Chimes at Midnight

• 1. Origins And Stage History

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  In 1938, John Houseman secured a partnership with the Theatre Guild to produce a play called Five Kings for Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre. The production was scheduled to tour Baltimore, Boston, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia before debuting on Broadway. Welles intended to stage only the first part of the play during the tour while rehearsing Part Two simultaneously. The cast included Burgess Meredith as Prince Hal and John Emery as Hotspur alongside Welles himself playing Falstaff. Aaron Copland composed the music for this ambitious adaptation of several Shakespeare plays. Welles commissioned an elaborate revolving set that was not completed during the five weeks allotted to rehearsals. He avoided attending rehearsals or finishing the final script and often went out drinking with co-star Meredith. Only specific scenes or fragments of the play were ever rehearsed. The Baltimore performance was dropped and the first dress rehearsal in Boston revealed the play was over five and a half hours long. It contained 46 scenes which forced Welles to cut 14 scenes and shorten others. This caused the built-in timer for the revolving set to move out of synchronization. Five Kings, Part One premiered at the Colonial Theatre in Boston on the 27th of February 1939, and was a disaster. Critics were either scathing or apologetic and only the battle scenes received praise. By the end of the Boston run, the Theatre Guild was on the verge of dropping the production. They canceled the D.C. engagement and Welles edited the show down to three and a half hours. The play closed after only a few performances in Philadelphia and the Theatre Guild terminated its contract with the Mercury Theater. Photographs from the rehearsals show similarities to Chimes at Midnight including the Boar's Head Tavern set.

• 2. Production Struggles And Financing

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  In 1964, Orson Welles met Spanish film producer Emiliano Piedra who wanted to work with him. Piedra did not think a Shakespearean film was marketable enough and proposed that Welles make a version of Treasure Island instead. Welles agreed to this condition while secretly intending to make Chimes at Midnight simultaneously. He got away with this deception throughout preproduction by building sets that could be used in both films. Mistress Quickly's Boar's Head Tavern doubled as the Admiral Benbow Inn for the pirate story. Welles cast each actor in both films including himself as Long John Silver and Keith Baxter as Dr. Livesey. No scenes from Treasure Island were ever shot or even scripted despite some B-roll footage of the Alicante departing from port being filmed early. The film had a budget of $800,000 which proved insufficient for the scope of the project. Jeanne Moreau and John Gielgud were available for only five and ten days respectively while Margaret Rutherford was available for four weeks. During one scene with seven principal characters none of the actors was available at the same time so stand-ins were used for over-the-shoulder shots. Filming began in Colmenar and included all of Gielgud's scenes before moving to Cardona where Royal Court scenes were shot. Madrid's Casa de Campo Park hosted the Gadshill robbery scene and later the battle sequences. The production traveled to Pedraza for outdoor street scenes and then to Soria to shoot in the snow for opening shots. By late December 1964 Welles had run out of money and the film was put on hold while he sought additional funding. He rejected offers for funding that were conditional on filming in color. Harry Saltzman eventually secured new funding and production officially resumed in late February 1965. Between March and April Welles finished the film with filler shots closeups and the final rejection scene.

• 3. Cinematography And Editing Techniques

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  The Battle of Shrewsbury sequence took ten days to shoot and six weeks to edit into a six-minute sequence. Only about 180 extras were available but editing techniques gave the appearance of armies numbering in the thousands. Welles filmed all the battle scenes in long takes but cut the shots into fragments to create his desired effect. He often used hand-held cameras wide-angle lenses slow motion and speed up shots during the sequence. Static shots swish pans and constant rapid movement of characters created a kinetic and chaotic atmosphere. Anderegg described the result as both armies becoming one huge awkward disintegrating war machine resembling a grotesque robot whose power source slowly fails. Verbal rhetoric seemed irrelevant and obscene within the chaos of the battle. Film critics have called this sequence an anti-war statement likening it to contemporary films like Dr. Strangelove and Culloden. Shakespearean scholar Daniel Seltzer said the footage must be some of the finest truest ugliest scenes of warfare ever shot and edited for a movie. The soundtrack included sounds of swords clanking armor grinding soldiers grunting bones breaking boots in mud and the musical score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino. This complex layered sound added to the scene's overwhelming chaos. Many scenes are shot with character backs facing the camera creating more sound problems due to budgetary constraints. Anderge wrote that this combination generates a constant tension between what we see and what we hear.

• 4. Initial Reception And Critical Backlash

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  Chimes at Midnight premiered to favorable audience reception at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Technical Grand Prize tied. But after New York Times critic Bosley Crowther published an unfavorable advance review American distributor Harry Saltzman decided to give the film little publicity. Minimal distribution followed when it was released in the U.S. the next year. Critical reception on its first release was mostly negative and the film was not regarded as one of Welles's best until years later. Crowther criticized the poor audio track and called it a confusing patchwork of scenes designed to give major exposure to Jack Falstaff. He described Welles's performance as a dissolute bumbling street-corner Santa Claus. Penelope Houston called it a film which seems to turn its back on brilliance. A Time review also criticized Welles calling him probably the first actor in theater history to appear too fat for the role. Judith Crist praised the film as stark simple concentrating on word and performance serving as a reminder of where substance lies. Pauline Kael gave a favorable overall review singling out the casting and calling Welles's performance very rich and full. She said the Battle of Shrewsbury sequence was unlike any battle scene done on screen before. Cahiers du Cinéma critic Serge Daney praised both the film and Welles's ability to make great films about power. Welles complained that almost nobody had seen it in America and that drove him nuts.

• 5. Legacy And Modern Restoration

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  Because of legal disputes over rights Chimes at Midnight has been released only twice on VHS video in the United States and neither release is available today. Harry Saltzman's widow Adriana Saltzman families of producers Emiliano Piedra and Angel Escolano and the estate of Orson Welles have all claimed ownership of the film. For many years the only available source was a region-free DVD from Brazil. Mr Bongo Records screened a restored version in the UK at Picturehouse Cinemas on the 1st of August 2011. In February 2015 Beatrice Welles announced that a major DVD Blu-ray label was interested in restoring and releasing the film. The pristine 35mm print was discovered by Distribpix Inc which said it was in such great condition that it begged for a full 4k scan restoration. Janus Films released a restored version on D.C.P. that premiered on the 1st of January 2016, at Film Forum in New York City. This restored version is not derived from the Distribpix print but represents more than 20 years of effort according to Peter Becker president of Criterion. Criterion released this restoration on DVD and Blu-ray on the 30th of August 2016. The film had a European release on DVD and Blu-ray on the 29th of June 2015. In 2011 Bonham's Auction House sold a large archive of Welles's material that had once belonged to the film's executive producer Alessandro Tasca di Cuto. Most of the material was from Chimes at Midnight including original artwork photographs and memoranda. This collection was later donated to the University of Michigan for scholarly study.

• 6. Welles And Falstaff Parallels

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  Orson Welles considered Falstaff Shakespeare's greatest creation and said the role was the most difficult part he ever played in his life. Before the 1939 Boston premiere of Five Kings Welles told journalists he would play him as a tragic figure hoping he would be funny to the audience just as he was to those around him. Reviews of the 1939 play mention Welles's choice to downplay traditional comedic elements of Falstaff in his performance. By the time Welles made Chimes at Midnight his focus was entirely on relationships between Falstaff Hal and Henry IV. He believed the core of the story was betrayal of friendship. The film was not intended as a lament for Falstaff but for the death of Merrie England. Film scholar Beverle Houston argued this nostalgia made Welles's depiction of Falstaff infantile calling it a power baby eating sucking foetus-like creature. Baxter compared Welles to Falstaff since they were both perpetually short of money often lied and cheated people to get what they needed. They were always merry and fun-loving despite their struggles. Kenneth S. Rothwell has called Hal's rejection of Falstaff allegorical to Hollywood's rejection of Welles. Welles had become deeply depressed in the late 1950s after the disappointment of making Touch of Evil his intended Hollywood comeback. Welles's biographer Simon Callow has compared Falstaff to Welles's father Richard Head Welles writing that like Falstaff Welles's father was a drunkard trickster braggart womanizer gentleman and charmer who is rejected by the person he loves most.