Orson Welles: Hello Americans

by Simon Callow

  The shock was immense, and not only in Brazil. The story of the jangadeiros created a considerable sensation. The incident made the front page of the New York Times: LEADING BRAZIL RAFTMAN DIES STARRING FOR MOVIE – an interesting turn of phrase: not in but for the movie.11 It also reported an incident that was to become part of folklore, though the evidence for it is slender: Jacaré, the Times said, was ‘tipped from his raft today during the filming of a battle between a shark and an octopus. The fisherman swam away from the fighting monsters into a whirlpool, where he was drowned.’ The Brazilian press was considerably less inclined to mythologize, sharply aware as they were of the bitter ironies of the situation: ‘They got drunk with the fame,’ proclaimed a leader in Aino Da Noite:12

  Confused with rich presents, going back to Ceara, they could find no fun in their obscure work. Never again did they go back to their jangada, to earn their daily bread with their simple boat. The big city, the news in the press and the chance to be movie actors, gaining abundant and easy luxuries, killed the simple impulse of their triumphal trip. This is the way the jangadeiros ended. Jacaré died at the edge of the beach, in an adventure without grandeur … they should have stayed on their own sand dunes, in their small houses made of Carnauba straw, without ever glimpsing the seductions of Babylon, without ever meeting the American movie men. They should have stayed there far away, as jangadeiros, in the land of Itacema, without ever meeting Orson Welles.

  A somewhat disingenuous piece – if the jangadeiros had never left the land of Itacema, they would never have made their heroic journey, they would never presented their petition to President Vargas, and they would never have been the subject of a film; Welles had little to do with it. He was, of course, racked with guilt. Prominent Brazilians hastened to comfort him in his distress: Antonio Ferreira assured him that he still had Brazil’s support.

  RKO was immediately alerted to what had happened by a blunt telegram from Lynn Shores: WHAT AMOUNT WE COVERED IN STATES SETTLEMENT ANSWER IMMEDIATELY.13 It transpired that the studio had cancelled the policy that would have covered Jacaré; RKO was obliged to pay his family something between $2,000 and $3,000, as opposed to the $10,000 that the policy would have given him. But there could be no question of cancelling the filming of Four Men on a Raft in Fortaleza, said Reismann. Welles was ‘working like a dog’.14 They now had a rigid deadline to finish the Rio sequence. ‘I have come to the conclusion that this is the only way to handle Orson, otherwise he has a very bad habit of putting off his daily work as long as possible.’ As the activities reports reveal, whenever he wasn’t shooting the remains of the Urca Casino material, he was working on the script for the Fortaleza sequence. Reismann reports that Dick Wilson had estimated a further expenditure of $32,500, but he, Reismann, reckons another five or six thousand. He immediately placed $10,000 in Dick Wilson’s personal account, which would provide one Mitchell camera, 40,000 feet of film and a local cameraman: the utter minimum.

  Lynn Shores put this into effect. His reports continued to bridle at Welles’s capriciousness, noting that although Reismann was doing a good job keeping Welles under control, ‘he still stays awake nights trying to think up fast ones … he has the boys up at 4 o’clock every morning shooting sunrise for no reason except he himself stays up all night and seems to want company around 4 o’clock in the morning’.15 There may be a certain element of truth in this; more importantly, Welles was becoming ever more exploratory in cinematic terms, still assembling material for some as-yet-unarticulated response to the extraordinary culture and country in which he found himself, now personified in his mind by the drowned jangadeiro. Reismann reported that Welles had many problems in Rio, ‘but it all gets back to the main difficulty’ – the core friction between the RKO and Mercury factions within the unit.16 To the crew, filming seemed interminable, but Welles – despite the letter from Schaefer – appeared to feel no real pressure to leave. Reismann believed that Welles planned to stay in Brazil until 1 August, ‘the reasons for which I will tell you when I see you’. (Shores, the eternal grouse, ends a letter dated mid-June, ‘Best wishes for a merry Xmas and a Happy New Year.’)17

  Despite the catastrophe of Jacaré’s death, life had gone on: even Welles was starting to think of life beyond It’s All True. The day after the accident, he received another award for Citizen Kane at the Museum Nacional de Belas Artas, and wrote to Katharine Cornell in reply to a telegram from her that yes, of course he’d love to play Vershinin to her Masha, but when? Herb Drake, back in Hollywood, was actively planning for Welles’s return: ‘You have got to come home the right way, hugely, not sneak in on a plane.18 You must return with trumpets and banners because the campaign needs a good hot fillip of the old Welles personality (with quotes).’ There have been two other Welles pictures to keep alive ‘and the RKO anti-Welles battle to fight. (It has never been so virulent.)’ He is nonetheless confident that ‘a real bang-up arrival’ can focus the limelight on Welles. He outlines a four-point plan, including stops in Miami, Washington, New York, Chicago. Then he should arrive in Los Angeles ‘on a tidal wave of wire stories and throw a party before the studio issues its own story. There is a widespread, nurtured campaign to prove you have been spending too much time and money in Brazil, that Ambersons is no good and Fear ditto.’ Koerner has made a personal visit to William Wilkerson of the Hollywood Reporter. ‘The heat is definitely on. The RKO executives have been as busy as Goebbels putting the pan on your pictures and on you.’ There is, Drake tells him, a problem in stressing the pan-American cooperation angle: ‘Disney took the cream off the idea. However, if someone in Washington will come out with a thank you statement to you, you will return a conquering hero.’

  This now became a major preoccupation: Berent Friele was wheeled out yet again to affirm the importance of Welles’s contribution. He telegraphed Phil Reismann: FACT IS THAT ORSON IS DOING AN OUTSTANDING JOB IN BRAZIL WHICH DESERVES GREATER RECOGNITION IN UNITED STATES.19 The Brazilian division duly reported that Welles’s knowledge of Brazil and its customs would be invaluable even after his return, adding, somewhat mysteriously, ‘as can be seen, it is already possible to measure the success of his being here in many obvious ways, and to look forward to the important reinterpretation of it for other purposes and compound interests at a later time’.20 In the absence of a completed film or a clear sense of what any such film might be like, the nature of his contribution was indeed somewhat in the realm of the mystic. Meanwhile the apparently interminable casino sequence had been completed (at a total cost of $17,000, by no means a large sum for a comparable sequence shot in Hollywood) and the crew finally planned their return, while preparations were made for the departure north of the tiny core team that would shoot the Fortaleza footage.

  In Hollywood, all those many hundreds of miles away, the Mercury office was fighting a rearguard action to protect what was left of Journey into Fear and The Magnificent Ambersons. Herb Drake, with his usual sharp grasp of the situation, had written to Schaefer urging him to mount a vigorous press campaign on behalf of Ambersons. ‘About a year ago you came to the rescue of Citizen Kane with an exciting advertising insert in the trade papers.’21 The same situation now exists, he says, with The Magnificent Ambersons. ‘Not enough press people have seen the film yet to counteract the irresponsible chatter of the anti-Ambersons element.’ He knows what they’re up against: envy and resentment. ‘There is always a ready audience for anti-Welles talk. The current belief is that Welles has muffed his opportunity and that he is a flash in the pan and does not justify RKO’s faith in his talents … only a statement on the picture’s great worth from the very top can untie our hands and allow us to get the picture the attention it deserves. A powerful trade ad from you will set us right with the rest of the press.’ Welles found himself again in the extraordinary position of begging the studio to back its own movie; this time, it didn’t happen. Jack Moss was fighting a different battle, desperate to end the constant process of trimming, nipping, tucking, adding and subtr
acting, which had now been going on for nearly three months. The latest preview at Long Beach (which included his own new rewritten ending) had been, he told George Schaefer, ‘amazing and gratifying’; at private screenings critics from Life, Time and United Press had ‘unanimously rave[d]’, vindicating, he said, Schaefer’s judgement and faith. ‘I cannot stress too urgently, George, the deep belief that the picture should be left as it is since we have had such phenomenal luck with last previews and critical showings. We have expended so much work and time and care and together have fought this problem through. I ask you to review this message and make your final consideration an all-round agreement not just with me but with unanimous opinion. May I hear from you?’

  Small hope. That same day, Charles Koerner had written to Schaefer detailing further proposed changes to The Magnificent Ambersons, stating bluntly, ‘we will eliminate the so-called kitchen scene’, the astonishing scene between Fanny and George Minafer on which Welles and Moorehead had lavished so much attention22 and Tim Holt had turned green from eating too many cakes. As it happens, the scene was not removed, but others were, despite protests from the Mercury office. Ross Hastings checked with Reg Armour whether RKO was required to give notice before completing the final cutting of The Magnificent Ambersons and shipping the picture ‘in a form not approved by Mr Jack Moss’.23 With evident satisfaction, Armour replied: ‘No notice is necessary … after the first rough-cut and the first sneak preview, RKO has the right to have Mr Welles cut the picture as RKO directs.24 Because of the fact that Mr Welles is not present to cut the picture as directed, I think RKO is justified in having the picture cut as it desires.’ The front-office men who had loathed Welles from the very beginning now had their revenge, and it was sweet. Jack Moss was forced into whimpering, abjectly begging Schaefer to leave well alone: I AM ENTITLED TO BETTER CONSIDERATION AND CERTAINLY A REPLY. I’LL PUT IT THIS WAY: I BEG YOU TO CONSIDER MY COMMENTS REGARDING THE CHANGES IN AMBERSONS.25 When Schaefer, instinctively the most courteous of men, did reply, he apologised, offering his illness as an excuse, and politely passed Moss on to Koerner. Gordon E. Youngman, hearing of this exchange, wired his colleague Ned Depinet to get hold of Moss’s original telegram: PLEASE TRY TO FIND IT IN SCHAEFER’S FILES AND BE SURE PRESERVE AS PROBABLY STRONG EVIDENCE IN CASE IF WE EVER HAVE WELLES LAWSUIT.26 Koerner himself had already written that same day to Schaefer discussing various further changes he planned to make to the movie. In a chilling note, he informed the man he was about to replace: ‘Wise tells me this in no way will hurt the picture and will fit in that spot to really clean up the scene.’27 The studio’s chief executive, the company president and the film’s editor were blithely determining the film’s final form without reference to its director at all. This of course was the common experience of many (perhaps of most) Hollywood directors, but it was the mould Welles was supposed to have broken. For Schaefer, at least, things had come to a sad pass. He wrote a troubled, uncomfortable letter to Reg Armour – the person on whose ears his request was least likely to fall favourably. ‘I think it important, in the scheme of things, that you save the extra negative and positive cuts that we made on The Magnificent Ambersons.28 Some day someone may want to know what was done with the original picture Welles shot.’ Still saddened by the waywardness of his protégé, and hopeful that he might one day be taught the error of his ways, he adds, ‘it might be a good idea to put all cuts together and show him all the useless material he shot and the improvement that was made by the elimination’. There is no suspicion whatsoever in his mind that the film as directed by Welles, even though less commercial, might actually have been better than the one he and his partners in crime had cobbled together.

  Journey into Fear was equally embattled, although, as George Schaefer might say, ‘in the scheme of things’ it is hard to feel so deeply about its fate. Koerner had confiscated the film from the Mercury office for re-editing. Moss appealed directly to him for its return: ‘The natural conclusion can only be: Mercury can go – fishing … I’ll not introduce any argument of rights, moral or legal.29 Courtesy alone should be enough to cause Mercury to be included in any function concerning Journey into Fear.’ Koerner replied with aristocratic disdain, brooking no further discussion: ‘Dear Jack, Believe me I realise your situation very definitely and clearly.30 Nevertheless, never for a moment can I imagine that RKO has at any time failed to extend every possible courtesy to Mercury Productions. In fact, the extent of RKO’s help to Orson Welles and Mercury Productions would in many circumstances be considered somewhat fantastic. In regard to Journey into Fear, I simply followed definite and clear-cut instructions. There was no other alternative, and as far as I am concerned the matter is permanently closed. Sincerely CWK.’ Jo Cotten, with slightly more clout than Moss (apart from anything else, he was the screenwriter), now weighed in, vigorously defending ending the picture with the scene in the rain, sharply and accurately delineating the arbitrariness of the studio’s judgements: ‘The editing and the cutting of the picture up to now has always been guided by audience reactions at the previews, and certainly we all know that the ending in the rain was more favourably received than any other ending ever screened.31 Since we started out accepting the opinion of the public to guide us in our own opinions, let us stick to this policy and not at this late date make the mistake of deciding that after all the audience is wrong.’ All such civilised interventions were pointless. For Mercury at RKO, the game was up; they could go, as Moss so pointedly put it, ‘– fishing’.

  On 26 June, hopelessly outflanked, George Schaefer resigned from the presidency of RKO. His departure was a formality; he had been among the living dead for some weeks. No mourners appeared. There is no record anywhere, in any document, letter, statement, interview, of one word of regret or condolence from anyone – let alone anyone at Mercury, least of all from Welles – at the forced departure of the man who had staked his career and his reputation on the great adventure that Welles’s three-year sojourn at RKO represented. But for him, Citizen Kane might have been destroyed; but for him, indeed, it would never have been made. It is shocking that he received so little acknowledgement at the time, and continues to do so. Schaefer’s unstinting support of Welles gives the lie to the suggestion, widely promoted by certain of Welles’s apologists, that he was the victim of a cynical and ruthless studio system, which wanted to destroy him because of his independence and originality. This was precisely so in the case of Charles W. Koerner, who was quite explicit to that effect, but the case of George J. Schaefer shows the other side of the coin. Having assiduously courted Welles, he instantly fell under the young wizard’s spell, immediately putting fabulous resources at his disposal with an absolute minimum of restraint. Schaefer believed in Welles unconditionally and sought to incorporate him into the system, hoping with his aid to transform Hollywood (or his patch of it) from a mere money-making enterprise into a place that was both artistically enlightened and commercially viable. Together they would do it. He wanted, in a nutshell, an equal partnership with Welles, an astonishing initiative on his part, considering that he had all the power in his hands. All he required from Welles – in addition to what he had to offer artistically – was a degree of responsibility for the consequences of his choices, and an acknowledgement that Schaefer was the head of a company that needed to make profits in order to survive.

  Welles, young and flushed with the sense of his own talents, paid lip service to these small qualifications, seeing RKO as an inexhaustible milch cow. He rejoiced in Schaefer’s enthusiasm for him, and thought that by a combination of charm, bluster and a sly implication of complicity he could get exactly what he wanted, often saying one thing and doing the opposite, in the belief that he would always come up with the goods and that they would always be worth whatever they cost. But he was at the mercy of the nature of his own talent, depending on adrenalin and inspiration to bring off his effects. He had enormous difficulty in engendering material: his real gift was for editing, interpreting, transf
orming. A screenplay only existed, for him, as a suggestion of a starting point, which would then acquire its character, its tone, its form and to a large extent its meaning from what he did with it in the act of creation. He could never supply anything to order. But Schaefer, as a businessman – an investor, so to speak, in Welles – had to believe that he could. The aggrieved letter that Schaefer sent him in Rio was an acknowledgement that the two men were not, in fact, partners at all. The terrible phrase ‘lip service’ sums up the older man’s sense of betrayal and disappointment. Had Welles been straight with Schaefer, had he listened to him, had he understood what a peerless and indomitable ally he had in him, had he grasped that there were limits to any enterprise funded by Hollywood, his history and that of Hollywood – to say nothing of that of George Schaefer – might have been very different. Instead of being remembered merely as Citizen Kane’s midwife (who then heroically saved it from an untimely death), Schaefer might have been remembered – as he had dreamed of being – as usher-in of an altogether extraordinary period in the history of cinema.