THE UNSEEN WELLES
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1988 Jeff Meyer
Seen at the Seattle Film Festival:
I'm not sure whether to call this a retrospective or a review of newly-released work. Come to think of it, it hardly matters -- it seems unlikely that you will ever see the majority of the films I'm about to describe. Most of them were brought up by Gary Graver, a cinematographer who worked with Welles during the last two decades of his life. I've heard Graver called any number of things -- a talented collaborator of Welles, a hanger-on who has lived off Welles "memorabilia," and other sobriquets; I'll leave it that I haven't the slightest idea one way or another. I'm glad that he provided the clips and films that he did; they were certainly of interest to anyone who has followed Welles career in the cinema, and his isolation from the mainstream of the film industry.
Whether the average viewer would enjoy the majority of works shown here... that's another question. Two parts of THE UNSEEN WELLES, "Fountain of Youth," a wonderful half-hour TV pilot for an Orson Welles weekly television playhouse, and OTHELLO (1952), shown in a new 35mm print, were real treats (more about them later). The rest of the clips, however, while being of interest to the film historian, were not what could be called of general interest. Most were very unfinished, and showed the signs of extremely limited budgets and production values. It was impressive to see how clever Welles could be with a Super-8 movie camera; but the average film viewer would have been bored stiff, I think. The trailer of F FOR FAKE, clips from his unfinished works THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, THE DEEP, and others were often rather tedious and extremely unfinished (no editing, sometimes no sound).
The only set of clips I was fascinated with were from a film Welles attempted around 1967 to 1972 (I believe -- it's a bit fuzzy at the moment) called THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. The story deals with a Raoul-Walsh-like director (played by John Huston) who is being financed by several producers to do a film marketed at the EASY RIDER audience. The film deals with a party the director throws at his ranch, where many sixties new-wave film makers are invited to attend, all with cameras in hand. The film yanks back and forth between different cameras' point of views, and it's a nice touch, though a bit tedious towards the end (however, it was unclear whether this would have been edited down or not when released). Also interesting was spotting some of the actors in it: Huston, Robert Walden (Rossi of "Lou Grant"), and a few others whose names have faded in the last month (damn, I have to start writing these columns when I get home...). The second set of clips were of two men and a women driving through the rain at night on a desert highway, and is one of the most erotic sequences I can remember. The final sequences were of a young man (who looked and sounded a *hell* of a lot like an 18-year-old John Savage) chasing around a naked girl, apparently under Huston's direction; Huston's character never appears, but his voice instructs both in such a way that you wonder if it's supposed to be a scene in Huston's movie, or whether the two are really performing their run-around with Huston providing sardonic comment. Also, I was never sure whether the sequences' very "Sixties" appearance were real or the result of Welles wanting to make it *look* that way -- the man could affect current fashions faster than "People" magazine. Very impressive, though the production values were again dismayingly poor; Graver says that the film is co-owned by himself and Welles' longtime associate/lover, Oja Palinkas, and that when and if they get the money, they will work at editing it and releasing it (not-too-subtle hinting there; I'm surprised a plate wasn't passed around).
The rest of the evening (except for OTHELLO and the TV pilot) were clips of Welles doing magic (really boring) and some out-takes from test film. No redeeming value whatsoever. Considering the show got out so late (I left at 11:10 on a Monday night, and the German TV documentary "The Making of OTHELLO" had still not been shown), I think Graver could have cut much of this out. I refrain from mooning over the cinematic and photographic leftovers of Marilyn Monroe that seem so prolific; Orson Welles smoking a cigar for Japanese commercials is even less interesting to me (for obvious reasons).
The evening was still a success, however; "Fountain of Youth" was a delightfully droll story about a romantic triangle between a Narcissistic young actress, an equally vain tennis pro, and a clever professor whose work with glands acts as a potent weapon against his rival. This is *witty* comedy, and I wish to heaven that someone would sell the pilot to the people releasing Golden Age television on video -- this is a gem. Unseen for years, it was Welles' effort to compete with the likes of "Texaco Theater" and other television dramas; directing, writing and narrating, he brought the pilot in on time and under budget, often using slides and silhouettes in an appealing manner that added to the "gossip column" atmosphere of the play. CBS paid him for the pilot and then put it on the shelf. They finally showed it during the summer when faced with an empty half-hour slot when Edward R. Murrow fell ill. This was the only time "Fountain of Youth" was ever broadcast, but it went on to win the Peabody Award that year, which must have been sweet to Welles after having been shunned by the network. If it ever comes out on video, I recommend that you get it. This is the kind of thing that they don't do on television anymore (not even "American Playhouse" -- they're all 1-1/2 to 2 hours long), and Welles' made it a high point of the genre. The story unfolds like one of Woody Allen's amusing short stories: snappy, sardonic and assuming a reasonably intelligent audience.
The other work was OTHELLO; shot in black and white in Spain in an ancient castle, it is full of Wellesian camera tricks and angles -- wonderful moving shots of Welles (as Othello) striding through the ancient halls, the pillars dividing the shots. Halliwell asks if this was the best way to film Shakespeare; I don't know if it serves as a fit introduction to the Moor for the first-time reader, but it is a kick to someone who enjoys lively cinematography and who has seen OTHELLO several times before. An interesting mix: some Olivier-like symbolism (the hanging cage), moderately good acting (not great, though) and the feeling that you're watching a suspense movie at times (I half expected Alan Ladd to walk in with a trench coat at the end).
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, microsoft}!fluke!moriarty
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews