Orson Welles: Euro Rover Extraordinaire

With The Trial debuting in the UK on Blu-ray, now seems a fitting time to examine Orson Welles' love affair with Europe.

Orson Welles had a very good Cannes in 2018. A little thing like being dead since 1985 did nothing to detract from the excitement over his soon-to-be-released final film The Other Side Of The Wind. And with the Mark Cousins documentary The Eyes Of Orson Welles receiving a raft of positive reviews and 10cc drummer and acclaimed video director Kevin Godley announcing that his next project will be a film about the young Orson's adventures in Ireland, this was the Citizen Kane creator's finest Cannes since he won a brace of awards for Chimes At Midnight in 1966.

Welles has been a big deal on the Riviera since the inaugural festival of 1952 when he received the predecessor of the Palme d'Or for his adaptation of Othello. Though he'd travelled the continent extensively as the son of wealthy gadabout and a gifted adolescent actor and painter, George Orson Welles only truly began to refer to Europe as home after he was unceremoniously drummed-out of Hollywood in 1958.

Starring Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh, Orson's Touch Of Evil had appeared the sort of picture capable of restarting his career in American movies. With Orson himself on board as the film's heavy and close friends Marlene Dietrich, Joseph Cotten and Zsa Zsa Gabor taking cameo roles, the film noir seemed a sure thing. Rather than the meat-and-potatoes thriller Universal hired him to make, Welles conjured up a brilliantly warped picture complete with to-the-edge performances from Dennis Weaver and Akim Tamiroff and a guest turn from Mercedes McCambridge as a biker gang-leading lesbian. On viewing the rough cut, the execs had Touch Of Evil re-cut behind Welles' back, after which they didn't so much release the movie as flush it. His already shoddy reputation ruined, Orson would never again direct in the United States.

Damned to the fleapit circuit in America, Touch Of Evil enjoyed a better fate in Europe; playing at one cinema in Paris for three consecutive years. The continent had developed a reputation for celebrating Welles movies that died the death in the US. Neither The Stranger nor his low-rent Macbeth did much business in America but both films were short listed for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival. And just one year on from his final Hollywood debacle, Orson would share the Best Actor award at Cannes 1959 with his Compulsion co-stars Bradford Dilman and Dean Stockwell.

The thing is, come the late 1950s, Europe had been pretty keen on Orson Welles for the better part of two decades. Not only had Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons been very well reviewed on this side of the Atlantic, but Orson's stage work was more warmly received in the West End than it had been on Broadway. Welles biographer and fellow actor Simon Callow speaks particularly highly of Moby Dick Rehearsed, which played at the Duke Of York''s Theatre on St Martin's Lane; the eclectic cast featuring Maggie Smith, Gordon Jackson, Kenneth Williams and Peter Sallis. What's more, Welles had already made two films in Europe; the aforementioned Othello and the misfiring Mr Arkadin. The man himself probably saw being based on the continent as an inconvenience but in many ways, this was the best place for Orson Welles to be making movies.

He certainly shot films here that he wouldn't have had a hope of making in Hollywood. For example, no major studio in the early 1960s was calling for an adaptation of Kafka's The Trial. And if any top exec had wanted to green-light his Shakespearean epic Chimes At Midnight, it would have been with Laurence Olivier rather than Orson Welles at the helm. What's more, in the unlikely event of Orson being asked to make these movies by US studios, it's hard to imagine him being free to cast the likes of Jeanne Moreau and Margaret Rutherford who, though revered in Europe and quite excellent in Chimes, meant nothing to American audiences.

This artistic freedom came at a cost, mind you. Europe might have had all the artistic license you could ever want but it could provide little in the way of currency. The impact of this shortfall was twofold. First up, it forced Welles to can some of his films before they'd been completed; both Don Quixote and The Deep had to be shelved once the cash ran out. And then there was the pressure on Orson to raise his own money, which led to his appearing in a host of films, many of which were so far beneath him, he took a torch and a canary to the set.

The schlock horror of Malpertuis, the suspense-less 'thrills' of House Of Cards, the laugh-lite comedy of Twelve Plus One - Welles endured all this and more. If he despised the work, he was grateful for the generosity of producers like Lew Grade (The Voyage Of The Damned) and Michael Winner (I'll Never Forget What's'isname). More to the point, Orson Welles was still a 'name' in Europe. In America, his stock as an actor was almost as low as his reputation as a producer-director. A cameo appearance in Catch-22 aside, his work in the US was restricted to Z-movies like Bert I Gordon's Necromancy and interesting roles in films by as yet undiscovered directors like Brian De Palma (Get To Know Your Rabbit) and Henry Jaglom (Someone To Love). In later years, Welles would claim that he'd have sold his soul to play Don Corleone in The Godfather. He'd also voice his regret that he turned down a well-paid part as a militant gorilla leader in the first Planet Of The Apes sequel - this from the man who completely reinvented cinema with his very first film.

Only valued in his homeland for his voice - he'd narrate any number of films and documentaries, as well as no end of adverts - in Europe, Orson was still afforded meaty roles like those of Louis XIV in Waterloo and Winston Churchill in The Battle Of Sutjeska. And though they were hard to come by, there remained opportunities to work behind the camera on the continent. Granted the run of the BBC tape library, Welles cobbled together the fascinating F For Fake, an essay film about the art of hoaxing featuring art forger Elmyr De Hory (see The New European). He also fashioned the documentary Filming 'Othello', a fascinating study of the play and Orson's obsession with it.

Away from the glare of Hollywood, Welles was free to play with the art form. Short films like London, in which he pals around with future Goodies Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, might have been seen as sad had word of them reached America. Watched today, they are but further evidence of the restless creativity and insatiable curiosity of their creator.

Then, as it must to all men, death came to George Orson Welles.

Since passing away on October 10th 1985, the big man has been impressively if improbably prolific. 'Lost' films such as It's All True and Don Quixote had been uncovered and aired; his shorter works found an audience courtesy of The One-Man Band, a documentary directed by his companion Oja Kodar; and TV projects such as Around The World With Orson Welles have been lovingly restored by the BFI. All of which brings us back to Cannes 2018 and the premiere The Other Side Of The Wind, a movie about movie-making co-funded by the Shah of Iran's brother-in-law which Welles shot on-and-off between 1970 and 1976.

In the run-up to the festival, news that the movie mightn't make it to Cannes after all prompted much growling and gnashing of teeth. The scene of some of his greatest triumphs, it only made sense that Orson Welles' final film should debut on the French Riviera. Likewise, it's only fitting that this most recent celebration of the man and his movies occurred on this side of the Pond. For as Europe's love affair with Orson Welles endures so it should also be noted that it was far from one-sided. The screenwriter/director/producer/editor/actor/impresario/painter made this abundantly clear with his choice of resting place. Having taken Hollywood by storm in the 1940s, it was fitting that George Orson Welles should die in the City of Angels. But when it came to his ashes, he made quite a statement when he asked that they be placed in a well in Ronda, Spain, on a ranch owned by fellow matador Antonio Ordonez.

Oh, you didn't know that Orson Welles was a bullfighter? A story for another day perhaps...