Orson Welles spent thirty-five years trying to put Sir John Falstaff on screen. Chimes at Midnight (1965) is the result: a film drawn from five Shakespeare plays — primarily the two Henry IV parts, with passages from Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor — that lifts Falstaff from comic supporting player to tragic protagonist. Welles plays the knight himself, a lumbering, larger-than-life tavern dweller and unlikely father figure to Prince Hal (Keith Baxter), heir to the guilt-haunted Henry IV (John Gielgud). When Hal must choose between loyalty to Falstaff and the demands of the crown, the film becomes what Welles called a lament "for the death of Merrie England." Dismissed by critics on its 1966 Cannes premiere and barely distributed in the United States, the film spent decades trapped in rights disputes — finally reaching audiences properly through the Janus Films/Criterion restoration in 2016.
Mike talks with Spencer Parsons and David MacGregor about the film's three-decade gestation across stage and screen, the filmmaking ingenuity behind its legendary Battle of Shrewsbury sequence, the autobiographical dimensions of Welles's performance, and why Chimes at Midnight now stands for many critics as the greatest Shakespeare film ever made.
Guest Co-Hosts: Spencer Parsons, Robert Bellissimo
By request from Patreon supporter Peter Rogers, we’re tackling A Man for All Seasons (1966), Fred Zinnemann’s acclaimed adaptation of Robert Bolt’s stage play. Joining Mike are Spencer Parsons and Robert Bellissimo to explore this portrait of Sir Thomas More, played with quiet defiance by Paul Scofield in an Oscar-winning performance. The film follows More’s moral and political stand against King Henry VIII’s divorce and remarriage, a position that would cost him his freedom—and ultimately his life. We unpack the film’s legacy, its courtroom drama structure, and how it reflects shifting power, faith, and integrity during a pivotal moment in English history.
Special Guest: Harry Kümel Guest Co-Hosts: Jessica Shires, Matthew Asprey Gear
Also known as Legend of Doom House, Malpertuis1971 is a gothic horror film starring Mathieu Carrière as Jan, a sailor back at his home port where he visits the estate known as Malpertuis where he encounters a group of colorful kooks including the formidable Cassavius (Orson Welles).
We continue our Patreon request month with one requested by Peter Rogers, Orson Welles's The Trial. Released in 1962, the film stars Anthony Perkins as K in this adaptation of Franz Kafka's nightmare in bureaucracy.
Playwright David MacGregor and writer Mike Faloon join Mike to discuss this beautiful, baroque interpretation of Kafka's work as well as 1962 Norwegian television film and the 1993 version starring Kyle MacLaughlin.
Noirvember 2021 continues with a look at Orson Welles's The Lady from Shanghai (1947). It’s the story of Michael O’Hara (Welles), a sailor who falls in with a strange group of people: A gorgeous blonde, Elsa (Rita Hayworth), the titular lady from Shanghai, her husband, Arthur Bannister, a high-powered lawyer, and his partner, Grisby, a weirdo who wants to fake his own death and pin it on Michael.
Special Guest: Matthew Asprey Gear Guest Co-Hosts: Peter Flynn, Spencer Parsons
F for Fake, the 1973 essay film from Orson Welles is a story of art forgery, the phony autobiography of Howard Hughes, and quite a bit of sleight of hand from our humble narrator, Mr. Welles himself.
Special Guests: Bob Murawski, Joseph McBride, Josh Karp Guest Co-Hosts: Ken Stanley, Rob St. Mary
On this special episode of The Projection Booth we're looking at Orson Welles's The Other Side of the Wind (2018) again. Way back in May 2015, four years ago, it was still something of a dream that this film would ever get completed and shown to the world. There were rumors but there had been rumors before.
Music:
"Music to Watch Girls By" - Tony Hatch
"Music to Watch Girls By" - Les McCann
"Music to Watch Girls By" - The Ventures
"Fruit and Icebergs" - Blue Cheer
Special Guests: Josh Karp & Joseph McBride Guest Co-Host: Andrew Rausch
We’re kicking off “Maudit May” with a discussion of Orson Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind. A film some fifty years in the making, it has yet to be completed and released.
The film stars John Huston as Jake Hannaford, an aging film director who is working on an artsy fartsy film to try to stay relevant with New Hollywood. Most of the film takes place on Hannaford’s seventieth birthday where he’s surrounded by sycophants, critics, friends and former friends. Populated by a star-studded cast, the film is a treatise on filmmaking, aging, and machismo.
Special Guest: Samantha White Guest Co-Host: Joseph McBride
We conclude Shakespeare September with our look at Orson Welles's Othello. Filmed over a period of four years, the production was plagued with financial problems but ultimately proved a triumph of ingenuity over resources. The second of Welles's Shakespeare films, Othello is yet another of his works that has been tampered with.
We're joined by Welles scholar Joseph McBride of our Magnificent Ambersons and Executive Action episodes and we talk to Samantha White of the Shakespeare in Detroit company.
Special Guests: William Friedkin, Joseph McBride, Christopher Welles Feder, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Rosenbaum Guest Co-Hosts: Roger L. Ryan, Rob St. Mary, Justin Bozung
An episode two years in the making...
Orson Welles's follow-up to Citizen Kane adapted Booth Tarkington's Pulitzer prize-winning novel about industrial progress and the loss of innocence set against a tumultuous family, the Ambersons.
Welles infamously lost control of The Magnificent Ambersons before its final release. We'll examine its production, its destruction, and attempts to restore what many consider Welles's forgotten masterpiece.
We're joined by guest co-host Roger L. Ryan. And...there's a special appearance by Mondo Justin!
Special Guest: Peter Bogdanovich Guest Co-Host: Ben Slater
We're sailing off to Singapore this week with Saint Jack, a sorely overlooked film in Peter Bogdanovich's oeuvre starring Ben Gazarra as the titular character, an American trying to make a living as a pimp on the Lion Isle.
We're joined this week by Ben Slater, author of Kinda Hot, a book which documents the making of Saint Jack.
Guest Co-Hosts: David MacGregor, Spencer Parsons
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Special Guest: Peter Bogdanovich