Lyons, Bridget Gellert, ed. Chimes at Midnight, screenplay by Orson Welles, adapted from Shakespeare. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1988.
McBride, Joseph. Orson Welles: Actor and Director. New York: Harvest Books, 1977.
Naremore, James. “The Trial: The FBI vs. Orson Welles,” Film Comment (Jan.-Feb. 1991): 22–27.
Pells, Richard H. “The Radical Stage and the Hollywood Film in the 1930s.” In Radical Visions and American Dreams. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1984.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. “The Invisible Orson Welles: A First Inventory.” Sight and Sound (Summer 1986): 164–71.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Citizen Kane.” Translated by Dana Polan. Post Script (Fall 1987): 60–65.
Simon, William G., ed. Persistence of Vision, no. 7 (1989), special issue on Orson Welles.
Stainton, Audrey. “Don Quixote: Orson Welles’s Secret.” Sight and Sound (Autumn 1988): 253–56.
Thomson, David. “Orson Welles and Citizen Kane.” In America in the Dark. New York: William Morrow, 1977.
Welles, Orson. The Big Brass Ring, screenplay with Oja Kodar, preface by James Pepper, afterword by Jonathan Rosenbaum. Santa Barbara: Santa Teresa Press, 1987.
Wollen, Peter. “Citizen Kane.” In Readings and Writings. London: Verso, 1982.
Additional Bibliography for the Centennial Anniversary Edition
Anderegg, Michael. Orson Welles, Shakespeare, and Popular Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999.
Anile, Alberto. Orson Welles in Italy. Translated by Marcus Perryman. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013.
Beja, Morris, ed. Perspectives on Orson Welles. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1995.
Benamou, Catherine L. It’s All True: Orson Welles’s Pan-American Odyssey. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
Berg, Chuck, and Tom Erskine, with John C. Tibbetts. The Encyclopedia of Orson Welles. New York: Checkmark Books, 2003.
Berthome, Jean-Pierre, and François Thomas. Citizen Kane. Paris: Flammarion, 1992.
———. Orson Welles at Work. London: Phaidon, 2008.
Bessy, Maurice. Orson Welles: An Investigation into His Films and Philosophy. Translated by Ciba Vaughan. New York: Crown Publishers, 1971.
Biskind, Peter, ed. My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013.
Callow, Simon. Orson Welles: Hello Americans. London: Jonathan Cape, 2006.
———. Orson Welles: The Road to Xanadu. London: Jonathan Cape, 1995.
Carringer, Robert L. The Magnificent Ambersons: A Reconstruction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
———. “The Scripts of Citizen Kane.” Critical Inquiry 5 (1978): 369–400.
Casale, Gherardo. L’Incantesimo e Compiuto: Shakespeare Secondo Orson Welles. Turin: Lindau, 2001.
Conrad, Peter. Orson Welles: The Stories of His Life. London: Faber and Faber, 2003.
Drössler, Stefan, ed. The Unknown Orson Welles. Munich: Filmmuseum Munich and Belleville Verlag, 2004.
Estrin, Mark W. Orson Welles Interviews. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002.
Feder, Chris Welles. In My Father’s Shadow: A Daughter Remembers Orson Welles. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009.
Gottesman, Ronald, ed. Perspectives on Citizen Kane. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1996.
Haylen, Clinton. Despite the System: Orson Welles versus the Hollywood Studios. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2005.
Heyer, Paul. The Medium and the Magician: Orson Welles, the Radio Years. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
Ishaghpour, Youssef. Orson Welles: Cineaste Une Camera Visible, 3 vols. Paris: Editions de la Difference, 2001.
Koch, Howard. The Panic Broadcast. New York: Avon Books, 1970.
McBride, Joseph. Orson Welles. Rev. and exp. ed. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996.
———. Whatever Happened to Orson Welles? Portrait of an Independent Career. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006.
McGilligan, Patrick. Young Orson. New York: HarperCollins, 2015.
Mulvey, Laura. Citizen Kane. London: BFI, 1992.
Naremore, James. An Invention without a Future: Essays on Cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014.
———, ed. Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Orson Welles on the Air: The Radio Years. New York: Museum of Broadcasting, 1988.
Perkins, V. F. The Magnificent Ambersons. London: BFI, 1999.
Rippy, Marguerite H. Orson Welles and the Unfinished RKO Projects: A Postmodern Perspective. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2009.
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. Discovering Orson Welles. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
Tarbox, Todd. Orson Welles and Roger Hill: A Friendship in Three Acts. Albany, GA: BearManor Media, 2013.
Thomson, David. Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996.
Welles, Orson, and Peter Bogdanovich. This Is Orson Welles. Edited by Jonathan Rosenbaum. New York: HarperCollins, 1992.
Welles, Orson, and Roger Hill, eds. The Mercury Shakespeare. New York: Harper, 1939.
Welles, Orson. The Cradle Will Rock: An Original Screenplay. Santa Barbara: Santa Teresa Press, 1994.
Welles, Orson. Mercury Theatre Collection. Lilly Library, Bloomington, Indiana.
Zunzunegui, Santos. Orson Welles. Madrid: Ediciones Catedra, 2005.
Filmography
I have not attempted to catalogue Welles’s extensive work in theater, radio, and television; for a partial account of these appearances, the reader may consult the special issue of Persistence of Vision listed in the additional bibliography. The following list was compiled from a number of sources, including Joseph McBride’s Orson Welles, Peter Noble’s The Fabulous Orson Welles, Charles Higham’s The Films of Orson Welles, and the filmography by Henry Moret printed in Écran, February 1976. A few items do not appear in other publications.
Directed by Welles
The Hearts of Age (1934)
Directors: Orson Welles and William Vance
Cast: Orson Welles, Virginia Nicholson, William Vance
A four-minute, 16mm film made in Woodstock, Illinois.
A copy may be seen in the Library of Congress film archives.
Too Much Johnson (1938)
Producers: Orson Welles and John Houseman
Associate Producer: Richard Wilson
Director: Orson Welles
Assistant Director: John Berry
Script: Orson Welles, from the play by William Gillette
Photography: Harry Dunham and Paul Dunbar
Editors: Orson Welles, Richard Wilson, William Alland
Cast: Joseph Cotton (Augustus Billings), Virginia Nicolson (Lenore Faddish), Edgar Barrier (Leon Dathis), Ruth Ford (Mrs. Billings), Arlene Francis (Mrs. Dathis), Mary Wickes (Mrs. Battison), Eustis Wyatt (Faddish), Guy Kingsley (Macintosh), George Duthie (Purser), Orson Welles (Cop), John Berry, Howard Smith, Augusta Weissberger, John Houseman, Marc Blitzstein, Herbert Drake, Richard Wilson, Judy Holliday.
Production Company: Mercury Theatre. 16mm, intended for the Mercury stage production of the Gillette play, but incompletely edited and not shown publicly until 2014. 40 mins.
Citizen Kane (1941)
Director: Orson Welles
Script: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles, and (uncredited) John Houseman
Photography: Gregg Toland
Camera Operator: Bert Shipman
Art Direction: Van Nest Polglase, Perry Ferguson
Special Effects: Vernon L. Walker
Set Decoration: Darrell Silvera
Music: Bernard Herrmann
Costumes: Edward Stevenson
Sound: Bailey Fesler, James G. Stewart
Editors: Robert Wise, Mark Robson
Producer: Orson Welles
Associate Producer: Richard Barr
Assistant Director:
Richard Wilson
Cast: Orson Welles (Kane), Joseph Cotten (Jed Leland), Everett Sloane (Bernstein), Dorothy Comingore (Susan Alexander), Ray Collins (Jim Gettys), William Alland (Jerry Thompson and newsreel narrator), Agnes Moorehead (Mary Kane), Ruth Warrick (Emily Norton), George Coulouris (W. P. Thatcher), Erskine Sanford (Herbert Carter), Harry Shannon (Jim Kane), Philip Van Zandt (Rawlston), Paul Stewart (Raymond), Fortunio Bonanova (Matisti), Georgia Backus (Curator of Thatcher Library), Buddy Swan (Kane, age 8), Sunny Bupp (Kane Jr.), Gus Schilling (Waiter), Richard Barr (Hillman), Joan Blair (Georgia), Al Eben (Mike), Charles Bennett (Entertainer), Milt Kibbee (Reporter), Tom Curran (Teddy Roosevelt), Irving Mitchell (Dr. Corey), Edith Evanson (Nurse), Arthur Kay (Orchestra conductor), Tudor Williams (Chorus master), Herbert Corthell (City editor), Benny Rubin (Smather), Edmund Cobb (Reporter), Francis Neal (Ethel), Robert Dudly (Photographer), Ellen Lowe (Miss Townsend), Gino Corrado (Gino the waiter), Alan Ladd, Louise Currie, Eddie Coke, Walter Sande, Arthur O’Connell, Katherine Trosper, and Richard Wilson (Reporters).
Production Company: A Mercury Production at RKO, June 29-Oct. 23, 1940. US premiere in New York, May 1941. 119 mins.
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Director: Orson Welles (added scenes by Freddie Fleck and Robert Wise)
Script: Orson Welles, based on Booth Tarkington’s novel
Photography: Stanley Cortez (added scenes by Russell Metty and Harry Wild)
Art Direction: Mark-Lee Kirk
Set Decoration: Al Fields
Special Effects: Vernon L. Walker
Music: Bernard Herrmann (added music by Roy Webb)
Costumes: Edward Stevenson
Sound: Bailey Fesler, James G. Stewart
Editors: Robert Wise, Jack Moss, Mark Robson
Producer: Orson Welles
Associate Producer: Richard Wilson
Assistant Director: Freddie Fleck
Cast: Orson Welles (Narrator), Tim Holt (George Amberson Minafer), Joseph Cotten (Eugene Morgan), Dolores Costello (Isabel Amberson Minafer), Agnes Moorehead (Fanny Minafer), Anne Baxter (Lucy Morgan), Ray Collins (Jack Amberson), Richard Bennett (Major Amberson), Don Dillaway (Wilbur Minafer), Erskine Sanford (Roger Bronson), J. Louis Johnson (Sam), Gus Schilling (Drugstore clerk), Charles Phillips (Uncle John), Dorothy Vaughan and Elmer Jerome (Spectators at funeral), Olive Ball (Mary), Nina Guilbert and John Elliot (Guests), Anne O’Neil (Mrs. Foster), Kathryn Sheldon and Georgia Backus (Matrons), Henry Roquemore (Hardware man), Hilda Plowright (Nurse), Mel Ford (Fred Kinney), Bob Pittard (Charlie Johnson), Lillian Nicholson (Landlady), Billy Elmer (House servant), Maynard Holmes and Lew Kelley (Citizens), Bobby Cooper (George as boy), Drew Roddy (Elijah), Jack Baxley (Rev. Smith), Heenan Elliott (Laborer), Nancy Gates (Girl), John Maguire (Young Man), Ed Howard (Chauffeur/Citizen), William Blees (Youth at accident), James Westerfield (Cop), Philip Morris (Cop), Jack Santoro (Barber), Louis Hayward (Ballroom extra).
Production Company: A Mercury Production at RKO, Oct. 28, 1941-Jan. 22, 1942. US premiere Aug. 1942. 88 mins. (originally 131 mins.).
It’s All True (1941–42)
Producer: Orson Welles
Director: Orson Welles
Associate Producer: Richard Wilson
Co-Director for “My Friend Bonito” episode: Norman Foster
Screenwriters: John Fante, Norman Foster, Robert Meltzer, Edmar Morel, Orson Welles
Photography: Floyd Crosby, William Howard Greene, Harry J. Wild, George Fanto
Production Company: Mercury Productions for RKO, with the collaboration of Cinedia Studios, Rio de Janeiro. 35mm, black-and-white and Technicolor. Photographed in and near Mexico City, Mexico; and in Rio de Janerio, Fortaleza, Olinda, and Recife, Brazil. Intended as a film in three parts (I: “My Friend Bonito,” II: “Carnival, or The Story of Samba,” and III: “Jangadeiros, or Three Men on a Raft”), but unfinished. Some of the footage has been preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, but as of 2000 most of it is unpreserved in the RKO and Paramount vaults. For detailed credits and information on footage, see Catherine Benamou, It’s All True: Orson Welles’s Pan-American Odyssey. In 1993 parts of the film became It’s All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles, directed by Richard Wilson, Myron Meisel, and Bill Krohn.
Journey into Fear (1943)
Director: Norman Foster (and, uncredited, Orson Welles)
Script: Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, based on Eric Ambler’s novel
Photography: Karl Strauss
Art Direction: Albert S. D’Agostino, Mark-Lee Kirk
Set Decoration: Darrell Silvera, Ross Dowd
Special Effects: Vernon L. Walker
Music: Roy Webb
Costumes: Edward Stevenson
Editor: Mark Robson
Executive Producer: George J. Schaefer
Producer: Orson Welles
Cast: Joseph Cotten (Howard Graham), Dolores del Rio (Josette Martel), Orson Welles (Colonel Haki), Ruth Warrick (Stephanie Graham), Agnes Moorehead (Mrs. Mathews), Everett Sloane (Kopeikin), Jack Moss (Banat), Jack Durant (Gogo), Eustace Wyatt (Dr. Haller), Frank Readick (Mathews), Edgar Barrier (Kuvetli), Stephen Schnabel (Purser), Hans Conried (Oo Lang Sang, the magician), Robert Meltzer (Steward), Richard Bennett (Ship’s captain), Shifra Haran (Mrs. Haller), Herbert Drake, Bill Roberts.
Production Company: A Mercury Production at RKO, 1942–43. US premiere, Feb. 1943. 71 mins.
The Stranger (1946)
Director: Orson Welles
Script: Anthony Veiller assisted by John Huston
Story: Victor Trivas, Decla Dunning
Photography: Russell Metty
Art Direction: Perry Ferguson
Music: Bronislaw Kaper
Orchestration: Harold Byrns, Sydney Cutner
Costumes: Michael Woulfe
Sound: Carson F. Jowett, Arthur Johns
Editor: Ernest Nims
Producer: S. P. Eagle (pseudonym of Sam Spiegel)
Assistant Director: Jack Voglin
Cast: Orson Welles (Franz Kindler alias Professor Charles Rankin), Loretta Young (Mary Longstreet), Edward G. Robinson (Inspector Wilson), Philip Merivale (Judge Longstreet), Richard Long (Noah Longstreet), Byron Keith (Dr. Lawrence), Billy House (Mr. Potter), Martha Wentworth (Sarah), Konstantin Shayne (Konrad Meinike), Theodore Gottlieb (Fairbright), Pietro Sosso (Mr. Peabody), Isabel O’Madigan.
Production Company: International Pictures (RKO Studios), 1945. US premiere, May 1946. 85 mins. (originally 115 mins.).
The Lady from Shanghai (1946)
Director: Orson Welles
Script: Orson Welles, from Sherwood King’s novel If I Die Before I Wake
Photography: Charles Lawton Jr.
Camera Operator: Irving Klein
Art Direction: Stephen Goosson, Sturges Carne
Set Decoration: Wilbur Menefee, Herman Schoenbrun
Special Effects: Lawrence Butler
Music: Heinz Roemheld
Musical Director: M. W. Stoloff
Orchestration: Herschel Burke Gilbert
Song “Please Don’t Kiss Me”: Allan Roberts, Doris Fisher
Costumes (gowns): Jean Louis
Sound: Lodge Cunningham
Editor: Viola Lawrence
Assistant Director: Sam Nelson
Executive Producer: Harry Cohn
Associate Producers: Richard Wilson, William Castle
Cast: Orson Welles (Michael O’Hara), Rita Hayworth (Elsa Bannister), Everett Sloane (Arthur Bannister), Glenn Anders (George Grisby), Ted de Corsia (Sidney Broom), Gus Schilling (Goldie), Louis Merrill (Jake), Erskine Sanford (Judge), Carl Frank (District Attorney Galloway), Evelyn Ellis (Bessie), Wong Show Chong (Li), Harry Shannon (Horse cab driver), Sam Nelson (Captain), Richard Wilson (D.A.’s assistant), players of the Mandarin Theatre.
Production Company: Columbia Pictures, filmed in Hollywood, Mexico, and San Francisco, 1946. US premiere, May 1948. 86 mins. (cut from 155 mins.).
Macbeth (1948)
> Director: Orson Welles
Script: Orson Welles, adapted from Shakespeare
Photography: John L. Russell
Second Unit Photography: William Bradford
Art Direction: Fred Ritter
Set Decoration: John McCarthy Jr., James Redd
Special Effects: Howard and Theodore Lydecker
Music: Jacques Ibert
Musical Director: Efrem Kurtz
Costumes: Orson Welles, Fred Ritter, Adele Palmer
Makeup: Bob Mark
Sound: John Stransky Jr., Gary Harris
Editor: Louis Lindsay
Dialogue Director: William Alland
Assistant Director: Jack Lacey
Executive Producer: Charles K. Feldman
Producer: Orson Welles
Associate Producer: Richard Wilson
Cast: Orson Welles (Macbeth), Jeanette Nolan (Lady Macbeth), Dan O’Herlihy (Macduff), Edgar Barrier (Banquo), Roddy McDowall (Malcolm), Erskine Sanford (Duncan), Alan Napier (Holy Father), John Dierkes (Ross), Keene Curtis (Lennox), Peggy Webber (Lady Macduff), Lionel Braham (Siward), Archie Heugly (Young Siward), Christopher Welles (Macduff child), Brainerd Duffield (1st murderer), William Alland (2nd murderer), George Chirello (Seyton), Gus Schilling (Porter), Jerry Farber (Fleance), Lurene Tuttle (Gentlewoman), Robert Alan (3rd murderer), Morgan Farley (Doctor); the witches have been listed variously as Peggy Webber, Lurene Tuttle, Brainerd Duffield, and Charles Lederer.
Production Company: A Mercury Production at Republic Studios, Summer 1947. US premiere, Oct. 1948. 107 mins. (cut to 86 mins.).
Othello (1952)
Director: Orson Welles
Script: Orson Welles, adapted from Shakespeare
Photography: Anchise Brizzi, G. R. Aldo, George Fanto, Obadan Troiani, Alberto Fusi
Art Direction: Alexandre Trauner
Costumes: Maria de Matteis
Sound: Piscitrelli
Editors: Jean Sacha, John Shepridge, Renzo Lucidi, William Morton
Assistant Director: Michael Washinsky
Producer: Orson Welles
Associate Producers: Giorgio Patti, Julien Derode, Walter Bedone, Patrice Dali, Rocco Facchini
Cast: Orson Welles (Othello), Micheál MacLiammóir (Iago), Suzanne Cloutier (Desdemona), Robert Coote (Roderigo), Michael Lawrence (Cassio), Hilton Edwards (Brabantio), Fay Compton (Emilia), Nicholas Bruce (Lodovico), Jean Davis (Montano), Doris Dowling (Bianca), Joseph Cotten (Senator), Joan Fontaine (Page).
The Magic World of Orson Welles Page 39