News

By Jeremy Carr

It’s easy to see why Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight is generally regarded as his finest post-Touch of Evil achievement. This Shakespearean mélange is a dazzling showcase for Welles’ ingenuity, his evident appreciation for the film’s literary foundation, and his relentless aptitude for stylistic inventiveness. However, its haphazard production and its rocky release comprise a backstory as complicated as the movie’s multi-source construction (the script, based on the lengthy play “Five Kings,” written and first performed by Welles in the 1930s, samples scenes and dialogue from at least five of Shakespeare’s works, primarily “Henry IV,” parts one and two, “Richard II,” “Henry V,” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor”). Plagued by what were at this point familiar budgetary constraints, Welles shot Chimes at Midnight over the course of about seven months in Spain, with a break when the financial well went dry.

Fans that lament Orson Welles' many career frustrations will flip over this Spanish-filmed masterpiece. Not well distributed when new and Mia for decades, its serious audio problems have now mostly been cleared up. It's great -- right up there with Kane and Touch of Evil, and it features what is probably Welles' best acting. Chimes at Midnight Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 830 1966 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 116 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Falstaff, Campanadas a medianoche / Street Date August 30, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Orson Welles, Keith Baxter, Jeanne Moreau, Margaret Rutherford, John Gielgud, Norman Rodway, Marina Vlady, Walter Chiari, Michael Aldridge, Tony Beckley, Alan Webb, José Nieto, Fernando Rey, Beatrice Welles, Ralph Richardson. Cinematography Edmond Richard Film Editor Fritz Mueller Original Music Angelo Francesco Lavagnino Produced by Alessandro Tasca Directed by Orson Welles

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

It's even better than I remembered. Sometime during film school I went with UCLA friends Clark...

Chicago – Another wondrous pleasure about director Orson Welles – as if he needed something else on his resume – is the discovery of his film career after the “Citizen Kane”/studio system/boy wonder period of the 1940s. Facing difficulties cobbling together financing for his evolving vision, he resorted to overseas money, international casts and more-for-less. One of the prime examples is “Chimes at Midnight” (1965), a Shakespeare amalgamation that is just another example of Wellesian audacity and yes, genius.

Rating: 5.0/5.0

The script takes the text from five Shakespeare plays and is narrated by British actor Ralph Richardson. Orson Welles plays the scalawag John Falstaff, an entourage member of the Prince of Wales, and the focus of the story. The film has a kinetic energy that is exciting, it always seems in motion. Welles is at the top of his game portraying one of his favorite characters (he had previously mounted a similar...

Sweet Creature of Bombast: Welles’ Restored Homage to Shakespeare’s Ultimate Clown

Before the world finally gets a chance to see Orson Welles’ last uncompleted film The Other Side of the Wind, which had been intended to be the troubled auteur’s return to American filmmaking following a decade in Europe, audiences can feast on a restored version of his final narrative masterpiece, Chimes at Midnight. For decades, the 1965 title has been unavailable and now arrives restored on behalf of Janus Films. Playing in competition at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, Welles homage to one of Shakespeare’s most beloved comic characters, Sir John Falstaff, initially received a chilly reception and stilted marketing campaign upon hitting Us theaters. Despite a throng of critics attempting to recuperate its reputation since then, it has remained an obscure classic.

Taking place from the years 1400 to 1408 in England, a narrator explains King Henry IV (John Gielgud...

Irish stage and screen character actor who appeared in Barbarella, The Verdict and the BBC's 1969 sitcom Me Mammy

For a performer of such fame and versatility, the distinguished Irish character actor Milo O'Shea, who has died aged 86, is not associated with any role in particular, or indeed any clutch of them. He was chiefly associated with his own expressive dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, outstanding mimetic talents and distinctive Dublin brogue.

His impish presence irradiated countless fine movies – including Joseph Strick's Ulysses (1967), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968) and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982) – and many top-drawer American television series, from Cheers, The Golden Girls and Frasier, right through to The West Wing (2003-04), in which he played the chief justice Roy Ashland.

He had settled in New York in 1976 with his second wife, Kitty Sullivan, in order to be equidistant from his own main bases of operation, Hollywood and London. The...

A striking stage presence for more than 60 years and a familiar face on TV

Sheila Burrell, who has died aged 89 after a long illness, was a cousin of Laurence Olivier, and a similarly distinctive and fiery actor with a broad, open face, high cheekbones and expressive eyes. She stood at only 5ft 5ins but could fill the widest stage and hold the largest audience. Her voice was a mezzo marvel, kittenish or growling and, in later life, acquired the viscosity and vintage of an old ruby port, matured after years of experience.

In a career spanning more than 60 years, she made her name as a wild, red-headed Barbara Allen (subject of the famous ballad) in Peter Brook's 1949 production of Dark of the Moon (Ambassadors theatre), an American pot-boiler about the seduction of a lusty girl by a witch boy and the hysterical reaction of her local community.

The role remained one of her favourites,...

Versatile Irish stage actor who became a familiar face across British drama

Before he became a familiar face on television and cinema screens, the outstanding Irish actor Tp McKenna, who has died after a long illness aged 81, bridged the gap between the old and the new Abbey theatres in Dublin. He appeared with the company for eight years during the interim period at the Queen's theatre; the old Abbey burned down in 1951, the new one opened by the Liffey in 1966.

During that time he made his reputation as a leading actor of great charm, vocal resource – with a fine singing voice – and versatility. He was equally adept at comedy and tragedy, a great exponent of the best Irish playwriting from Jm Synge and Séan O'Casey to Hugh Leonard and Brian Friel. The elder son in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night was a favourite, much acclaimed role.

It was Stephen D,...