welles arcana

[ckaratnytsky at nypl.org]

     Joseph McBride, in his book ORSON WELLES, sez:
     
     "The history of Welles's career is riddled with unmade films, some of 
     them possibly only pipe-dreams (as John Huston has remarked, 'Orson 
     has established proprietary rights on film versions of moist of the 
     world's classics'), and some, like CATCH-22, which pained him terribly 
     not to direct.  Before making CITIZEN KANE, he prepared HEART OF 
     DARKNESS and Nicholas Blake's THE SMILER WITH THE KNIFE for RKO.  
     After KANE, he wanted to make THE PICKWICK PAPERS.  During World War 
     II, Alexander Korda announced that he would have Welles direct WAR AND 
     PEACE when the war ended.  In 1944 Welles proposed that Charlie 
     Chaplin play Landru in a film he would direct; when Chaplin decided he 
     wanted to direct the film himself, Welles protested , and Chaplin 
     wound up giving him several thousand dollars and screen credit for 
     the idea of MONSIEUR VERDOUX.  Other failed projects include:  AROUND 
     THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, which he adapted for stage but lost to Mike Todd 
     on the screen; MOBY DICK, which he had to abandon when Huston made the 
     film with Welles as Father Mapple..."
     
     This list (list! o list!) of unrealized projects concludes thusly:  
     When an interviewer asked him in 1965 what films he really wanted to 
     do, Welles replied, 'Mine.  I have drawers full of scenarios written 
     by me...I do not work enough.  I am frustrated, do you understand?'
     
     My favorite Welles scripts here in the Theatre Collection are the 
     promptbook for the so-called Voodoo MACBETH (an all-black version of 
     the Scottish play starring Canada Lee and produced under the auspices 
     of the Federal Theatre Project in 1932), and a typescript for a play 
     about John Brown called MARCHING SONG, which Welles co-authored with 
     his mentor Roger Hill -- when he was SEVENTEEN.
     
     The story goes like this:  Hill checked himself and the boy wonder 
     into the Algonquin and prepared to fend off a queue of prospective 
     producers, each more eager than the one before to get this play with 
     its epic cast of characters on the boards.  No one bit.  After about a 
     week of this, Hill left and young Welles, on his own, intrepid at 
     first but soon lonely and despairing, trudged the script from office 
     to office, with no success.  His first taste of professional rejection 
     -- it was to haunt him for much of his later career.  The play has 
     never been produced to my knowledge.  I found it at the bottom of a 
     dusty, forgotten pile about 10 years ago.  The manuscript is hundreds 
     of pages long, typed on thin onion skin paper, and signed by Welles on 
     the first page.  My heart pounded when I first saw it.  No kidding.  I 
     just took it out to have a look before sending this and, fuckin eejit 
     librarianess that I am, it still gives me goosebumps.
     
     Chris

     (Some day I'll tell you guys about the promptbook for the original  
     U.S. WAITING FOR GODOT -- then you'll know the depths of my mania.)