Noted film historian Joseph McBride spent last week in Woodstock, Illinois, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, as a featured guest in celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late Orson Welles.
When not introducing films or taking part in panel discussions, McBride explored the towns where Welles was born and raised.
As the man who uncovered The Hearts of Age, Welles and co-director William Vance’s teenage venture into filmmaking, McBride understandably sought out the shooting locations.
Woodstock City Councilman RB Thompson brought McBride to the Oakland Cemetery, where gangster Johnny Stompanato and Dick Tracy creator Chester Gould are buried, as well the First Presbyterian Church of Woodstock, where the bell used in the 16mm silent short now resides.
“I visited the graveyard location for Orson Welles’s 1934 short film The Hearts of Age … and went to a Presbyterian church outside which now stands the bell that Virginia Nicolson (who became the first Mrs. Orson Welles) rides obscenely as the old lady confronted by Death (Orson) in the film. I discovered The Hearts of Age in 1969 on a tip from my UW Madison film professor Russell Merritt, who told me it was at the Greenwich (Conn.) Public Library. I wrote about it for Film Quarterly in 1970, and it entered the public domain, much to Welles’ unhappiness. Every few months he would lament to his cameraman, Gary Graver, ‘Why did Joe have to discover that film?’
He added, “My guide on this Hearts of Age tour was Woodstock City Council member RB Thompson, who had researched and identified the sites and graciously showed me around them. RB is a local historian and helped establish Woodstock Celebrates Inc., which has paid tribute to Welles there for the past two years. It was a thrill to see places and objects Welles had put into the film that I discovered long ago on a tip from my esteemed film professor, Russell Merritt, who now is an adjunct professor in the Department of Film & Media at UC Berkeley. “
In Kenosha, McBride, along with Citizen Welles Society chairwoman Nita Hunter and other members of the centennial committee, visited Welles’ birthplace, as well as Green Ridge Cemetery, where his parents, concert pianist Beatrice Ives Welles and inventor Richard Welles, are buried. A distraught young Welles attended both funerals.
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