Welles, Orson

Citizen Kane (Two-Disc Special Edition)

A fascinating story of idealism corrupted by wealth Citizen Kane is frequently named the greatest film of all time and is credited with inspiring more directorial careers than any other film in history. Orsen Welles and Agnes Moorehead star.Running Time: 119 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 053939656527 Manufacturer No: T6565DVD

Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles's 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26, still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions, and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. The result is that every well-meaning or tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event. Written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, and photographed by Gregg Toland, the film is the sum of Welles's awesome ambitions as an artist in Hollywood. He pushes the limits of then-available technology to create a true magic show, a visual and aural feast that almost seems to be rising up from a viewer's subconsciousness. As Kane, Welles even ushers in the influence of Bertolt Brecht on film acting. This is truly a one-of-a-kind work, and in many ways is still the most modern of modern films from the 20th century. --Tom Keogh

Don Quixote

The Lady from Shanghai

Legend has it that Orson Welles more or less conned studio boss Harry Cohn over the phone into making this movie by grabbing the title from a nearby paperback. In any case, The Lady from Shanghai is one of Welles's most fascinating works, a bizarre tale of an Irish sailor (Welles) who accompanies a beautiful woman (Rita Hayworth) and her handicapped husband (Everett Sloane) on a cruise and becomes involved in a murder plot. But never mind all that (the aforementioned legend also claims that Cohn offered a reward to anyone who could explain the plot to him). The film is really a dream of Welles's driving preoccupations on- and offscreen at the time: the elusiveness of identity, the mystique of things lost, and most of all the director's faltering marriage to Hayworth. In the tradition of male filmmakers who indirectly tell the story of their love affairs with leading ladies, Welles tells his own, photographing Hayworth as a deconstructed star, an obvious cinematic creation, thus reflecting, perhaps, a never-satisfied yearning that leads us back to the mystery of Citizen Kane. --Tom Keogh

Orson Welles' The Trial

"Josef K. wakes up in the morning and finds the police in his room. They tell him that he is on trial but nobody tells him what he is being accused of. In order to protect his innocence, he tries to look behind the facade of the judicial system. Unfortunately, this is a fruitless and unrealistic goal, leading to a tortuous series of events."

It's All True

In 1942, Orson Welles was at the top of his game in Hollywood and had, as far as he was concerned, a great future ahead of him. Then Nelson Rockefeller asked him to go to Rio to film the annual carnival as part of a goodwill mission to South America. Long story short, what was meant to be a side project destroyed Welles's promising career. He lost control of what might have been his greatest film, The Magnificent Ambersons, became saddled with an unfair reputation as a money squanderer, and had to beg for B-picture projects (which he turned into superb films) in Hollywood for the rest of the decade (after which he scrambled for years to make movies in Europe, except for a brief return to make, and again lose control over, Touch of Evil). Adding insult to injury, the South American footage--both from the carnival and a couple of narrative episodes Welles wanted to put together in a film called It's All True--disappeared for almost 50 years. Then, as these things happen, much of that footage turned up in a vault and eventually was assembled, long after Welles's death, by several people, among them director Richard Wilson (a Welles producer and ally going back to Mercury Theatre days, and who was present with him in Rio when things went from bad to worse). The film now known as It's All True is a combination of Welles's startling material--including the doomstruck episode called "Four Men on a Raft" (during production of which one of the men drowned)--and interviews with Wilson and other principals who witnessed the situation or can comment on it insightfully. Welles fanatics understand the powerful mystique that surrounds It's All True, and others who have enjoyed his work will certainly find this a gripping and ghostly experience. --Tom Keogh

Would 25-year-old Orson Welles (whose 1941 Citizen Kane staggered Hollywood) go to Brazil and make a film for the United States' anti-Nazi "Good Neighbor Policy"? Welles eagerly agreed, masterminding a complex film that featured three separate stories, each vividly depicting the charm, drama and politics of South American culture. During the course of filming, Welles encountered hazardous locations and an ever-changing cast of studio executives at RKO. After months of arduous shooting, the studio suddenly pulled the plug and shelved the project. Welles never recovered from this and the true story of what happened to him in Brazil was never told.

The Stranger (Enhanced Edition) 1946

The Stranger is a 1946 Film Noir starring Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, and Loretta Young. Welles also directed the film, which was based on a screenplay written by Victor Trivas.

Trivas' work was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Sam Spiegel was the film's producer, and the film's musical score is by Bronis Kaper. It is believed that this is the first film released after World War II that showed footage of concentration camps.

The Stranger was the only film made by Welles to have been a bona fide box office success on the first release.

It is 1946 and Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) of the United Nations War Crimes Commission is hunting for Nazi fugitive Franz Kindler (Orson Welles). Kindler has effectively concealed his Nazi activities prior to his escape to the United States. He assumes a new identity, Charles Rankin, lands a job as a university professor and marries Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young), who is the daughter of Supreme Court justice Judge Adam Longstreet.

Wilson releases Kindler's former associate Meinike (Konstantin Shayne) and follows him to Harper, Connecticut, but Meinike is strangled to death before he can identify Kindler. Wilson must convince Mrs. Rankin, the only person to have seen Kindler and Meinke together, that her husband is a war criminal.

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David & Goliath

An adaptation of the Biblical parable, this film version of David and Goliath stars Orson Welles as the brooding King Saul, whose grip on his kingdom is slippingeven at the height of his infamy. But the only way to oust him from the throne is if someone defeats Goliath.

The Dominici Affair

The 1952 slaying of a vacationing family in rural France sent shock waves through the country for years. The crime was dubbed "The Dominici Affair" after Gaston Dominici, the French peasant who was jailed for the death of the couple and their 10-year-old daughter. The brutal crime seized the imagination of controversial director Orson Welles, who explored the subject in a 26-minute film for British television. This 52-minute documentary presents Welles' unreleased film, which has been restored and completed according to the original script. It also incorporates newly discovered archival information and includes a return to the scene of the murders with the journalist who assisted Welles.

Citizen Kane [Region 2]

Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles's 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26, still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions, and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. The result is that every well-meaning or tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event. Written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, and photographed by Gregg Toland, the film is the sum of Welles's awesome ambitions as an artist in Hollywood. He pushes the limits of then-available technology to create a true magic show, a visual and aural feast that almost seems to be rising up from a viewer's subconsciousness. As Kane, Welles even ushers in the influence of Bertolt Brecht on film acting. This is truly a one-of-a-kind work, and in many ways is still the most modern of modern films from the 20th century. --Tom Keogh

The Stranger

STRANGER THE (DVD MOVIE)