Sunday, October 14, 2007
Film The best scene from Orson Welles's Don Quixote
Posted by Jonathan Rosenbaum on Sun, Oct 14, 2007 at 7:37 PM
I hope I can be forgiven for promoting a piece of my own promotion. It seems worth doing in this case because an hour-long interview with me by Mara Tapp about my latest book, Discovering Orson Welles, taped for CAN TV19 and showing on Sunday, October 21, at 5 PM and then again on Monday, October 22, at noon, entitled "Unseen Orson Welles," includes a silent, five-minute sequence (scroll down article to four paragraphs before the end) from Orson Welles' unfinished Don Quixote that is arguably the greatest sequence he shot for the film, even though it can't be found in the execrable version cobbled together by Jesus Franco in 1992. It was shot in the mid-1950s in Mexico City, during the postproduction of Touch of Evil. It's set in a movie theater, features child actress Patty McCormack as herself, Francesco Riguera (see photo) as Quixote, and Akim Tamiroff (perhaps Welles's favorite character actor, who also appears in Mr. Arkadin, Touch of Evil, and The Trial) as Sancho Panza, and is fully edited by Welles.
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Jonathan, I currently live in Philadelphia, do you know if that segment will be available online at some point? Also, I've been digging through the Siskel & Ebert show archives online and I can't seem to find any of the movies you reviewed when Roger had you on the show, is there a reason for this? After doing some research I belive one of the films you reviewed was Eyes Wide Shut, I don't know what the others were though...
Someone just approached the show's producer about the possibility of posting the show on the Reader web site, but I haven't yet heard whether or not this will pan out. There is also some hope that it will be shown on other cable channels if there's some interest. I never appeared on the Siskel & Ebert show as a reviewer--only once as a commentator, along with a few other Chicago reviewers, on a special show about Stanley Kubrick, shortly after he died.
Jonathan are you aware of any DVD release possibilities for whatever remains of this film? I have heard a rumor that Criterion has rights to release this and was wondering if you know anything about that. Thanks.
All I can tell you is that Oja Kodar recently won a court case in Italy against Mauro Bonnani, the film's original editor, who has been sitting on much of the footage (including the movie-theater sequence) since the 1970s, when Welles left Rome for good. When I visited Kodar in Croatia last August, she'd just won the case but had not yet received the footage, much less been able to inventory it. (There's a theoretical possibility that the missing reels from Welles' 40-minute film of The Merchant of Venice may be discovered in the same batch.) It was also unclear at that point whether this footage would wind up at the Spanish Cinematheque or at the Munich Film Archives, both of which already house a lot of Welles material and would naturally want to add this additional footage to their collections. I've heard nothing about Criterion having any rights to this film. If they do, one then has to ask, rights to what, exactly? Hopefully not the awful Jesus Franco edit of the Welles Quixote that's already available in Spain and is unquestionably the worst thing ever done to any Welles project by anyone. (The recutting of Ambersons or Arkadin is a piece of cake by comparison.) If in fact a new version of the Welles Quixote is in the offing, I've yet to hear about it. If the Patty McCormack portion of the footage (all of it missing from the Franco version) were to become available in some form, that would be great. I've seen a certain amount of it (maybe 15 minutes), but it still isn't clear to me whether or not there might be more. You can find an account of what's known and what's not known about the Welles Quixote material in various parts of my book, including the final chapter.
In cult film circles, Jess Franco is best known for his Euro Trash contributions, women-in-prison and nunsploitation being two of his favorite sub-genres. Popular Jess Franco titles include Sadomania, Vampyros Lesbos, and Barbed Wire Dolls. As terribly sad as it is, the fact that Jess Franco of all people was given the responsibility of editing Welles' Don Quixote is absolutely hilarious to me. Why hasn't someone given Tinto Brass the chance to re-edit The Magnificent Ambersons?
Franco got the assignment because (1) he was an assistant director on Chimes at Midnight and (2) because he could work in a hurry, so that the film could premiere in time for an event in Spain called Expo 92.
The IMDB also has Franco listed as assistant director (uncredited) on Don Quixote. Was he involved in this capacity when the picture was shot?
I doubt it. Franco lies a lot about Welles, and this sounds like one of his whoppers--or else one of IMDB's countless errors.
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