Film historian Joseph McBride’s work on Orson Welles continues to impress. McBride has authored acclaimed books and articles on Welles’ film work, appeared in the still-unfinished The Other Side of the Wind, and is credited with the 1970 discovery in a Connecticut library of a copy of Welles’ first foray into film – the 1934 […]
A full year before the 100th anniversary of Orson Welles’ birth, the Toronto International Film Festival Cinematheque has something special planned for fans of the late director. TIFF Cinematheque will feature a special screening of the recently rediscovered silent footage of Too Much Johnson, as part of a mini-retrospective entitled Orson Welles: Lost & Found […]
The long lost footage Orson Welles shot for the Mercury Theatre stage production of “Too Much Johnson” will get its first West Cost showing on March 3. Paolo Cherchi Usai,senior curator of moving image at George Eastman House and cofounder of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, will introduce the footage at the University of California […]
Editor’s note. This article first appeared on New York Arts on December 4, 2013 and is reprinted here with their kind permission. By MICHAEL MILLER Simon Callow, in his biography of Orson Welles, cites the Mercury actor, William Alland, on Welles’ personal devastation caused by the failure the company’s 1938 revival of William Gillette’s (1853-1937) […]
The past 12 months have been a rewarding time for Orson Welles’ fans. Sure, a completed The Other Side of the Wind is still a dream and no one has discovered Welles’ cut of The Magnificent Ambersons, but there was much to celebrate. • First, there was the discovery of silent footage intended for use […]
Updated on Oct. 14, 2013: The Guardian weighed in on the screening. “While it is a work print, not a finished film, ‘Too Much Johnson’ offers breathlessly enjoyable viewing. Joseph Cotten makes a tremendous movie debut as the play’s philandering lead, displaying unimagined guts and agility in a series of tumbles and leaps across Manhattan […]
By RAY KELLY With the discovery in Italy of 40 minutes of previously lost film footage intended for the Mercury Theatre’s “Too Much Johnson,” interest is high in this failed Orson Welles’ stage production. A two-week tryout of “Too Much Johnson” commenced at the Stony Creek Theatre in Branford, Connecticut in August 1938. Technical problems […]
“Too Much Johnson” was a failure for the Mercury Theatre when it closed after a tryout at Connecticut’s Stony Creek Theatre in August 1938. Orson Welles had planned to run 40 minutes of silent film to accompany the William Gillette stage comedy about a New York playboy who flees to Cuba to avoid a jealous […]
With the release of Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles now scheduled for November 25, 2009, here is an article Welles and John Houseman wrote for The New York Times to announce the birth of the Mercury Theatre in 1937. Updates about Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles can be found on their official Facebook […]