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orson welles

Reading the Small Print

Yes, I am reading something at the moment. Watching Touch of Evil a couple of weeks ago gave me the urge to read the eponymous Orson Welles biography by Barbara Leaming.

This has been in our house for a while now, and mom’s already read it. She didn’t like the writing style much. On the whole, I tend to agree—the sentence structure and phrasing is often awkward, and somewhat quaint… but there’s a lot of interesting stuff underneath the stylistic problems.

I’m much more keen to read the Frank Brady bio, Citizen Welles, but it appears to currently be out of print in the UK. If anyone sees a copy going cheap in a second-hand store, hey, drop me a line.
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Touch of Evil (1958)

Well, Big Entry time! I started writing a few lines about the film we watched last night… and quickly found I could either say, ‘It’s great! A must-see!’ or I could do the full review thing. So I put my journalist hat on. Be warned! I could’ve written twice as much, but I forcibly contained it within reasonable limits for a blog entry.

Classic Movie Review!

Orson Welles was originally hired simply as an actor on 1958’s Touch of Evil. It was his co-star, Charlton Heston, who urged Universal to hire him also as director. Welles jumped at the chance—he hadn’t directed in Hollywood since Macbeth (1948). Sadly, his relationship with the studio deteriorated rapidly, and what he thought would be his big-studio ‘comeback’ turned out to be the end of the road.

Touch of Evil 1958 Poster
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I Don’t Need No Steenkin’ Hot Weather

Yesterday was Shopping Day™, and I went into Birmingham. The weather continues to displease me. First thing in the morning, it’s chilly; by noon, it’s blisteringly hot; by late afternoon, a cold wind has been added to the mix. I don’t know, maybe this inconsistency is what Global Warming is about. All I know for sure is, it’s incredibly annoying. Particularly the blisteringly hot bit… but then, I’m no Summer Fan.

Anyhow, I bought a video: Touch of Evil. Oh no! Another Orson Welles film! (I bought The Third Man last month.) Yeah, well, I’m a fan, and since I’m not buying books at the moment—I’m still slogging through The Stand at present, with about 260 pages to go—I’m spending what little spare cash I have elsewhere. As with The Third Man, it’s been at least a decade since I saw this one. We’ll probably watch it tonight, so maybe I’ll comment further tonight or tomorrow.
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The Third Man (1949)

Blogging the midnight oil! I remembered there was, after all, something worth commenting on from last week, and so, I present…

Classic Movie Mini-Review!

Last Thursday night, we watched The Third Man (1949). I hadn’t seen it in about ten years. I spotted the video for £3.99 (in Virgin) and snapped it up. Well, what a movie! Orson Welles—need I say more? Yes. Welles has no creative role here; the story is Graham Greene’s and the direction is Carol Reed’s (Ollie Reed’s uncle). The setting is post-War Vienna, both beautiful and yet still ravaged by the conflict. The story is about the black market, an apparently dead racketeer and a ‘third man’… to say any more would be a spoiler. The emphasis is totally on atmosphere.

The Third Man 1949 Poster
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