The Stranger (1946)

An agent (Edward G. Robinson) of the War Crimes Commission lets a convicted criminal escape in hopes he leads them to a notorious Nazi commander. This trail leads him to a small Connecticut town.

Character actor Billy House had a memorable role. Richard Long appears in his second screen credit. I will forever associate him with House on Haunted Hill (1959), but others may remember him from Big Valley or Nanny and the Professor. He did a lot of television before dying tragically young.

Faithful Mary (Loretta Young) is unknowingly engaged to marry the Nazi (Orson Welles). I found it peculiar that she refers to her father (Philip Merivale) by his first name, and he calls her "Sister". I wondered if this was a Quaker thing, but couldn't confirm it. Very strange. Another strange thing is when Mary returns from her honeymoon, little brother Noah asks “Did you remember to keep your knees together and your apparatus in?” This was in context to skiing, but I wonder if the screenwriter might be giving a wink to the audience.

Both may have been explained by the original edit. The producers gave the editor carte blanche to remove anything he felt was unnecessary. Cut and lost is thirty minutes of footage, much of it from the opening. Welles was furious.

Were I to criticize The Stranger, it would be that the story was rather linear, particularly for a Welles film. But it works and the performances are excellent. Robinson just got better as he aged and only Welles can deliver lines the way he does. I would love to see the two hour edit. AMRU 4.

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Back in 1870’s there were these Ambesons, see, and boy were they magnificent. That is to say, they were rich and the height of polite society. Young Eugene (Joseph Cotten) is in love with the beautiful Isabel Amberson, but he broke his cello so she married someone else. I'm not sure I completely understand that part. Anyhow, Eugene also gets married, raises a daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter) and becomes a widower. A successful inventor, he starts courting the now middle-aged Isabel while her husband hides in his bedroom. Isabel’s atrocious son takes a fancy to Lucy but not her dad. Years later he would prospect for gold with Humphrey Bogart.

Orson Welles’ follow up to Citizen Kane, he adapted the story, directed, and narrated it (including the closing credits). RKO, wanting a conventional money-maker, re-edited the film while Orson was in Brazil. They shot a new, happier ending and removed about fifty minutes. I would like to have seen the more somber version but maybe not at the cost of another hour of my life. At 88 minutes, I didn’t find myself needing to watch more.

Like Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons is a visually impressive film. With interesting use of shadow, and layered mise en scene, it’s photography feels like a refined version of the previous film. But because of how dull the story is, I had to remind myself to pay attention. In the third act is an impressive long take where atrocious George is saying goodbye forever to pretty Lucy while she pretends not to care. At about two minutes fifty, it's an amazing shot and Anne Baxter was amazing in it. And there are other aspects to the story worth exploring, but it simply wasn't that interesting.

I needed to watch the film a second time to fully understand what's going on, but I don’t find myself wanting to. Very mannered and cinemagraphic, but something of a bore. AMRU 3.

“Well, that’s a horse on me.”

The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Having burned his way out of town, Orson Welles focused on the stage. In order to get his stage musical financed he promised to make a traditional, Hollywood, action thriller. What he actually made was a two and a half hour mess. He wanted voice level to be almost too low to hear and blast the audience away with sound effects. Because EvErYboDy lOvEs ThAt! Fortunately, studio meddling turned it into something watchable.

Our hero is poor Michael O’Hara who is actually Orson Welles with an Irish Accent. He earns a job on a rich lawyer’s yacht by hitting on his hot young wife (Rita Hayworth). And by saving her from thugs. There he continues his infatuation with hot Elsa and gets caught up in what we here are referring to as ‘intrigue’.

Hayworth was Welles estranged wife at the time, fun fun. He had her hair cut and bleached, which was a no-no back in the day. Rita’s strawberry blond hair was her trademark and you just don’t go messing with studio property. Were you to film in Fenway park you don’t go and paint the Green Monster blue. Welles was his own worst enemy.

I refrain from spoiling the story but in actuality the viewer has no clue where it's going for the majority of the runtime anyhow. Even Welles' O'Hara seems to have a dumbfounded expression on his face throughout the film. Studio boss Harry Cohen said he'd never hire the same man to produce, direct, and star in a film because he could never fire him. But, you know, Cohen was an ass.

Film purists will defend Welles artistic vision, but that’s not what he promised the studio. Maybe his version would have been a masterpiece, but he hadn't earned the right to make it. Not from Hollywood's perspective, at least. What we got was an interesting, weird as hell, and watchable hour and a half long film. AMRU 3.5.

“George, that’s the first time anyone ever thought enough of you to call you a shark. If you were a good lawyer you’d be flattered.”

Touch of Evil (1958)

A car carrying a rich old man and his hot young girlfriend, driving over the US-Mexican border, blows up killing them both. On the scene is Vargas (Charlton Heston), an educated, politically connected (totally non-rapist) Mexican police detective. He works with fat, sloppy American police captain Quinlan (Orson Welles) to solve the murder. At this time his hot anglo wife (Janet Leigh) starts being harassed by family members of the people Vargas has been prosecuting. Things get complicated.

This movie could be about finding the bomber, or about the crime family tormenting the hot Leigh, but it’s really about the culture clash between two nations so close to each other, and the prejudice that permeates their relationship. Quinlan is suspicious of Mexicans and disrespects Vargas, the Mexican crime family has a complicated relationship with America, and the Vargas’ themselves are torn between both worlds. All this in the late 50’s.

Heston agreed to the role because he thought Welles was going to direct. When he found out that the director hadn’t been selected yet, he insisted on Welles, and the studio agreed. It was Welles’ presence that also convinced Leigh to accept the roll, despite the low pay.

Upon completion the studio chopped up the film in editing. Welles was upset, and wrote a 58 page letter to the studio head. The version I saw was a recreation of Welles’ original vision, as can be determined from his letter.

The movie features Dennis Weaver (Gunsmoke, McCloud) in an early role. Zsa Zsa earned a bit part by being the producer’s boyfriend. Marlene Dietrich had a small but important role, and if you blinked you’d miss Welles buddy Joseph Cotten’s cameo.

Touch of Evil is a brave film, confronting racism head on. It’ll be remembered as having a Mexican played by Red Blooded, US ‘Merican Charlton Heston with a US ‘Merican accent, but its message that citizens on both sides of the border can be despicable and honorable alike may have been lost otherwise. The difference between art and craft is that craft needs to know we are ready to accept change while art tells us we must. The problem with putting minorities in lead roles is that studios want established stars, and until there is a large pool of established leading man minorities, it is hard to get the studio on board with hiring them. Catch-22. Maybe, in some small way, Touch of Evil slightly acclimated 50’s audiences to considering a lead minority. Either way, putting an unknown Mexican in the lead may have resulted in the film not being made, or at least not seen very much. At any rate, I find it easy to forgive the whitewash casting because of the its progressive message. AMRU 4.

“She don’t look Mexican either.”

Catch-22 (1970)

Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin) wants to be grounded so he tells the doctor that he is crazy. But by asking to be grounded he is proving that he is sane, as only a crazy person would want to continue flying dangerous missions. The other pilots are crazy because they want to fly, but they can't be grounded because they won't ask. But if they do, Catch-22.

Based on the Joseph Heller novel and as I understand, a fairly faithful rendition. I took my son's word. Reading books is hard. That's why I watch. The story is non-linear and must be watched to the end for it to make any sense. the screenplay was written by Buck Henry, who also wrote Mike Nichols' The Graduate. Again, I'll say it. So THAT'S why SNL kept having him appear.

Catch-22 is chuck full of familiar character actors. Bob Newhart, Jack Gilford, Norman Fell, Richard Benjamin, and even Art Garfunkel. Future heavies Martin Sheen and Jon Voight, plus heavy has-been Orson Welles. The first cinematic display of someone on a toilet included Martin Balsam (12 angry men, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and this episode of The Twilight Zone I just saw) and Anthony Perkins. The first time a toilet was shown was in Psycho, which also featured both men.

Because of it's very nature, the story cannot be described. There is an absurd, dreamlike quality, and the audience is forced to pay close attention to make sense of it all. Frequently background noise drowns out the dialog, but that's purely intentional. This is not a movie for everybody, but it was definitely a movie for me. AMRU 4. Arkin may be this country's greatest character actor.

"Whoo... That's some catch, that Catch-22.
It's the best there is."

F for Fake (1973)

F for Fake is Orson Welles' video essay about Elmyr de Hory, a notorious art forger, who successfully passed off his copies as authentic. Along the way, it is discovered that de Hory's chief accuser, writer Clifford Irving, is himself a fraud, having faked documents to pass off a fraudulent biography of recluse Howard Hughes. This fake within a fake spins off more tales, like Welles' own War of the Worlds trick.

Welles' so-called free-form documentary is irritatingly herky-jerky. The fat man looks foolish in the black cape and hat, and appears too much to enjoy filming his girlfriend 26 years his junior and acting all mysterious. The overall theme appears to be that people are not what they seem, art is not what it seems, and Orson Welles is not what he seems.

Even still, there is something compelling about the Wellesian style. Here is the Orson I remember from my youth. Self-important, fat, drunk, and rambling, but somehow charming. It's hard to describe. He tells his story, many stories in fact, in a very non-linear fashion. In the end you learn something about the art world and the people that make it up, and your are entertained. While I have misgivings about the overall viewing experience, it is quite different, and maybe that's what trips me up somewhat.

Now I will point you to an episode of one of my favorite YouTube channels, certainly my favorite on the topic of cinema:

Tony Zhou of Every Frame a Painting absolutely loves F for Fake, and I love Every Frame a Painting. He reminds me how little I know, and how few good films I have seen. It's both wonderful and disheartening. So if he loves F for Fake, I suppose I shouldn't be quite so hasty. AMRU 3.5.

The Third Man (1949)

Writer Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) travels to Vienna, still ravaged by the war, to visit his boyhood friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). It seems Holly's pulp novels aren't selling all that well and jumped at the opportunity to mooch off his old friend. Sadly for him, good 'oll Harry is dead. Seems he walked out in front of a truck. Bad news for Holly.

The local police chief, who didn't seem to have bent too far backwards investigating the death, isn't too torn up over it. Seems he has quite a lower opinion of Lime than Holly. Something to do with penicillin and the black market. So, with nothing better to do, and to redeem the good name of his buddy, he decides to start asking questions. Soon he discovers discrepancies in the police report. It says two men helped Lime to the side of the road but a witness clearly saw three. Maybe Lime's death was no accident. Maybe it was murder. And the first person to ask is The Third Man.

Happen to know what a zither is? If not, it's a traditional eastern European stringed instrument that makes a uniquely annoying sound, certainly not the kind one would master in hopes of impressing the lady-folk. In the world of western cinema, there is room for exactly one film to make exclusive use of it, and this is that film. If there exists another movie in creation that uses this instrument exclusively, that movie should be torn up, burned, then the ashes fed to rabid snakes.

That said, this noir film seems to work well with the comically upbeat zither. In fact, most of the movie works well. The acting was fine, the setting and atmosphere were great, the story had me guessing, and the hottie (Alda Valli as Lime's grieving girlfriend) was hot.

Not wanting to spoil anything, I'm going to leave it there. It's a very good mystery that bears rewatching. AMRU 4.

"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

Citizen Kane (1941)

Everybody knows this movie. Orson Welles' masterpiece. Everybody's pick for best movie ever. Nobody's pick for what they want to rent tonight. 

I was given this film many years ago back when it didn't seem strange to give someone a VCR tape for birthday. I tried watching it once but found it long, confounding, and frankly rather dull. Maybe I got a half hour into it. Finally, I gave it another try. 

The movie starts with the death of Charles Kane, wealthy newspaper magnate (in olden times, newspapers used to turn a profit!) His last word (although nobody is there to hear it) is "Rosebud". The media, fascinated by what this could mean, investigate Kane's life to find out what was so important to a man that had everything. Apparently there wasn't anything else going on in 1941 worth reporting. We learn about Kane's life in retrospective. 

Charles Foster Kane is supposed to be William Randolph Hearst. There are lots of connections between the story and Hearst's life, and stories how Hearst tried to stop the films release, but I'll let you read them for yourself on IMDB or Wikipedia. 

So, what's all the hullabaloo about? Camera angles? Clever narrative tricks? Techniques so apparent that they actually interfere with the story? Is this a film that nobody but a film student could ever love? 

Nope. I really liked it. Now, I will say that the story wasn't all that compelling. It kept my interest, and was very well written, but it's not the "main feature". So much of the story is told with how Orson filled the screen. You could have the audio off and never be unsure what the character's relationship was. Every scene was laid out artistically. It's hard to explain. 

And, if you are not paying attention to what he was doing, you could miss much of it. I was a little surprised how much I enjoyed watching Citizen Kane. Now, I do own the film, but I wouldn't have purchased it for myself. In truth, the story and acting do not distinguish Kane, and that is what I respond to in cinema, but still, AMRU 4.