THE DANMAN CAN

Orson Welles '  The Lady From Shanghai   (1947) is one bizarre  noir —part love triangle, part murder mystery, part courtroom drama, and always a bit confusing.  Rita Hayworth , devastatingly beautiful, gives quite a good performance here, in a drastically different role from her sultry star turn in the previous year's  Gilda  ( review ). The overdubbing lends a very surreal quality to the film and the atonal/disjointed filmmaking (a Welles trademark throughout his career—whether intentional or through studio meddling) makes it a sometimes frustrating but unique experience. Welles' brogue is also distracting and often unconvincing. My biggest gripe about  TLFS  though is a film/television trope that drives me crazy—where characters say the name of other characters (usually directly to them)  incessantly  (seriously, you could play a drinking game for the number of times Hayworth says "Michael" to Welles alone).  It's clear...

A beautiful, visually striking, expertly acted, expressionistic, Gothic interpretation of  Shakespeare ’s  The Scottish Play ,  Orson Welles '  Macbeth (1948) is a sumptuous cinematic treat. Orson Welles Feature Films Ranked

Orson Welles '  The Lady From Shanghai   (1947) is one bizarre  noir —part love triangle, part murder mystery, part courtroom drama, and always a bit confusing.  Rita Hayworth , devastatingly beautiful, gives quite a good performance here, in a drastically different role from her sultry star turn in the previous year's  Gilda  ( review ). The overdubbing lends a very surreal quality to the film and the atonal/disjointed filmmaking (a Welles trademark throughout his career—whether intentional or through studio meddling) makes it a sometimes frustrating but unique experience. Welles' brogue is also distracting and often unconvincing. My biggest gripe about  TLFS  though is a film/television trope that drives me crazy—where characters say the name of other characters (usually directly to them)  incessantly  (seriously, you could play a drinking game for the number of times Hayworth says "Michael" to Welles alone).  It's clear...

There's no mistaking that the 1962 film adaptation of Franz Kafka 's posthumous 1925 novel The Trial   is Orson Welles ' version of The Trial . It's Kafkaesque, to be sure, but it's Wellesian  Kafkaesque. I hadn't seen the film since I bought a cheap VHS copy of it in the mid 1990s, so seeing it in on 4K UHD was a revelation. I find the film a bit uneven and meandering at times, as is Welles' habit, but it's also an incredible technical achievement, with monumental production design, and some truly powerful scenes. A disorienting, surrealist bureaucratic nightmare that puts me in mind to revisit the classic book. Orson Welles Feature Films Ranked

To my knowledge, I had never watched the Theatrical Version of Orson Welles '  Touch Of Evil (1958) prior to tonight. I'd always gravitated toward the Reconstructed Version of the film, even though I previously owned a Blu-ray edition with all three available versions of TOE  (the Preview Version being the third). Now that the film is on 4K UHD, I decided it was time to see how the film was originally widely viewed by audiences. And I have to say—given Welles' experimental, sometimes meandering editing and dialogue style, along with what I could remember regarding specifics of the Reconstructed Version—it doesn't feel all that dramatically different to me. To be clear, the Theatrical Version is 15 minutes shorter and there are some key differences ( this website provides a comparison), of which I am aware, but the overall feel of the film remains similar. I do think the Theatrical Version is not quite as good (I give the Reconstructed Version an extra half star), b...

Citizen Kane   (1941) (one of my  Top 100 Films —Top 10, actually) continues to age well and remains as impressive, engaging, and relevant as ever. It's a treat to be able to watch this film, which I've seen many times, in the best possible home video quality via  The Criterion Collection 's  4K UHD , with a wealth of new special features, and contained in beautiful packaging. I love the mystique and legend of  CK 's central character, Charles Foster Kane (mostly based on  William Randolph Hearst ), built up over the course of the film through flashbacks, interspersed with investigative present day (1941) scenes. I love the cast, which includes  Orson Welles 's  Mercury  players—himself, along with  Joseph Cotten  (charming and dashing as ever),  Ray Collins  (thoroughly despicable),  Everett Sloane  (the likable yes-man),  Agnes Moorehead  (intense as Hearst's mother), and more. And, of course,...

As I'm sure many film buffs are doing, after watching David Fincher 's  Mank (2020) (my review here ) on its release day, I decided to revisit Citizen Kane (1941) (one of my  Top 100 Films —Top 10, actually), which continues to age well and remains as impressive, engaging, and relevant as ever. I love the mystique and legend of CK 's central character, Charles Foster Kane (mostly based on  William Randolph Hearst ), built up over the course of the film through flashbacks, interspersed with investigative present day (1941) scenes. I love the cast, which includes Orson Welles 's Mercury players—himself, along with  Joseph Cotten (charming and dashing as ever),  Ray Collins  (thoroughly despicable), Everett Sloane (the likable yes-man), Agnes Moorehead  (intense as Hearst's mother), and more. And, of course, Gregg Toland 's cinematography never ceases to amaze, Bernard Herrmann 's score perfectly compliments the mystery, and the story by Herman ...