My Lunches with Orson (24 page)

OW:
Somebody told me the big scene in the boardinghouse with Aggie [Moorehead] and Jo has been found, but I've never tracked it down.

HJ:
How many reels were missing?

OW:
It would've played another fifteen minutes.

HJ:
You know the guy who books the Z Channel is trying to get permission to show
Ambersons
without all that nonsense RKO stuck on to the end of the film.

OW:
We had shot one complete reel—the party scene, without a cut. RKO chopped two minutes out of the middle of it, because it didn't further the plot. This little thing about olives, and people not being used to them. A cut in the middle of a one-reel shot. It's a very skillful cut—it plays all right—but the scene was much better before. And, of course, nobody can find the two minutes they cut out of the reel. It's a bit of sour grapes, because I did it before Hitchcock did it in
Rope
. The first reel in the history of movies made without a cut was in
Ambersons
.

HJ:
And that's the only change, besides all the stuff at the end?

OW:
No, there're other changes, but very few in the beginning and the middle. It's only when the story begins to get too dark. I don't know when I found the letter sent me by George Schaefer, who'd been to the preview in Pomona where they laughed at Agnes Moorehead. Half of her scene is cut forever, because the audience fell on the floor laughing.

HJ:
That was the test in front of the Esther Williams audience in the Valley.

OW:
And Schaefer said, “We really have to make it more commercial.” Poor guy—he was in a terrible spot.

HJ:
So they added their new ending.

OW:
By the way, somebody's published a new
Kane
book and sent it to me, with a lot of essays and criticism written around the time it was being released. I realized that I've misquoted O'Hara all my life. He didn't say, “This is the best picture ever made. And the best picture that will ever be made.”

HJ:
Really?

OW:
Yeah. He didn't say anything as good as that. I made it better. What he said was, “This is the best picture ever made, and Orson Welles is the best actor alive.” I know why I changed it. Because he said the other to a lot of people at the Stork Club in my presence. So I pasted it onto the review, the way one does.

 

17. “I can make a case for all the points of view.”

In which Orson waits on Jack Nicholson, looks for financing for
Lear
, explains why he dropped his knee-jerk contempt for Nazi collaborators and became friends with Oswald Mosley, and recalls that General Charles de Gaulle was a brave but pompous fool.

*   *   *

H
ENRY
J
AGLOM
:
I spoke to Jack about
The Big Brass Ring
. He was up in Aspen with Bob Rafelson. I said, “Have you read it yet?” And he said, “No.” But with great cheeriness, despite not adding anything more; just, “No.” It's clearly on the agenda, though. I just don't know when he's going to read it. I have my fingers crossed. I'm worried about Jack. He's the last one. Even if he says, “Yes,” he won't want to reduce his asking price … Any news on
Lear
?

O
RSON
W
ELLES
:
Just to keep you up on all the different situations, we now have the French. This fellow sends me almost daily wires, saying, “If wanted, we'll give you a million dollars of our money, and then go into an arrangement with other people, and so on, anything you want to do.” A million dollars! And begging me to take it. Begging me, wiring me.

HJ:
Well, you were awarded the Légion d'honneur, after all. Did you see [James] Cagney receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Ronnie?

OW:
He didn't even seem pleased, you know? He looked like he'd been dragged screaming, out of bed. Very hard to have an award in a republic. A decoration really needs a king. It's like a title. You need a fellow up there with a crown on. The only reason the Légion d'honneur works is that it's old. It goes back to Napoleon. What was so smart about Napoleon was that he realized the necessity of creating a new aristocracy. And he set up the Légion d'honneur for that. He knew his Frenchmen.

HJ:
You and Jerry Lewis are the two American film stars who the French have given this award to. I remember when you said, “They give you good reviews and then you see what else they like and it takes away all the value of it.” They've given Jerry Lewis every award you can imagine.

OW:
Yes, every award that I've gotten. And he got all the publicity. I got no publicity at all. But he didn't get his award from the president.

HJ:
It's probably your Légion d'honneur, probably, that has finally awakened the French to your
Lear
.

OW:
Yes. And for
Lear
—they want to be the patrons that make it happen. They say they'll do anything. I said, “There're two parts for French actors: the King of France and the Duke of Burgundy, but only if they speak English. That's all. The grips—head grip, head cameraman, sound, all of that—my choice. Any nationality.” They said, “Fine, we don't care.”

HJ:
So what's stopping you from saying yes?

OW:
The fact that I don't know all that goes with “yes.” So I keep saying to them, “Wonderful! Delighted! We're willing to let you be the central producing outfit, but please remember that you have to agree in return that none of our key people are French, unless we want them to be,” and so on.

We also have another firm offer of $350,000 from Italy. Of course that doesn't begin to make the picture, but it's a terribly good cornerstone. Because it's government money set aside for the
Commedia dell'Arte
. If they don't spend it, the government takes it back. And the reason why it's so great is that we get it in dollars, and we get the tremendous exchange advantage against the lira.

HJ:
So the total figure that you'd be most comfortable with is what? Can you give me that?

OW:
Supposing that, as I think, the most efficient and cheapest way to make the picture, is in Italy or France, bringing in the whole English cast. It is three million four. Something like that. That includes money for contingencies. If you take out contingencies, it's a lot less. Nobody gets rich, but that isn't the point.

HJ:
Right. At Cannes, everybody hears “Welles-
Lear
” and they go crazy. If I knew who to talk to, I know I could get a small fortune from China. It seems to me that the way to complete the picture would be to have an American nontheatrical sale in advance, cable and so on. And then put that together with a combination of Italy, France, and Germany, and maybe Spain, and maybe somebody else. But if Spain is only putting in fifty or seventy-five thousand, no opening night in Madrid. If Germany puts up a million dollars, and they want a big thing at the Berlin Film Festival, why not?

OW:
A festival is not an opening.

HJ:
Right. We reserve the opening for whoever gives us the most money.

OW:
That's a very important distinction.

HJ:
So, we should put all the energy now into getting
Lear
.

OW:
My energy is being put into it. There's nothing I can do now, except react warmly to these people as they come in. I think we have to have every kind of gun cocked and ready now, so that one of them will go off. Otherwise, we'll just go on talking forever.

HJ:
Not just one, we need three or four of them to go off, so we can get to three and a half million dollars.

OW:
The French—there's no doubt that the French—

HJ:
Also, there's no reason not to film in France. There are ideal locations.

OW:
That is the great argument
against
it for me. That's why I wish we
didn't
have the French money. I don't want France to be so attractive. Because living in Paris is so expensive. Whereas if we shoot in Cinecittà, we don't have to live in Rome. Here is Rome, and here is Cinecittà—and we can live out here, outside of Rome. We just go to the studio and back. I dread spending four or five months of my life living in Paris and driving through the traffic to work and back. The thought of it gives me the willies, because it's forty-five minutes of hell before you get to work and forty-five more for the return. And where would the actors stay? We know what the hotel bills will be for everybody. You can't live in Paris for less than two thousand a week. So the actors will object, saying they're slaves. They'll get so angry that I won't be able to work with them. They'll work for five hundred a week—

HJ:
But they won't put up with cheap accommodations.

OW:
I see the whole budget going to hell. You blow it on hotels alone; that's what scares me. There's no use saying we'll get great prices, and Jacques Lang loves me and all that.

HJ:
You're absolutely right. Jacques Lang may be the Minister of Culture and [François] Mitterand's favorite puppy, but even he can't do anything about the prices of hotels.

OW:
That's why I have always been nervous about it, but they have been battering the door down. And there's no place else in France to shoot! There's a big studio in Nice, but it's built right next to the airport.

HJ:
Which makes it impossible to record sound.

OW:
The planes fly in every two minutes. You couldn't get through one Shakespeare speech.

HJ:
Oh, you mean the Victorine studio? They built it knowing the airport was there? Knowing—

OW:
No, Victorine is a very old studio. It was built years before there was an airport, or when the airport was very little—no more than four flights a day. And now, of course, people fly direct from New York to Nice. It's a great location, and you can make wonderful deals, but only if you're making a silent picture. Or else dub it afterwards which, if you do that with Shakespeare, it comes off as totally fake. You simply cannot do it.

HJ:
Cinecittà is fine.

OW:
Well, it's the best bargain in the world, and the best studio in the world. Built by Mussolini, you know.

HJ:
The French deal doesn't prohibit shooting in Cinecittà, does it? Or it's not clear?

OW:
We're trying to get that clear. I think they're hurt, because it seems to imply that Italy is better suited for movie production. And the Italians, who always despised me, are now for some reason particularly anxious to be nice. They want to give me the highest award known to Italy. Whatever that is. The something or other, that makes me an honorary citizen of Rome.

HJ:
It could still be a French movie, because it'll open in France.

OW:
Maybe we could just get on the train from Rome to France, and shoot there for three weeks, just to get that French money, even though it will cost a little more. But you see how all these things are interdependent. You can't nail down one without having the others in hand. I think I'll make another phone call to France, to see how everything stands. I've made all my conditions as tough as I could, on the theory that there's no use going ahead and then being disappointed afterwards.

HJ:
I sent you something about the reorganization of Gaumont. They're saying they want to be the home for all the great international directors.

OW:
Well, they were talking about that four years ago, in this restaurant. I say, “Let's see some action.” They told me once, “We are aristocrats. We simply don't breathe the same air.” It's impossible to talk to somebody like that. “We don't breathe the same air”! Another thing is a French deal would have to be in the Common Market. The Common Market, in my opinion, is about to collapse. I think, seriously. Thanks to Mrs. Thatcher and—

HJ:
You're talking about two different—

OW:
No, I'm not. I'm telling you the different things that I know.

HJ:
Well, we'll hear from Paris within a week.

OW:
We'll proceed with them or without them. In the meantime, we keep anybody who is cooking warm on the stove. I don't care who it is. Even the Chinese—we can do it in Peking. And we'd certainly have all the right equipment, and serious assistants.

HJ:
You know, I'm going to meet the Chinese representatives in Berlin.

OW:
Let's make a deal.

HJ:
Who said to me that
Lear
is one of the few things they know they want. “We only charge twenty-five cents a ticket. But we have a billion people.” He actually said, “Rear.”

OW:
Rear. King Rear! And his daughter Legan.

HJ:
I don't know what they can give us. I'll listen.

OW:
Who cares?

HJ:
Huh?

OW:
Who cares? Just to have it in Red China.

(The check arrives.)

HJ:
Here, I've got this.

OW:
No, you don't.

HJ:
That means I'm next.

OW:
What? What about your neck?

HJ:
I said, “That means I'm next.”