I was keen to read this since so many pieces on Welles claim this to be one of the best works on the man, and I wasn’t disappointed. Excellently researched, well written, it’s pro-Welles without being silly or obnoxious about it. It doesn’t have the dazzle of Simon Callow’s books but it’s still very strong.
The fascinating Welles has with people isn’t hard to fathom – the sheer bulk of his persona and talent, the depth and breadth of his accomplishments, the variety of his work, the drama of his career (did he waste his talent? Etc etc), his charisma. It also has a great romantic aura - by his mid 20s Welles had already produced one of the greatest (if not the greatest) films of all time, the most famous radio drama of all time, several of the most famous Shakespearean productions of all time – where else was there to go but down? Or did he?
His early years were incredibly action packed – dad was loaded (with money and booze) so he’d been around the world several times before his teens were over; drove a car around Ireland when he was 16; went to see Manhattan Melodrama in the session after John Dillinger; produced a voodoo MacBeth where the cast put a curse on a critic who bagged it – and the critic died; directed the legendary production of Cradle Will Rock (“lock us out of the theatre? – let’s march down the street and use another theatre”); dabbled in bull fighting; directed a pioneering play of the African-American experience, Native Son; etc, etc. Then Hollywood and Citizen Kane - and the book is half over.
It is clear Welles was given too much rope – Citizen Kane lost money on it’s initial run, yet RKO gave him a million bucks to make a film out of a novel with little obvious commercial potential (apparently the Board was knocked out by the Mercury radio production). They sent him down to South America with a decent budget and no script. (NB To be fair this was the method Ealing used for Henry Watt when he went to Australia during the war – the result was a big hit, The Overlanders. The crucial difference – Watt was a highly experienced documentary filmmaker). And while Welles did work hard and bring back some great vision, he did gallivant. (You just get frustrated RKO couldn’t have forgiven him enough to let him cut together the footage, make something out of it.)
The Ambersons-It’s All True saga didn’t destroy his career, but damaged it. (Ambersons was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar). Welles was still in demand as an actor, especially on radio – for instance, he turned down Claude Rains’ role in The Uninvited. He had a great knack for getting publicity (marriage to Rita Hayworth, a magic show) and he managed to get up three more studio films in the 40s – The Stranger (which was meant to be the first of a four picture deal for Bill Goetz – I didn’t know that), Lady from Shanghai and MacBeth (which made money). Five films in a decade isn’t terrible – it’s certainly a higher strike rate than he enjoyed in subsequent years.
Many things I was unaware of – he toured Europe in the 50s with a theatre show that included Importance of Being Earnest – and made a film out of it! (Like his Moby Dick film apparently). He was courted by television production companies in the 50s but couldn’t seem to make a go of a series. He always found work as an actor and voice over expert, although his fatness meant he was offered a lead role. He worked with a heavy metal band in the 70s! (Some voice work - his daughter was a fan of the band.)
Welles continually returned to theatre but never managed to enjoy an out-and-out triumph like he had in the 30s – partly because he’d raised the bar too high, partly because he needed a stronger producer than himself to keep him in line. Around the World in 80 Days sounds like terrific fun but it was too expensive (the producer, Mike Todd, dropped out during rehearsals); ditto his King Lear in the 50s. His early 50s Othello (with Peter Finch as Iago) seems to have been well received, as was his production of Rhinoceros, but neither have lived on in the memory in the way his 30s productions did – maybe due to lack of a “gimmick”. (NB a play has been written about the making of Rhinoceros – Welles was directing Olivier, who was about to leave Vivien Leigh for Joan Plowright.) It’s a shame he never went back to theatre after the 60s – but then one of the romantic things about Welles, and part of the reason for his appeal, is there’s so many things of which you could say “it was a shame he never XXX”. (Except radio – I think he fulfilled all his promise in that medium.)
Welles clearly thrived when he had a benevolent benefactor, who encouraged and protected him – his guardian Dr Bernstein, Roger Hill and the Todd school, John Houseman at the Mercury and RKO, George Schaefer at RKO; later on there were the Salkinds for The Trial. Without this protection he suffered – although it must be said that when he worked with a strong but less helpful producer (eg Harry Cohn, Zugsmith), the films at least got finished, which is more than you can say for the bulk of Welles’ independent films which he produced on his own.
There are so many facets to Welles career – you could write whole books out of small bits (and people have). The War of the Worlds saga; his adventures in the theatre trade; Welles and African-Americans (MacBeth, Native Son, his interest in jazz, his romances with Lena Horne and Eartha Kitt); his romance with Rita Hayworth; Welles and radio; the making of almost all his films and their post-production battles. At times Brady seems hard put to include it all – sometimes he gets bogged down with “who-changed-what” items for the films, which is really the subject of its own book – but overall he does a very impressive job.
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