Orson Welles Great Mysteries: Volume One [DVD]

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This was time when British television was starting to up the ante as far as violence was concerned, and to a lesser extent becoming a bit more daring in regard to sexual content. Orson Welles Great Mysteries is however very subdued in its treatment of such matters. The violence is mostly offscreen. The general approach is low-key. Compared to Brian Clemens’ Thriller anthology series, which began to air at around the same time, it seems rather genteel. This is however part of its charm. It’s content to be subtle and to rely on suggestion. Masquerade’ found: Missing Orson Welles’ screenplay based on Luigi Pirandello play October 16, 2023 The episodes featured on the second volume of Orson Welles Great Mysteries – include tales from Margery Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, Stanley Ellin and W. Somerset Maugham. He may have been one of the world’s greatest and most innovative film-makers, but Orson Welles wasn’t appreciated by Hollywood during his lifetime, so spent much of his career struggling to get the money needed to finance his own projects.

The Power of Fear starring Shirley Knight and Don Murray; script by N.J. Crisp; story by Lawrence Treat Anglia TV’s Great Mysteries series, which ran from 1973 to 1974, was ideal for him. Its makers wanted to use his name to bring in viewers, while he could give it minimal attention – he probably shot all his introductions and epilogues in a day. It also appears he didn’t bother to learn them off by heart either – he’s obviously reading from cue cards. Ambitious reporter Harry Langley pretends to be the murderer of unidentified woman, to boost sales with a special report from prison. But once arrested, the authorities seem to be convinced that he is indeed the killer - because the victim has been identified as his fiancee! The Leather Funnel (based on a story by Conan Doyle) is one of the better episodes. The funnel in question is very old, a kind of bizarre family heirloom. It has an interesting if terrible history, as young Stephen Barrow is about to find out. Stephen n is about to marry the beautiful Veronique d’Aubray (Jane Seymour) but before that happens her uncle (plated by Christopher Lee) is determined that the young man should know the secret of the funnel. This episode has both a contemporary and an historical setting and it has a nicely ambiguous plot. Good stuff. The Furnished Room (based on a story by O. Henry) is unusual in that we’re offered, in the intro by Orson Welles, a hint of the possibility of the supernatural. Whether anything supernatural actually occurs is something I’m not going to tell you. A young man is tramping from one furnished room to another in New York, looking for his girlfriend. This story relies very heavily on trying, with limited success, to achieve an atmosphere of subtle ambiguous unease. Unfortunately it’s also a story that doesn’t amount to very much. One of the lesser episodes.For all the ribbing in Ripping Yarns¸ I like to think Michael Palin was a fan of the series all along and, thanks to Network, he’ll enjoy revisiting the inspiration for “our sherry tonight”. In the years of British ruled India, the secret plans for the defense of a harbor have been copied, and with only three people having access to the key, General Sanderson tasks officers Bryce and Rolfe with convincing the apparent traitor Fanshaw to "save his honour" by committing suicide, rather than going through an embarrassing court martial. Complicating matters is that Bryce used to be in love with Fanshaw's wife, but promised her that this would not come between their friendship.

While Welles’ sequences have been shot on film and (not altogether successfully) processed onto video, the Mysteries themselves – and they’re really more cautionary tales than mysteries – were all recorded on video in an electronic studio with little or no location filming. Because this method of producing TV drama has been virtually abandoned, the finished result looks more like a stage play than the frenetic, location-heavy drama of television today. But this only adds to the atmosphere, with brilliantly detailed, vintage performances from the actors that could only be accomplished after a week or so’s intensive rehearsal. I for one am very interested in seeing what the first volume has to offer; if the second collection is anything to go by, I’d say it’s one of the most intriguing entries in the second half of Welles’ career, even if he was nothing more than a hired hand. He said: “It was certainly quite a coup to get somebody of his stature to come to Norwich and there was a real buzz around the news. I know people used to call him ‘awesome’ Welles, he was that well thought of. All episodes were introduced by Orson Welles himself, though, in actuality, the great man provided little more than window dressing.The home media rights are held by ITV Studios. In 2019 Network released half of the series on Region 2 DVD as Volume 1 in the UK. [3]

The Ingenious Reporter starring Geoffrey Bayldon, Ronald Radd and David Birney; script by Carey Harrison Orson Welles was fronting a series for Anglia called The Great Mysteries - a forerunner to Anglia's Tales of the Unexpected. After the wife of a famous artist is stabbed to death, the police investigate four people connected to the case and present in the building when the murder happened - the artist himself, his gallery manager, his old friend and fellow artist, and the latter's wife. From their recollection emerges the image of a shrewd and manipulative woman, who ingrained herself into the artist's life, destroyed his previous marriage and drove the wife to suicide, and then completely took over his life and financial situation, alienating him from his friends. It seems everyone had a reason to kill her, but perhaps, it wasn't any of them who held the knife... His visit to Norwich was very, very brief. The show was all footage that had been filmed elsewhere which we bought and just filmed Orson’s parts to introduce them.Network, which released the DVD Orson Welles Great Mysteries Volume 1 in the United Kingdom last year, will release the second and final volume on October 26.

A Terribly Strange Bed starring Edward Albert and Rupert Davies; story by Wilkie Collins; directed by Alan Cooke The whole story of Welles’ visit was itself dramatized for the Sky Arts series Urban Myths (tru…ish stories) in 2020. In the episode titled Orson Welles in Norwich, Welles is portrayed by Robbie Coltrane. An Affair of Honour starring Harry Andrews, Michael Gambon and Jeremy Clyde; script by Carey Harrison; story by F. Britten Austin; directed by Alan Bromly A young man talks with the uncle of the girl he wants to marry, and is told a strange story about a curious funnel made of leather. While falling asleep next to the device, he has a presentiment that it was once used as an instrument of torture. (Based on a story by Arthur Conan Doyle)Even by the standards of half-hour television drama these stories are rather simple, with just one little sting in the tail. Sometimes the payoff isn’t quite as satisfactory as one might have hoped, and too often it’s too easy to see the payoff coming.