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| "THERE HAS NEVER BEEN ANYONE...EVER...AS INTERESTING, BROADLY KNOWLEDGABLE, MYSTERIOUS, RIVETING AND TALENTED AS ORSON WELLES." (Jupiter Le Grand) "WHY CAN'T AMERICANS HAVE TALK SHOWS LIKE THIS AGAIN." (Ariadita Pramestu) "WATCHING THIS I REALIZE HOW FAR WE HAVE FALLEN." (Phillipe Cook) "CANT HELP BUT ADMIRE THE PACE. NO RUSHING... JUST A SMOOTH FLOW OF CONVERSATION." ( Scram004) Youtube comments. Well I've often asked myself the same question. Why can't late night chat shows be like they used to be instead of the tv output we get today where they bring them on like cattle while we watch and wait to see which so called celebrity can get the most laughs with some smutty episode from their time on a film set. With the general decline in films today, Hollywood moguls must be quaking in their boots after Korea's victory for the top prize at this year's Oscars. The fact is that today's actors don't seem to have the gravitas and intellect that many of yesterday's actors had. Just watching many of the re-runs of The Parkinson Shows are a joy to watch, with actors like Peter Ustinov, Rex Harrison, Fred Astaire, Richard Burton, John Betjeman, James Cagney, Spike Milligan, Shelley Winters, David Niven, Lauren Bacall, Peter O'Toole, Richard Harris, Peter Sellers, Dirk Bogarde, Shirley MacClaine, Jack Lemmon Bing Crosby, Bob Hope as well as Dick Cavett, and the great man himself, Orson Welles. The list was endless. And that one man who had a lifetime battle with Hollywood was the great Orson Welles, a giant of the 20th century who was also an incredible witness to history. Here we see him from a 1970 recording of The Dick Cavett Show in which he reminisced of his meetings with such historical figures like Adolph Hitler, General George Marshall and Winston Churchill. Of course many would be surprised to hear about his dining at the same table as Adolph Hitler back in his early days when Hitler had only just formed the Nazi Party. Welles recalled to Dick Cavett that he could remember nothing about Hitler, saying that there was nothing there, no personality whatsoever. And towards the end of the video Welles recalls the times he met up with Winston Churchill, probably the most amusing part of the whole video. If I was ever to refresh and update a list of all my top favourite classic movies, then at least five of Orson Welles's movies would easily be in the top 15. Those being......... 1. CITIZEN KANE 2. A TOUCH OF EVIL 3. THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI 4. CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT 5. F FOR FAKE We sometimes think of 'THE THIRD MAN' (1949) directed by Carol Reed as being a Welles film when in fact he only had a cameo role in it. But even in that brief role he stole the show and is credited for spouting one of cinema's greatest lines in a movie......... "YOU KNOW WHAT THE FELLOW SAID - IN ITALY, FOR THIRTY YEARS UNDER THE BORGIAS, THEY HAD WARFARE, TERROR, MURDER AND BLOODSHED, BUT THEY PRODUCED MICHELANGELO, LEONARDO DA VINCI AND THE RENAISSANCE. IN SWITZERLAND, THEY HAD BROTHERLY LOVE, AND HAD FIVE HUNDRED YEARS OF DEMOCRACY AND PEACE - AND WHAT DID THAT PRODUCE? THE CUCKOO CLOCK." ABOVE VIDEO KINDLY UPLOADED BY THE DICK CAVETT CHANNEL |
Orson was BIG story teller. You can't believe anything he says. A Hitler historians spoke about this meeting and immediately notice in his story the fact that Hitler was never in Austria from the period 1919–1931, when the Nazis weren't in power. Hitler was in Germany the whole time and he only ever visited Austria to go to Vienna and burry his niece Geli after her suicide in 1931. And also Austria was a separate country from Germany until the 1938 Anschluss, and Nazi rallies were banned during this time by the Austrofascists.
ReplyDeleteBecause Orson Welles gives no date or specific location, besides being in Tyrol near Innsbruck in the days the Nazis were a fringe group, I don’t think his claim to have met Hitler is credible. I imagine if he actually met Hitler then he would remember the year at least, and not give some vague answer to a very interesting subject.
Neil, Your response sounds just like something I read on Quora.... and word for word. Of course he did say on the Cavett Show that he went hiking through both Austria and Germany. Perhaps he got the name places wrong.
DeleteBut yes, he has been accused of embellishing stories in the past. Perhaps he can afford to, having lived such a full and colourful life.
Unlike back then before the days of the internet and Google, you imagine that you could get away with such exaggerations. But not today where everything is photographed.
But I'd hate to think that he made it all up. He was an extraordinary person. They say he even added in that 'Cuckoo Clock ' line in the 'Third Man.' Although some now say that the cuckoo clock was invented in Baden Germany.
Neil, I also read that some people dispute Welles's claim that he was related to Gideon Welles, President Lincoln's Secretary of the U.S Navy.
DeleteAnd I wondered why someone else on Quora claimed that Welles wouldn't have been in Europe at the time he claimed to have met Hitler. But then we all know that Europe was Welles's regular hunting ground for work, probabably spending more time there than in the U.S.
I don't care that he may have embellished or 'forgotten' details. He was a wonderful raconteur. I didn't know that he perhaps met Hitler.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, We don't have his kind on the chatshow circuit anymore. Perhaps that's why
Deletethe chat shows have gone downhill and have been dumbed down.