s 4K restoration of The Magnificent Ambersons, movie historian Joseph Egan has unveiled a website totally dedicated to Orson Welles’ sophomore Hollywood release. A four-month undertaking, The Complete Orson Welles The Magnificent Ambersons seeks to take full advantage of the website format, Egan said. “I wanted it to show that it […]