Tucked away on an obscure corner of the Federal Broadcasting Company is a small research department run by Bunny Watson (Katherine Hepburn). Bunny and her colleagues Peg (Joan Blondell), Sylvia (Dina Merrill) and Ruthie (Sue Randall) answer all manner of arcane questions submitted to them from throughout the building, and their encyclopedic knowledge… Continue reading
Women spent much of the 1970s insisting on their right to occupy the workplace on the same terms as men, but by the end of the decade things had stalled. While some career women were able to move beyond the secretarial pool and the switchboard, the barriers were still imposing: the… Continue reading
We like to think of documentaries in terms of their utility: they deal in the real and the quantifiable. Even the ones that tell a story do so in a fairly prosaic way. But Jessica Oreck’s remarkable The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga is an elliptical meditation on myths, dreams and the fears… Continue reading
Review by Trylon hall of mirrors designer Thorn Chen Or how about we try “When you give a picnic, it’s a picnic”? The Lady from Shanghai is as surreal as one-liners like these make it sound. Welles is at his strangest and his most brilliant when spins this hallucinatory noir… Continue reading
The shortest and bloodiest of Shakespeare’s plays got the Hollywood treatment a number of times over the years, but Macbeth never so closely resembled a horror film as it does in this 1948 production. Welles, wild-eyed and brooding, is brilliant as the nobleman told by three witches that he is… Continue reading
Review by Trylon chief of police David Berglund So much is made of the famed tracking shot that opens Touch of Evil that it is tempting to think it is remembered because of this incredible opening salvo. Yet, taken on its own the shot is largely a gimmick – three… Continue reading
Review by Trylon volunteer David Berglund From the moment of his film debut, it was clear that Orson Welles had an innate understanding of the power of cinema and a firm grasp of its unique language. His films were never conventional, instead drawing power from visual risks and unmatched innovation…. Continue reading
After the spectacular flame-out of his RKO contract, Orson Welles had acquired a reputation — somewhat unfairly, it must be said — as a director whose films ran wildly over budget before tanking at the box office. As if that weren’t bad enough, his unfinished project It’s All True raised further… Continue reading
When people consider the European phase of Orson Welle’s career, they might think of Othello, or his great, unfinished Don Quixote or even the eccentric, almost unwatchable Viva Italia. But the most representative of his movies from this era was Mr. Arkadin, released in Europe as Confidential Report: it is… Continue reading
Review by Trylon volunteer Dave Berglund There is perhaps no greater real-life villain in film history than the shortsighted idiot at RKO who made the decision to destroy Orson Welles’s original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons. Now, to be clear, RKO had a justified business incentive to edit the film… Continue reading
