The Shah of Iran - Welles shilled for the Shah

[Harvey Chartrand]

As a young man, Welles often denounced fascist dictator Adolf Hitler in his radio broadcasts and in speeches for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who held Welles in high esteem and met with him privately on several occasions.
By the early seventies, Welles was so financially desperate that he forsook his liberal principles to narrate a propaganda documentary titled "The Shah of Iran." Welles also took on this narration work to curry favor with the Shah, whose brother-in-law was financing "The Other Side of the Wind."
In light of world events today and the spark that is set to ignite in Iraq, I thought this would be an appropriate time to initiate a discussion on Welles' brush with Middle Eastern politics and loss of idealism over the years, as money problems continued to bedevil him.
Here is a write-up on "The Shah of Iran" from the All Movie Guide Web site.

The Shah of Iran (1980)
60 minutes
Narrator: Orson Welles

Synopsis

Although first widely shown in early 1980 in New York, The Shah of Iran was completed in 1972 and is narrated by Orson Welles. Transparently a propaganda piece because of the laudatory statements that describe the action pictured in newsreels and archival footage, the documentary focuses on the last Shah in private and in public. Seen with his children, his wives, driving his limousine, swimming, skiing, and greeting European and Soviet political leaders, the Shah is described as benevolent, loving, dedicated to social reform and advancing democracy. He is a mediator and works on land reform, industrialization, and eliminating the last vestiges of corruption in his happy nation. One of the last scenes shows him playing chess with the director of this documentary, Walter Ellaby, as Welles says that "the Shah must make the right moves for Iran." Even though Americans and the world are used to the Disney Studio's animated films, they may not be ready to believe that any national leader is a dead-ringer for Snow White. A few warts and honest history might have served this hagiography better. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

[Jeff Wilson]

In addition, Welles took a job doing a documentary on Nostradamus, despite being a lifelong opponent of such flim flam. Producers clearly thought Welles and his voice lent an air of legitimacy and authority to dubious propositions like the Shah and Nostradamus, among any others out there. I would guess that Welles felt about his voice over work much as he did about his acting work, that it was a means to an end, and that it didn't reflect on his true calling, directing. He should have known better, or at least chosen more wisely.

[Peter Tonguette]

I wouldn't disagree with Harvey and Jeff's assessments, though Welles does say in the BBC interview that he never took an acting job (and presumably he is including voice-over work here) which he felt was part of an "immoral" production.

As for Welles' loss of political idealism, I'm not so sure he lost it entirely. Reportedly, he is featured in an anti-nuclear documentary made in the early '80s (which I've never seen) and I don't think his own views changed, as much as his willingness to participate in some endeavors which might seem to run contrary to them.

Peter

[Le Chiffre]

It's ironic that Welles narrated the Shah's propaganda documentary in order to raise money to make TOSOTW, then had that film confiscated when it was almost finished by those whom the Shah had oppressed. Not to excuse Welles, but the docu was made in '72, just before the OPEC oil embargo increased the Shah's wealth - and arrogance - dramatically. I think it's quite possible that many of the Shah's worst atrocities were committed in the years after this, when he began to pad his Swiss bank accounts instead of Iran's infrastructure, and the fundamentalist's resentment of his western-style excesses began to reach boiling point. The Shah obviously did not make the right moves for Iran.

Of course, by many accounts, the fundamentalist Islaamic regime of the Ayatollah was guilty of far greater human rights abuses then the Shah ever was, particularly towards women, who had been given the right to vote under the Shah's regime. I don't know that Welles ever publicly denounced his association with the Shah, but it's interesting that, in Jaglom's SOMEONE TO LOVE, he noted that good love stories can't come out of muslim countries since all a man has to do in order to dump his wife is to say "I divorce thee" three times. I suppose that what he really meant was that interesting love stories cannot come out of countries where women have little more then slave status.