December 15, 1944—The week was marked by a birth and a death for Orson Welles. In two days, wife Rita Hayworth would deliver a daughter, Rebecca. Not long thereafter, Welles would neglect his girl and, to the astonishment of thousands of heterosexual males worldwide, his film-goddess spouse.
The death that occurred on this date—a symbolic one, mind you—stung him to the quick, though: the end of a dream, marked by an exit agreement formally ending a contract with RKO Studios that had given him unrivaled artistic control of his movies.
The 29-year-old Welles lived another four decades, but never again would he experience such liberation from financial stress—and he would always be known as someone who never surpassed his first film: Citizen Kane.
It was all a far cry from the three agreements signed between July and December 1939 by the studio, the actor-director-writer-producer, and the production company he set up that allowed him to use his famed New York theatrical troupe, the Mercury Theater.
Then, the 24-year-old wunderkind—having turned upside down the world of theater (e.g., a modern-dress Julius Caesar) and radio (The War of the Worlds)—had been signed by George Schaefer of RKO to a deal that was envied by virtually every director in the Hollywood studio system.
The deal called for two years and two pictures in which Welles retained creative control, even the elusive “final cut,” of his work. For all of this, Welles would receive $30,000, plus a percentage of the net for the two films. All he had to do was stay within the studio’s set budget.
Oh-oh—stop right there:
* Hollywood, famously hailed by that modest, kind, gentle industry player Harvey Weinstein for having “the best moral compass,” is also the birthplace of creative accounting, as the late Art Buchwald found out in a famous lawsuit against Paramount Pictures concerning Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America. In other words, though it wasn’t done in those days, Welles and his agent might have tried something truly revolutionary, besides the storytelling and camera techniques pioneered by Citizen Kane, and pressed not for a percentage of the net—which, inevitably, has
always shriveled to next to nothing when it approaches revenue-collection time—but instead for a percentage of the gross.
The death that occurred on this date—a symbolic one, mind you—stung him to the quick, though: the end of a dream, marked by an exit agreement formally ending a contract with RKO Studios that had given him unrivaled artistic control of his movies.
The 29-year-old Welles lived another four decades, but never again would he experience such liberation from financial stress—and he would always be known as someone who never surpassed his first film: Citizen Kane.
It was all a far cry from the three agreements signed between July and December 1939 by the studio, the actor-director-writer-producer, and the production company he set up that allowed him to use his famed New York theatrical troupe, the Mercury Theater.
Then, the 24-year-old wunderkind—having turned upside down the world of theater (e.g., a modern-dress Julius Caesar) and radio (The War of the Worlds)—had been signed by George Schaefer of RKO to a deal that was envied by virtually every director in the Hollywood studio system.
The deal called for two years and two pictures in which Welles retained creative control, even the elusive “final cut,” of his work. For all of this, Welles would receive $30,000, plus a percentage of the net for the two films. All he had to do was stay within the studio’s set budget.
Oh-oh—stop right there:
* Hollywood, famously hailed by that modest, kind, gentle industry player Harvey Weinstein for having “the best moral compass,” is also the birthplace of creative accounting, as the late Art Buchwald found out in a famous lawsuit against Paramount Pictures concerning Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America. In other words, though it wasn’t done in those days, Welles and his agent might have tried something truly revolutionary, besides the storytelling and camera techniques pioneered by Citizen Kane, and pressed not for a percentage of the net—which, inevitably, has
always shriveled to next to nothing when it approaches revenue-collection time—but instead for a percentage of the gross.
* As John Houseman, Welles’ much-put-upon producer at the Mercury Theater, could have told RKO, asking Welles to stay within budget was like asking an elephant to submit solely on Wheat Thins once a day.
In other words, both parties should have done due diligence. They didn’t. The inevitable result: disaster.
For all the torrents of acclaim it received even in its own time, Citizen Kane never made money for RKO. (The interference of the thinly fictionalized subject of the film, William Randolph Hearst, with the film’s theater exhibitions and newspaper advertising didn’t help.)
The real problems, however, occurred during post-production of what promised to be another masterpiece, Welles’ adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons. At the behest of Nelson Rockefeller, then coordinator of the State Department’s Office of Inter-American Affairs, the director went down to Brazil to film a combined documentary-fictional film, It’s All True.
In the meantime, RKO execs had gotten a look at Ambersons. They didn’t see a beautifully photographed film about loss of innocence in a changing period of American life, but a defiantly downbeat movie that was going to lose the studio a ton of money. (A preview audience, composed largely of teens with not the slightest bit of maturity—not this film’s ideal audience, by a long shot—had convinced them of this.)
While shooting It’s All True in South America, Welles bombarded the small group he left behind—Joseph Cotton, cinematographer Robert Wise, and Jack Moss, his office manager—with cablegrams (according to legend, sometimes exceeding 30 pages) outlining how to handle any edits. But the trouble was that nobody on the committee knew how to cure the problems with the film, and it ended up being cut drastically.
Welles’ blithe disregard for budgets and shooting schedules in South America undercut his champion Schafer’s standing with RKO’s board. When Schaefer fell in the summer of 1942, Welles’s days with the studio were numbered. Now it was up to the lawyers to mop up the mess.
Only they created another one. For the last several years, Welles’ youngest daughter, Beatrice, has been involved with litigation with Turner Entertainment over the rights to Kane, Ambersons, and Journey Into Fear. It’s all a labyrinth, something that not even Welles could have penetrated.
By the time of the 1944 exit agreement, Welles had moved onto other things—other women besides his wife, and all manner of avocations—theater, radio, magic tricks, writing a newspaper column in which he stumped for the FDR administration, and the like.
His film career? Another story. In a prior post, I took issue with the notion that Leonard Bernstein’s numerous activities diverted him from his calling as a composer. There seems little doubt to me, however, that all of Welles’ whirlwind outside activity siphoned off the concentration he needed to keep his films on time, on budget, and capable of being shot under normal conditions.
Such a favorable state of affairs proved impossible to achieve from this point on. More often, when he could complete projects at all, Welles could only do so through inspired—and desperate—improvisation, as when, when his money ran low, he chose to film a key murder in Othello in a Turkish bath.
In other words, both parties should have done due diligence. They didn’t. The inevitable result: disaster.
For all the torrents of acclaim it received even in its own time, Citizen Kane never made money for RKO. (The interference of the thinly fictionalized subject of the film, William Randolph Hearst, with the film’s theater exhibitions and newspaper advertising didn’t help.)
The real problems, however, occurred during post-production of what promised to be another masterpiece, Welles’ adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons. At the behest of Nelson Rockefeller, then coordinator of the State Department’s Office of Inter-American Affairs, the director went down to Brazil to film a combined documentary-fictional film, It’s All True.
In the meantime, RKO execs had gotten a look at Ambersons. They didn’t see a beautifully photographed film about loss of innocence in a changing period of American life, but a defiantly downbeat movie that was going to lose the studio a ton of money. (A preview audience, composed largely of teens with not the slightest bit of maturity—not this film’s ideal audience, by a long shot—had convinced them of this.)
While shooting It’s All True in South America, Welles bombarded the small group he left behind—Joseph Cotton, cinematographer Robert Wise, and Jack Moss, his office manager—with cablegrams (according to legend, sometimes exceeding 30 pages) outlining how to handle any edits. But the trouble was that nobody on the committee knew how to cure the problems with the film, and it ended up being cut drastically.
Welles’ blithe disregard for budgets and shooting schedules in South America undercut his champion Schafer’s standing with RKO’s board. When Schaefer fell in the summer of 1942, Welles’s days with the studio were numbered. Now it was up to the lawyers to mop up the mess.
Only they created another one. For the last several years, Welles’ youngest daughter, Beatrice, has been involved with litigation with Turner Entertainment over the rights to Kane, Ambersons, and Journey Into Fear. It’s all a labyrinth, something that not even Welles could have penetrated.
By the time of the 1944 exit agreement, Welles had moved onto other things—other women besides his wife, and all manner of avocations—theater, radio, magic tricks, writing a newspaper column in which he stumped for the FDR administration, and the like.
His film career? Another story. In a prior post, I took issue with the notion that Leonard Bernstein’s numerous activities diverted him from his calling as a composer. There seems little doubt to me, however, that all of Welles’ whirlwind outside activity siphoned off the concentration he needed to keep his films on time, on budget, and capable of being shot under normal conditions.
Such a favorable state of affairs proved impossible to achieve from this point on. More often, when he could complete projects at all, Welles could only do so through inspired—and desperate—improvisation, as when, when his money ran low, he chose to film a key murder in Othello in a Turkish bath.
Ah, Orson Welles, why do I think he never got to make the masterpiece that he was capable of? My favorite is Touch of Evil, because you need to shower after watching it.
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