Peter Bogdanovich and Orson Welles

Peter Bogdanovich and Orson Welles, grocery shopping in Los Angeles. 1970

Orson Welles

 

The Other Side of the Wind (2018)

 

A Hollywood director emerges from semi-exile with plans to complete work on an innovative motion picture. 

Posthumously reconstructed Orson Welles film is probably as haphazard and incoherent as its production history, with a complex, barely film-within-a-film plot, massive experimentation with all kinds of cinematic trickery and an overpopulated cast, but besides seemingly random shots, there are many moments of sheer beauty and pure genius.

They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (2018)

 

In the final fifteen years of the life of legendary director Orson Welles he pins his Hollywood comeback hopes on a film, The Other Side of the Wind, in itself a film about an aging film director trying to finish his last great movie.

Fascinating report about the making and tragedy of a film never fully finished, in itself a cinematic odyssey, full of remarkable insights in the movie industry and the working style of Orson Welles, actually more interesting and suspenseful than the actual product, The Other Side of the Wind.

 

The Fountain of Youth (1958)

 

A couple is conflicted when they are offered a chance at youth. 

Interesting and fascinating experimental TV pilot gives Welles a chance to turn an otherwise quite pulpy script into a more elaborate attempt, made with wit and a Brechtian approach. 

Le procès (1962)

On the set. Orson Welles and Romy Schneider

Mank (2020)

 

1930s Hollywood is reevaluated through the eyes of scathing wit and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz as he races to finish "Citizen Kane."

David Fincher has meticulously assembles a detailed, multilayered, maybe a bit overladen account of 
Mankiewicz' contribution to Citizen Kane, beautifully photographed in black-and-white, full of witty dialogue, enhanced by great performances, but probably can only only appreciated with some knowledge of Hollywood history - repeated viewing.

Journey Into Fear (1943)

An American ballistics expert in Turkey finds himself targeted by Nazi agents. Safe passage home by ship is arranged for him, but he soon discovers that his pursuers are also on board.

Entertaining spy drama with a suspenseful plot full of twists shows some of Orson Welles style, but is obviously not fully his intended product.

Halliwell***: "Highly enjoyable impressionist melodrama supervised by Orson Welles and full of his touches and excesses."

Maltin***: "Often baffling WW2 spy drama...still exciting."

Le procès (1962)

On the set: Romy Schneider and Orson Welles (ph: Jean-Claude Sauer)

Touch of Evil (1958)

Orson Welles

“Orson Welles, Portrait with Symbols” by Irving Penn, taken around 1945

Journey Into Fear (1943)

New acquisition: Orson Welles

The Third Man (1949)

On the set: Carol Reed and Orson Welles

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Compulsion (1959)

Two sociopathic students Artie Straus and Judd Steiner murder a boy in a philosophical exercise to commit the flawless crime.

Solid study of an unusual crimonal case with an excellent cast, but when Orson Welles arrives late in the story he somewhat steals the show.

Halliwell*: "Rather dogged but earnest fictionalization of the Leopold-Loeb case with solid performances and production."

Maltin***1/2: "Hard-hitting version...Good characterizations, period decor, and well-edited courtroom scenes."

 

Trent's Last Case (1952)

When a wealthy business man is found dead, a reporter is sent to investigate.

La fabuleuse aventure de Marco Polo (1965)

Young Marco Polo travels to China to help Kublai Khan fight against rebels, headed by his own son, with a new invention: gunpowder.

Entertaining and colorful, but wildy unhistorical Hollywood adevnture tale.

Halliwell (no star): "Curious mixture of melodrama and pantomime, with a star cast half playing for laughs."

Maltin**1/2: "Laighable mini-epic, extremely choppy, with episodic sequences pretending to recount events in life of medieval adventurer."

New acquisition: Orson Welles. Hello Americans

Volume 2 of Simon Callow's monumental Orson Welles biography.

New acquisition: Orson Welles

A birthday gift from Ursula.