Fascinating series of interviews which formed the basis of Bogdanovich’s excellent book about Welles. He chats in particular about his relationship with Gregg Tolland on Citizen Kane, his plan to make a film about Jesus Christ, casting Alan Ladd in Kane, casting Tim Holt in Magnificent Ambersons (which he still defends – someone should do a study of Holt one day, he’s got a lot of classic films on his resume); the troubles filming Othello (setting scenes in Turkish baths to do it without costumes); etc.Welles makes a lot of statements, some where you go “gee I dunno” (He argues that directors do their best work in their 20s and 70s), others which I think is dead right (everyone knows an Iago in their life).
He is a bit defensive about the lack of commercial success of his films (blames Kane on poor distribution, says Lady from Shanghai got its money back "but was no Gilda and they wanted Gilda"). Says there were only a few cuts to Lady from Shanghai, which surprised me – he takes the blame for what’s bad about this; refutes Bogdanovich’s claim that War of the Worlds was bad luck for him (credits this for the Campbell sponsorship and movie career); talks about being inspired for War of the Worlds by a priest’s claim that communists had taken over London (he perhaps takes a bit too much credit for this broadcast – poor old Howard Koch the author isn’t mentioned); chats about his passion for “the funnies”.
Welles seems to have been friends with or at least known everyone – Preston Sturges, Thornton Wilder, Sam Goldwyn, Barrymore. He’s constantly telling stories along the lines of “of course I knew Preston”.
Bogdanovich was asking questions for posterity, not television, so his queries tend to be drawn out and stumbling – but they are mostly pretty good and he has a warm rapport with Welles.
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