On Thursday July 30 2009 The Dax Foundation is hosting a rare screening of Orson Welles masterpiece Chimes at Midnight at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.
The Dax Foundation has provided Wellesnet with a limited number of tickets for this very special showing, which will be introduced by Dave Weisman, the executive director of the Dax Foundation. Mr. Weisman will discuss the historical context of the Shakespeare plays that Chimes at Midnight is based on. In addition, Peter Bogdanovich may also speak, if his schedule permits.
To win a pair of tickets, all you need to do is e-mail me (at:
lrfrench@yahoo.com) with the correct answer to one of the following questions:
1. What are the titles of the five plays by William Shakespeare that Welles based Chimes at Midnight on?
2. In 1939 Orson Welles staged a Mercury Theater production titled Five Kings that closed before reaching Broadway. Name two cities where Five Kings played before closing?
3. What role did Beatrice Welles play in Chimes at Midnight and what is her last line in the film?
4. What is the name of the Tavern in Eastcheap frequented by Falstaff and Prince Hal?
Tickets will be awarded in the order received and obviously you will have to be in the Los Angeles area on July 30 in order to attend.
Below is the original press release prepared for the American release of FALSTAFF
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FALSTAFF A SPECTACULAR TRIUMPH FOR ORSON WELLES
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Orson Welles has realized a long cherished dream with his spectacular production of “Falstaff” (“Chimes At Midnight”), which opens —— at the —— Theatre. For seventeen years Welles has wanted to direct a motion picture about the great Shakespearean character and portray him on the screen.
The controversial and ever fascinating director–writer–actor filmed his movie in Spain with an extraordinary cast of stars that includes Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud, Marina Vlady and Keith Baxter in the classic roles. It is indeed, as Welles envisioned, “an actor’s film.”
Welles, who never ceased pursuing his dream, spent a great deal of time over many years preparing for the eventuality of a “Falstaff” production. He believes Falstaff is the best role that Shakespeare ever wrote, and it is one of the few roles that has deeply interested him as an actor.
“Falstaff is one of the rare things that I wish to achieve as an actor,” he has commented. Highly versed in Shakespeare’s work and with clear and definite ideas of the story he wanted to tell, Welles prepared his script with inexhaustible care and endless enthusiasm. He took his main inspiration” from “Henry IV,” then enriched and added to it with scenes and dialogue drawn from “Henry V,” “Richard II” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”
The result is a lyrical, touching and deeply human story of the friendship between the bohemian, boisterous Falstaff and the young Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England.
It also dramatizes the betrayal of that friendship, and Falstaff’s repugnance when the prince does become King. Vivid contrasts are also clearly depicted in the film between the Court and its rigid and austere etiquette and the life of the people of London, two entirely different worlds at that time in history.
Awe-inspiring landscapes of the Spanish countryside provide the scenic background for Orson Welles’ “Falstaff” During the seven months it took to film the production, the England of the Fifteenth Century was re-created with the historic and antique beauty of Spain’s villages and rural areas, most of which have never been seen in a motion picture before.
The scenes of Henry IV’s Court were filmed in a dark, medieval castle that stands over the little mining town of Cardona, in Catalonia, a marvelous monument of Roman art, with its weather-beaten stones, which doubles for Windsor castle. The narrow, thousand-year old streets of the village of Calatanazor, at the end of which stands a medieval church, match perfectly the alleys of London at the time. To recreate Falstaff and Prince Hal’s famous stomping ground, the Boar’s Heads Tavern, on London’s Eastcheap Road, Welles shot exterior scenes outside the 11th–century walled city of Avila, whose castellated ramparts stand-in for the Tower of London. Director Welles also transformed Madrid’s Casa de Campo Park, along with desolate areas around the Colmenar Viejo north of Madrid, into authentic soldiers’ camps and staging grounds for the film’s epic battle of Shrewsbury scenes.
The amazingly gifted Welles, a native of Kenosha, Wisconsin, has been hailed as everything from “boy genius” to “the 20th–century embodiment of the Renaissance man.”
He first exploded upon the motion picture scene twenty-five years ago, when, at the age of twenty-five, he produced, wrote, directed and starred in “Citizen Kane.” It was his first film, and has since become a classic of the cinema and established Welles as a part of motion picture history.
Since then he has acted in many films made by others, besides writing, directing and acting in his own, always fascinating productions.
“Falstaff” (“Chimes At Midnight”), a Harry Saltzman Presentation, is a Peppercorn–Wormser, Inc. Film Enterprises release.