Orson Welles Shadow

[Tiberius]

Ok, in Barbara Leamings biography she makes 2 references to Orson Welles considering a movie based on "The Shadow".

First she says that it was one of a number of projects which he was told he shouldn't make by a lawyer he hired to help him with his finances. Then on the next page she says that when Orson Welles had chicken pox and was quarantined in the Waldorf he worked with Charlie Lederer on a script for The Shadow which Orson hoped to direct.

Has anyone ever seen this script? Did it survive in any way? I've tried looking up both Orson's papers and Lederer's but I haven't found anything about this script.

Orson was such a master of light and shadow and staging that the idea of seeing him direct the Master of Darkness in a film would have been amazing. Many of Welles' films have themes that are very present in the original pulp novels (which are very well written). I admit I don't see Orson playing The Shadow on screen, he doesn't have the flaws that must of his onscreen characters possessed, but the biography says that he hoped to direct it.

Did anyone know anything?

[Le Chiffre]

The impression I get from Leaming's book is that it was basically a script by Lederer. But I'm sure Welles would have tweaked it considerably. Sounds like he was enthusiastic about the project, so it would have been great to see what he could have done with it. I find it hard to imagine that Welles wouldn't have played the part if he was going to direct it. Age wasn't really an issue with Lamont Cranston as it would have been if he had played George Amberson Minafer onscreen.

[Wich2]

Age wasn't really an issue with Lamont Cranston as it would have been if he had played George Amberson Minafer onscreen.

The thing is...

As much as I love Holt in the role, I think that the quality of Orson's work in the radio iteration, the success of his turn as The Young Kane, and the fact that he was only 27 in real life, would have allowed him to pull off a solid George onscreen.

- Craig

[Tiberius]

Welles might have played Cranston/Shadow he did love his false noses. I just don't think The Shadow fits with the onscreen characters Welles played. Personally, I think Welles would have been better cast as either a villain, or more likely a proxy hero. In the original novels the Shadow often had proxy-heroes whose lives were at risk, and allowed The Shadow to remain in the shadows.

I wish there were a copy of the script they worked on so I could read it. I've been adapting a Shadow novel called "Road of Crime" into a screenplay which I hope to direct a few scenes. It's focused on a bank robber who is being blackmailed into crime, but he doesn't actually want to be a criminal. The Shadow moves through the background of the story, eventually helping the main character Graham Wellerton to reform and escape crime.

I chose this one because the first Shadow radio show Welles performed was also about saving someone from crime (an innocent man). And because Welles talked about how he didn't like either the criminal or cop, but enjoyed playing people with "faustian" qualities. He even once said that ALL of his characters are Faust.

The pulp novels (and original movie serials) The Shadow has no invisibility, but instead moves through stealth, his Shadow being the primary visual that may be seen, which fits very well with Welles' visual style.

I've read through "Badge of Evil" and "If I die before I wake" to see what choices Welles makes when adapting a book to screen, he's actually pretty faithful to both books, his primary changes seem to be making internal conflict into visuals (like the fun house chase in "Lady from Shanghai" and the border crossings of "Touch of evil")

Lederer helped on the script for "Lady from Shanghai", but I don't know what he contributed. I do wish I could read what they wrote to see where they were actually going with the character. It probably would have been more like the radio version than the pulp version of the Shadow, but without thier work, it's hard to say.

I'm mostly working on this project to understand Welles directorial choices as I am a director and want to hone my craft. Of course Welles would have been in his project, and Graham Wellerton is the lead in the script, so I'll be playing that role of course my acting can only ever be a shadow of his, but it'll still be a fun way to try and understand film from his perspective at least.

If anyone ever finds that script written while in quarantine Is live to read it.