WELLESNET MESSAGE BOARD

I think it's important to note that while "The Tartars" and "Is Paris Burning?" are weak films, they are ones seldom, if ever, shown on TCM before. "Jane Eyre", "Compulsion", "Moby Dick" and "The Long Hot Summer" on the other hand, show up fairly frequently. My impression is that TCM wanted to show rarely-screened films (apart from the obvious Welles classics) to honor Orson. Certainly "The Immortal Story" fits that bill; I don't think that has ever played on American television. I enjoyed watching "Man In The Shadow" for the first time last week; although it wasn't very good, I found the parallels to "Touch Of Evil" to be quite noteworthy.

How about the quality of that Immortal Story Wednesday night? I had my VCR running. What a treasure!

what a great movie!! its a crime that this movie is not more widely available. good thing for vcrs!

Actually, I noticed that before the screening of IMMORTAL STORY that the Janus Films logo was present, which could indicate a potential Criterion release at some point.

I taped Immortal Story but have not seen it yet, probably this week end. I watched Othello for the first time though and really enjoyed it. I'm french and eventhough i'm fluent in english, Shakespear is like a whole other language to me, i would have liked english subtitles to help me understand the plot. I probably should have read a summary of the story but i still enjoyed the movie, mostly when it got near the climatic ending. I loved the murder scenes, they were absolutely amazing! I will probably need to read the play sometime because i think it's the only way of really appreciating the adaptation that Welles made of the story. That one scene where we just see Othello's face (i couldn't understand a word he said) is breathtaking, the way it's filmed, and all you see is his face, was out of this world to me.

It's the first time i watch a movie that i don't understand but still enjoyed. The images were just amazing, the angles, the sets, everything was beautiful to look at, it shows to me how masterfull welles was at directing and giving life to a story. It could have been a silent movie, it would have been just as delightfull. And i really did not expect to like this movie to begin with. I just watched it out of curiosity. I'm glad i taped it.

I also thought The Immortal Story looked very nice on TCM, much better looking then the bootlegs, that's for sure. And that would be great if a Criterion DVD was in the works. I also noticed that the dubbing, which before was pretty out of synch at the beginning of the film, seemed to be corrected to a large extent. I don't know if this was done by TCM or someone else, but it seemed to be a definite improvement. But TCM's version was also letterboxed, which is strange for a 1968 made-for-TV film. I don't remember the bootlegs being letterboxed.

I didn't catch TIS on TCM, but the video I have -- from Matinee Classics -- is not letterboxed. The picture quality is grainy with some waves, but watchable, and the sound is quite good. I've had it for several years, so I don't know if it's still available. In any event, I salivate at the thought of a Criterion DVD!

I have a vhs copy of The Immortal Story that i bought about
2 years ago which had a unwatchable image and poor sound.
It was not letterboxed and when i compared it to the TCM
version it was like day and night! TCM must have found a
very good print of the film which i am very happy to have
recorded. The same goes to Confidential Report which TCM
had a better copy then the Criterion laserdisc or the Laser
Light dvd version. I also think both will end up on the Criterion
label soon.

The print of Immortal Story shown on TCM appears to be the same one used for the Italian DVD, minus the Janus logo. That print was widescreen.

I really want this channel!

this month they are playing Orson films too.