By RAY KELLY
Beatrice Welles, the youngest daughter of filmmaker Orson Welles, has shared a clip with Wellesnet from the little known Two Wise Old Men: Socrates and Noah, which was produced for the fledgling home video market more than 50 years ago.
“We are working to bring several of my father’s television projects to a new audience,” said Beatrice Welles of ongoing talks with streamers and home video labels in the U.S. and Europe. “It’s frankly a long – and very complicated – process. In the meantime, I know that my father’s many admirers would like to see at least a glimpse of Socrates.”
Licensing deals for the Estate of Orson Welles are handled by David Reeder of Reeder Brand Management. The Welles estate is looking to package Two Wise Old Men alongside two other television projects, The Fountain of Youth, a Peabody Award winner from 1956, and The Orson Welles Show, an unsold late 1970s talk show pilot.
Beatrice Welles posted a half-minute of Two Wise Old Men on the estate’s Instagram page on July 16 and provided a longer clip to Wellesnet.
The Welles estate acquired copies of two Cartrivision shorts Orson Welles wrote, directed, produced and starred in for Avco Broadcasting Corp. on 2022. Cartrivision, which predated Sony Betamax and VHS videotapes, was sold through retail giant Sears, Roebuck & Co. in 1972. The titles were Two Wise Old Men: Socrates and Noah (Avco 10245S-JJ) and American Heritage Vol. 2: Clarence Darrow (Avco 10244S-JJ). Unfortunately, the Clarence Darrow tape had been bulk erased prior purchase.
Wellesnet was afforded the opportunity to watch Two Wise Old Men: Socrates and Noah, which contains separate performances by Welles on the Greek philosopher and the biblical patriarch. The total running time is more than 18 minutes with eight minutes devoted to Socrates and the remainder to Noah. As expected, it is a fairly simple production that relies heavily on the power of Welles’ voice. Filmed in late summer 1970, the program was shot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and begins with the credit Orson Welles Presents Two Wise Men: Socrates & Noah — dropping the Old from the title found on the green and blue Cartrivision packaging. Welles recounts the trial of Socrates in 399 B.C. from a tastefully furnished living room, sometimes seated, but often standing. His stirring recitation touches on obedience to the law, the pursuit of money over truth and the generation gap. The trial of Socrates performance rivals some of the finest moments of Welles’ illustrious radio work of the late 1930s and ’40s. Noah, based on his unfilmed movie Two By Two and performed with a Yiddish accent, was shot outdoors.
In addition to Two Wise Old Men: Socrates and Noah and American Heritage Vol. 2: Clarence Darrow, Welles produced four other Cartrivision titles: Ring Lardner’s The Golden Honeymoon, Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince, the works of G.K. Chesterton and writings of P.G. Wodehouse. The Golden Honeymoon was recovered nearly two decades ago and premiered at the Locarno Film Festival in 2005. The six Cartrivision tapes have sometimes been referred to collectively as An Evening with Orson Welles, though that name does not appear on the packaging nor film credits.
Filming on these shorts commenced on August 31, 1970, according to the memoir of Welles’ longtime cinematographer, the late Gary Graver. The August 31 date puts the Cartrivision shoot just eight days after Welles began filming his last major project, The Other Side of the Wind.
Avco billed Cartrivision as an “electronic miracle that turns your home into a personal television theater with a world of programming at your fingertips.” But dismal retail sales prompted Avco to pull the plug on its Cartrivision line. Cartridge Television filed for bankruptcy in July 1973 having used up nearly all its money to introduce its product, according to the New York Times. An Ohio liquidator subsequently sold off the surplus recorders. Later, it was claimed that Cartrivision videotapes disintegrated if stored in high humidity.
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