After making THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, Orson Welles basically had burned his bridges behind him regarding Hollywood. Harry Cohn was the last head of a major studio (Columbia) who was willing to consider any film that Welles would direct and produce. That was only because Welles was married to Cohn's leading sex goddess, Rita Hayworth. In fact, Welles got the project for THE LADY through because Rita was starring in it. But Cohn hated the final result, and cut the film (though I don't think it was as badly cut as say AMBERSOMS had been). The biggest cut was in the "fun house" sequence at the conclusion. Welles always bemoaned it, but I think sufficient moments of the sequence exist to remain quite powerful.
After Welles divorced Hayworth, any possible chance that Cohn would hire him was gone (if it still existed after Cohn saw the film). So Welles made his next film at the leading second tier studio: Herbert Yates' Republic Pictures. Yates was best known for his westerns, but he occasionally got a better than average film (directed by John Ford, and starring John Wayne). Yates wanted to make Republic one of the leading studios. So, he was willing to allow Welles to film there - but Welles had to do it on a short budget and within one month.
He did do so - he produced a film of MACBETH with a cast including Dan O'Herlihy, Roddy MacDowell, Jeanette Nolan, Edgar Barrier, and Alan Napier.
For years this film has gotten an unfair reputation. Welles had the actors speak with Scottish Accents. This was actually understandable. But the critics attacked the experiment. So the film was repackaged with an "English" soundtrack. Also it was re-cut, by the studio, and for years was about twenty minutes shorter than Welles' final cut. It was this mangled version that was known to the public - and complained about (adding to the myth that Welles was really a second-rate director). It still had some good film moments, such as the march of Brendon Wood to Dunstinane (where the forest is holding early medieval crosses), or the shots of the stormy sea hitting the rocky breakers, while Welles recites the "Tommorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" speech. But the know it all critics kept saying comments like "Shakespeare through the Welles' meat grinder." That review is from the anonymous reviewer of the New York Times.
Welles did rewrite the play in that he gave some of the speeches to other characters, and created a whole character (the Holy Father played by Napier) who got dialog from some minor characters that were deleted in the screenplay. But the basic story was kept and enhanced by Welles' sets and directing.
Fortunately for us all, MACBETH is available now with the twenty minutes Yates cut out restored. Ironically, unlike the large studios RKO and Columbia that lost the cut film from AMBERSOMS and THE LADY (one can also add the scenes of Konstantine Shayne's escape from prison to South America from THE STRANGER) Republic preserved the cut film and the Scottish accented sound track. MACBETH is the first film of Welles that was restored to what he had in mind.
Of course now that we see the full film we realize how the critics in 1948 were unduly hostile to Welles. They had not minded jumping on him, a failed "wunderkind" from Broadway. But now that we see that MACBETH was a worthy film, we can ask how many films those same critics who attacked Welles were properly reviewed and how many bombs among movies they liked.
To begin with the film is permeated with a spirit of barbarism - frequently we see signs of violent death and corpses left dangling. But they are taken with ease by the people of the period (one corpse is dangling in the background of Macbeth's "Glammis" castle, while he and Lady Macbeth (Nolan) are embracing and kissing). The still darkness of the night is used as an instrument of dread - look at the longest section of the film - the section where Macbeth is considering the Witches prediction, and slowly talking himself into killing his guest, King Duncan (Erskind Sandford). It has been said that Welles was trying to show the struggle between barbarism and Christianity in the film, and he certainly is able to make the confrontation insidious. He never has the witches confront the Holy Father, but the latter is killed (by Macbeth) and the witches have a final comment to make upon the death of Macbeth at the tale end of the film: "Peace, the Charm has ended."
Welles actually knew more about what he was doing when he shot MACBETH than his contemporaries credited him with. In the 1930s he had done a celebrated "VOODOO MACBETH" set in Haiti, with an all African-American cast. It was very well regarded. Unfortunately he could not do that here - it was 1948 and Hollywood would not tolerate a classic play done by people usually playing stereotyped servants (although this was slowly changing in the late 1940s). It would have been interesting to have seen that production, but for a close second, this one does very well indeed.
After Welles divorced Hayworth, any possible chance that Cohn would hire him was gone (if it still existed after Cohn saw the film). So Welles made his next film at the leading second tier studio: Herbert Yates' Republic Pictures. Yates was best known for his westerns, but he occasionally got a better than average film (directed by John Ford, and starring John Wayne). Yates wanted to make Republic one of the leading studios. So, he was willing to allow Welles to film there - but Welles had to do it on a short budget and within one month.
He did do so - he produced a film of MACBETH with a cast including Dan O'Herlihy, Roddy MacDowell, Jeanette Nolan, Edgar Barrier, and Alan Napier.
For years this film has gotten an unfair reputation. Welles had the actors speak with Scottish Accents. This was actually understandable. But the critics attacked the experiment. So the film was repackaged with an "English" soundtrack. Also it was re-cut, by the studio, and for years was about twenty minutes shorter than Welles' final cut. It was this mangled version that was known to the public - and complained about (adding to the myth that Welles was really a second-rate director). It still had some good film moments, such as the march of Brendon Wood to Dunstinane (where the forest is holding early medieval crosses), or the shots of the stormy sea hitting the rocky breakers, while Welles recites the "Tommorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow" speech. But the know it all critics kept saying comments like "Shakespeare through the Welles' meat grinder." That review is from the anonymous reviewer of the New York Times.
Welles did rewrite the play in that he gave some of the speeches to other characters, and created a whole character (the Holy Father played by Napier) who got dialog from some minor characters that were deleted in the screenplay. But the basic story was kept and enhanced by Welles' sets and directing.
Fortunately for us all, MACBETH is available now with the twenty minutes Yates cut out restored. Ironically, unlike the large studios RKO and Columbia that lost the cut film from AMBERSOMS and THE LADY (one can also add the scenes of Konstantine Shayne's escape from prison to South America from THE STRANGER) Republic preserved the cut film and the Scottish accented sound track. MACBETH is the first film of Welles that was restored to what he had in mind.
Of course now that we see the full film we realize how the critics in 1948 were unduly hostile to Welles. They had not minded jumping on him, a failed "wunderkind" from Broadway. But now that we see that MACBETH was a worthy film, we can ask how many films those same critics who attacked Welles were properly reviewed and how many bombs among movies they liked.
To begin with the film is permeated with a spirit of barbarism - frequently we see signs of violent death and corpses left dangling. But they are taken with ease by the people of the period (one corpse is dangling in the background of Macbeth's "Glammis" castle, while he and Lady Macbeth (Nolan) are embracing and kissing). The still darkness of the night is used as an instrument of dread - look at the longest section of the film - the section where Macbeth is considering the Witches prediction, and slowly talking himself into killing his guest, King Duncan (Erskind Sandford). It has been said that Welles was trying to show the struggle between barbarism and Christianity in the film, and he certainly is able to make the confrontation insidious. He never has the witches confront the Holy Father, but the latter is killed (by Macbeth) and the witches have a final comment to make upon the death of Macbeth at the tale end of the film: "Peace, the Charm has ended."
Welles actually knew more about what he was doing when he shot MACBETH than his contemporaries credited him with. In the 1930s he had done a celebrated "VOODOO MACBETH" set in Haiti, with an all African-American cast. It was very well regarded. Unfortunately he could not do that here - it was 1948 and Hollywood would not tolerate a classic play done by people usually playing stereotyped servants (although this was slowly changing in the late 1940s). It would have been interesting to have seen that production, but for a close second, this one does very well indeed.