Joseph McBride talks ‘Orson Welles 100,’ Film Forum series
Nearly three dozen movies will be shown over a five-week span.
World Socialist Web Site asks experts why Orson Welles remains a compelling figure
The full interviews can be found on the organization’s website.
‘Orson Welles: Lost and Found’ to be screened at Toronto International Film Festival Cinematheque
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 Magnificent Ambersons’ focus of The Projection Booth podcast with top Orson Welles scholars
By MIKE WHITE In an episode two years in the making, The Projection Booth podcast released their coverage of The Magnificent Ambersons. In his follow-up to Citizen Kane, Orson Welles adapted Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about industrial progress and the loss of innocence. Welles famously lost control of The Magnificent Ambersons before its final […]
The Memos Part XI: ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ opens in Los Angeles running only 88 minutes; Welles completes ‘It’s All True’ in Brazil
By LAWRENCE FRENCH ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ opens in Los Angeles – July 7, 1942 Even in it’s truncated version, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS received many excellent reviews and eventually was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Agnes Moorehead); Best Cinematography (Stanley Cortez); and Best Art Decoration. Certainly not an easy task […]
The Memos Part X: George Schaefer resigns as RKO president; urges studio to save extra negative and postive cuts made to Orson Welles’ ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’
By LAWRENCE FRENCH As George Schaefer’s position as head of RKO (as well as the Mercury’s chief supporter) became extremely precarious, Herbert Drake, the press representative for Mercury productions, sent Welles this plan to help with his public relations efforts regarding IT’S ALL TRUE and the increasingly hostile RKO regime, which would soon be headed […]
The Memos Part IX: Dr. Bernstein to Orson Welles – ‘RKO will not renew your contract under any circumstances’
By LAWRENCE FRENCH Details on the previews of the re-edited version of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS that were held in May are incomplete, but it appears Welles was no longer being advised on all the changes that the studio was making, even by his own manager, Jack Moss, who was working with Robert Wise in making […]
The Memos Part VIII – RKO Executive Reginald Armour on Orson Welles: ‘I saw The Magnificent Ambersons and Journey Into Fear—they are both bad.’
By LAWRENCE FRENCH This revealing telephone conversation between Reginald Armour, RKO President George Schaefer’s executive assistant in Hollywood and Phil Reisman in New York, clearly shows the animosity towards Welles and his current project IT’S ALL TRUE, that was now shared by most of the top RKO executives. Phil Reisman, however, was the exception, as […]
The Memos Part VII – Orson Welles: ‘My position is I cannot allow retakes.’
By LAWRENCE FRENCH Nearly a month after the single bad preview of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS in Pomona, George Schaefer decided to take the drastic step of shooting a new ending scene for the film. Schaefer was also worried about the cost for the Urca club scene Welles wanted to use as the grand finale for […]
The Memos Part VI – Robert Wise to Orson Welles: The boarding house ending got us several laughs…”
By LAWRENCE FRENCH Robert Wise sent this detailed report to Welles about the audience reaction at the first two previews of the film. In retrospect, it seems rather incredible that RKO executives would take only two previews as the final word on how AMBERSONS would be received by audiences nationwide. While the majority of the […]
The Memos Part V – Joseph Cotten to Orson Welles: ‘Ambersons is a dark sort of movie …and at the end there is definitely a feeling of dissatisfaction.’
By LAWRENCE FRENCH Although Welles still wanted to finish the editing on AMBERSONS by having Robert Wise come to Rio, he also began sending a detailed list of changes he wanted made to the film, only two days after receiving this cable from Jack Moss assuring him that “every effort” was being made for Robert […]
The Memos Part IV – George Schaefer to Orson Welles: ‘Never have I taken so much punishment as I did at Pomona’
By LAWRENCE FRENCH On March 19, only two day after the Pomona fiasco, RKO held another preview at the United Artists Theatre in Pasadena. This time the film was shown after the Warner Bros. James Cagney film (in Technicolor), CAPTAINS OF THE CLOUDS. For this showing the film was re-edited to a running time of […]