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005 - The Todd Years: Part Two (1929-1931)
0 Playsin 1 hour
“I got through school because I paid a boy named Guggenheim to take that sort of drudgery off my shoulders… I graduated magna cum laude.”
We pick back up with Orson as he ends his time at Todd commandeering the school’s drama program, taking a summer trip to his beloved Asia, and coping with the death of his father, with whom he shared a complicated relationship.
Follow us on our (admittedly limited) socials to keep up with assignments and other exciting Welles-related news:
- @wellesupod on Bluesky and YouTube
- Follow Hope at @hopelichtner on Bluesky, Instagram, and Tumblr
- Read Hope’s blog at highimhope.com
- Listen to Hope’s other podcasts - High on Cartoons Presents DuckTakes! and The Matrix Reclamations
- Track Hope’s work as The Millennial Falcon, the announcer for the Philly Roller Derby
- Follow Stephen at @chewywalrus on Bluesky and Letterboxd
- Listen to Stephen’s other podcasts - Disenfranchised Podcast and The Pod and the Pendulum
- Check out Stephen’s novel - Check In, Check Out - on Amazon, now available in paperback or ebook: https://amzn.to/44idk8y
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Transcript
Introduction to Orson Welles and Hosts
00:00:01
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction... I don't think any words can explain a man's life. The broadcasting system and its affiliated station presents... Columbia Network takes pride in presenting... Rogue Spud.
00:00:12
Speaker
We take you now to Grover Mills, New Jersey. Ladies and gentlemen, the director of the Mercury Theater and star of these broadcasts... There's a voice. Just a voice. I never really saw him.
00:00:26
Speaker
He was only the hero, horsesonwell a great lover, horsesonwell and a dirty dog. Good morning, this is Orson Welles speaking. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen? This is Orson Welles. This Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen. This is Orson Welles speaking.
00:00:39
Speaker
A unicorn. Well, here it is. If anybody wants to see it. All right, class, everybody in. Come on down, take your seats. Let's fill in the front rows first, please.
00:00:53
Speaker
Not so loud. I'm tired. Slackers to the front where I can keep an eye on you better. Please. and I'm already in the front. yeah You're calling me out specifically the rest the Slackers. Welcome Slackers.
00:01:07
Speaker
And others. Yes, and others, I guess. I suppose. It's a podcast. It's Slacker friendly.
Banter and Personal Interests
00:01:15
Speaker
Exactly. you can You can listen to this wherever you want. And yet if you stop listening now, we've got your download. Thank you.
00:01:21
Speaker
yeah um Unless you're a cop. In which case, no thank you, get out. Yeah. um We are Wells University. This is Wells University. We are your TAs. I am a Stephen Foxworthy. Pronouns he, him. Hope, Stow, she, her. Had to think about it because I was thinking up a, wait, am I Wells University? Oh, no. no Oh, no.
00:01:46
Speaker
Technically, I am 50% of Wells University. Correct. Whereas constitute the other 50. There you go. All right. um Well, you also do about 80% of the workload.
00:01:58
Speaker
um Right now. Yeah, for for right now. yeah We're now getting to my special interest. Absolutely. as soon as look As soon as we get this boy to and from Ireland, get back to New York.
00:02:10
Speaker
This is episode five. Let's get this motherfucker out of the States. This is... This has been our mantra in the text thread. Let's get this bitch to Ireland. ah God in heaven.
00:02:23
Speaker
or shut us today ah God in heaven. Faith in me, daughter. Okay. It's it's okay. he he He lives in Chicago. he He's allowed to do that.
00:02:35
Speaker
um Also, my mother's ah my my maternal grandmother's maiden name is Callahan. Well, now my goal is to get you to do a spit take whenever you're sipping from the water. So I'm going have to keep a weather eye on that.
00:02:48
Speaker
It wouldn't be the first time, and that's not water. yeah
00:02:55
Speaker
See, I've just got my pipe and my, um I don't know if you can see it over the webcam, but my ah yeah Jacob from Twilight. Bella, where the hell you been, Loka? Cup.
00:03:07
Speaker
It was a wedding present. Long-haired Taylor Lautner, yes. Oh, man. That was before the glow up. Oh, woof. That wig was not doing him no favors.
00:03:18
Speaker
The irony, of course, being that you say woof for a werewolf, but yes. Well, the the irony is I'm actually Team Edward, but that's another reason. I didn't know you actually had a take on that. Yeah, fucking sue me. Look, look, I avoided it when the books came out. I avoided it when the movies came out.
00:03:39
Speaker
But then one day I found myself in the company of another bouncy blonde and we got drunk and watched the whole series. And it was kids. I know this is an Orson Welles podcast.
00:03:51
Speaker
Just we'll get
Orson Welles' Early Years and Influences
00:03:52
Speaker
there. Yeah. Yeah. Watch Twilight. They're. Wild movies. They're truly wild. How do you think, do you think Orson would have been team Edward or team Jacob? Yeah.
00:04:04
Speaker
um I feel like these are the important questions that people want us to be asking on this podcast. I feel like had he been age appropriate and alive at the time of the movies, ah he would have been cast in the Michael Sheen role instead.
00:04:20
Speaker
Although that would rob us of the Michael Sheen performance, which I believe he based off of a blue meanie from the yellow submarine. So, you know, um I've been doing that a lot lately since we started properly recording again.
00:04:36
Speaker
Bex and I will just be watching in a movie and I'll just think, Orson could have done this role. Orson could have knocked this out of the park. But it'll be something completely nonsensical like my neighbor Totoro. Orson could have played Totoro.
00:04:47
Speaker
Oh, Orson, absolutely. First of all, Orson is Totoro. Like late stage Orson. worried talked about this on the last episode we recorded. is Totoro, yes. yeah But yeah. Orson could have played John Hammond.
00:04:59
Speaker
My friends, welcome to Jurassic Park. Orson could have played the T-Rex. Fuck it. Who cares? Yeah. Oh my God. That would have been amazing. And we'll get into like some of the parts he lot, like the pop culture roles he lobbied real hard for it and didn't get.
00:05:14
Speaker
um But like, like Vito Corleone and Darth Vader. Oh God. Oh, he could have Orson Vader. Oh well. Oh well.
00:05:25
Speaker
Whatever. I love James Earl Jones too much. I'm not mad about the choice they made. I'm just saying. Would have been would have been great. You know what? It's probably a good idea that we didn't get Orson as Darth Vader, because then for ah um ah the the prequels and the sequels, we would have just gotten Maurice LaMarche Darth Vader, which now that I'm saying it out loud, I actually really want that. I going to say, why why are you saying that like it's a bad thing? Because I like Darth Vader. He's like the coolest thing ever invented for cinema.
00:06:00
Speaker
And Orson Welles is the coolest human being ever invented for humanity. We're here. yeah yeah Two great tastes that taste great together. you know I'm right.
00:06:10
Speaker
I'm too mad about Star Wars to agree with you. um Wait, hold on. You're mad about Star Wars? What? I have takes? ah The bitch who has takes about Twilight also has Star Wars hot takes?
00:06:23
Speaker
um now No. None of my Star Wars takes are necessarily hot. They are ah
00:06:32
Speaker
warmed up morning after leftovers at best. um Joke's on you. I like cold pizza. Let's get this motherfucker Ireland. What are we doing? We've just taken a five-minute side tangent because I decided to smoke my pipe before we started, which is what I always do, and that's a problem.
00:06:50
Speaker
Well, as long as you recognize that it's a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well... recognize and ain't doing all right it's 1929 motherfuckers yeah february 11th major events taken from on this day.com february 11th vatican city the world's most smallest the world's most smallest country jesus god i'm gonna start again february 11th vatican city the world's smallest country because um's an enclave of rome ah February 14th, the Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago. Seven gangsters are killed allegedly on Al Capone's orders.
00:07:26
Speaker
I'm skip through some of these. Well, hold on, because Chicago... Uh-oh. Tell me about Chicago. Chicago boy. i am I am in the burbs of Chicago. But Chicago is, of course, ah the early stomping grounds of Orson Welles, who said knew...
00:07:40
Speaker
new Al Capone ah says of Al Capone Capone used to take four rows at the opening night of every play in Chicago and come backstage and see everybody.
00:07:52
Speaker
So there you go. Apparently al Capone friend of the arts.
00:07:58
Speaker
Good. Good. that's That's all Orson has to say about Al Capone. that's This is Orson Welles. And there is nothing else to be said about Al Capone. um October 23rd, I'm seeing from a newspaper ah called...
00:08:14
Speaker
The Onion. It looks like ah the stock market is ah invincible and nothing will ever fail. Uh-oh, what's this? October 24th, Black Thursday. The start of the stock market crashed in 1929.
00:08:26
Speaker
Dow Jones Industrial Average drops 12.8%. Gosh, That doesn't pertain to anything in modern day at all. Neither does that conclave if you mentioned earlier, quite frankly. yeah Nor the fact that it also became a sovereign state on June 7th.
00:08:41
Speaker
ah October 29th, stock market crash on Wall Street known as Black Tuesday triggers the Great Depression. And we've had a couple of even greater ones since then. This is the, i I have honest to Christ lost, it's like four or five economic crises in just my lifetime. Right. um Or as I like to consider, my lifetime is AW for after wells, because I was born about three months after Yeah.
00:09:11
Speaker
oh wow There was a month, there was a span of time in between his passing and my birth where time just stopped
Theater Involvement and Artistic Development
00:09:19
Speaker
existing. I'm sure you have a blank spot in your memory.
00:09:22
Speaker
um I have several. that That's probably just one of them. I'm going skip anything about athletics because fuck them. ah Born in 1929, Martin Luther King j on January 12th,
00:09:36
Speaker
um and frank on june twelfth ah Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, July 28th, and Yasser Arafat on August 24th.
00:09:46
Speaker
Holy Christ. that's I've also got ah Frank Gary, who I don't really know off the top of my head. Joe Gallo. They've posted a picture of a mugshot.
00:09:59
Speaker
ah So I'm assuming... Oh, member of the... Provocchi crime family, which later became the Columbo crime family. And one more thing. gang ah Yeah. And speaking of Columbo, one more thing.
00:10:13
Speaker
Audrey Hepburn was born on May 4th. June Carter Cash. June 23rd. Bob Newhart. September 5th. Barbara Walters. September 25th. Grace Kelly. November 12th. Dick Clark. November 30th. Um, some musicians that I don't know the names of off the top of my head.
00:10:29
Speaker
ah Jacques, uh, Jacques, Christ, the life French is the, though not the French, but French. The language is my arch nemesis in all things. Life. Just pronounce your fucking vowels.
00:10:41
Speaker
Um, Jacques Brel, Cy Coleman, Barry Gordy, Chet Baker. Some athletes were also born. um Barry Gordy, I know.
00:10:53
Speaker
Okay. Okay. for we know the boat town Oh, well, there you go. Yeah. Am I racist for not knowing that? I'm going to skip on to who died in 1929. Wyatt Earp.
00:11:04
Speaker
uh uh carl ben's archibald primrose i name's ringing a bell but it's a funny name uh shouldn't be making commentary on people who are potentially horrible uh gustav strasserman elijah mccoy uh george's french name um and Some athletes happened, some weddings happened, some other bullshit happened, but also the first ever Academy Awards happened.
00:11:31
Speaker
And that's actually relevant to our interests. The first Academy Awards were ah held on May 16th, 1929 in Hollywood at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA, planet Earth, solar system.
00:11:49
Speaker
Local Orbit, hosted by Douglas Fairbanks, the first best picture ever was Wings. all right Let's see. Seventh Heaven and Sunrise both won three each, which is pretty cool. And they didn't have nearly as many Oscars as they today. they did not. They truly did not. And I'm looking at the photo of the attendees of the first Oscars, and it looks...
00:12:14
Speaker
All white to me. yeah Lay on words. Oh, no. Nothing racist will ever come up on this podcast ever again. I'm sure.
00:12:26
Speaker
Talking about Orson Welles and the that the nineteen hundred
00:12:33
Speaker
The man was pretty progressive for his time. For his time. For his time. Pretty progressive asterisk. Footnote. The footnote is 17 pages long.
00:12:45
Speaker
We've actually already discussed several racist things that Orson has done, and it will not be the last. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. It's just going to get worse, kids. We're going to have to cover his Othello at some point. Ah, Jesus Christ. I i knew what I was signing up for.
00:13:00
Speaker
You did. Um... I totally did. Signing up for. i Yeah. All right. Sure. Signing up for, i.e. suggesting. Where did we leave off with Orson? We left off in the the fall of 1928. Yes. so we Orson has returned to Todd for another year, and he has become the editor of the Red and White, the school newspaper, publishing a Kane-esque Declaration of Principles right on the front page.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah. Be more on brand, Orson. Right. You know, but no, Citizen Kane is not about you at all. ah From there, we're going to jump into May 1929, just five months into 1929.
00:13:43
Speaker
ah Wells mounts an and ah or an abridged, rather, production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar for the annual Drama League of Chicago tournament, which is held at the Goodman Theater.
00:13:55
Speaker
um This is not the first time that Wells will adapt Julius Caesar ah or nay, the first, the last time he will adapt any Shakespeare play. He'll do a whole shit ton of that.
00:14:07
Speaker
Um, Wells actually, uh, adapted the show himself with assistance from, uh, Skipper Hill. And, uh, they also directed show. his name was Skipper. Fuck. Well, that's his, nickname is Nick. His real name Roger, but. I know, but still just.
00:14:21
Speaker
Yeah. All right. whooper He's, he shares the name with Barbie's kid sister. Um,
00:14:28
Speaker
And the two also co-directed the production. See, when you're not laughing out loud, it just looks like I'm laughing. It just sounds like I'm laughing at my own jokes. I'm sorry to ah the students attending class. Stephen just gave me whiplash with that sentence. So I had to react as such.
00:14:46
Speaker
um Christ alive.
00:14:51
Speaker
We can't. This is why we take two hours to record these episodes. Yes. God in heaven. i mean, also work us. Like, yeah, no.
00:15:02
Speaker
Yeah. It's taken us five episodes to get to 1929. nineteen twenty nine The boy is Fuck me running. It's going to be really hard, but okay.
00:15:13
Speaker
Um,
00:15:17
Speaker
fuck not damn yeah We have fun. have fun at Wells University.
00:15:25
Speaker
wells Wells played the dual role of Cassius and Mark Antony. ah He also spearheaded costume and set design. Basically, the theater program that Todd is becoming kind of his one... He's becoming the one-man show.
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's now the Orson show. Exactly. Christ. Todd did eventually lose the the tournament to Morgan Park High School. ah They were given a consolation prize in the form of a citation for direction. That sounds negative, a citation.
00:15:56
Speaker
Like, all right. ah You know, but, you know, that doesn't necessarily – nowadays it has more of a negative connotation, but I guess it doesn't. Yeah, you're right. so You're right. Yeah. um Like, citation for excellence in directions, let's say.
00:16:10
Speaker
um But yeah, Wells was pretty broken up about the fact that they didn't win. Yeah, he wasn't immediately recognized as Boy Wonder Genius, and he was sad about it. Yeah, that that tracks, considering everything we know about Orson, past, present, and future.
00:16:27
Speaker
Correct. There's a letter that I wanted to read from Bernstein here. Ooh. in the text. Oh, from Bernstein? Okay. Yes. in ah In the book Young Orson.
00:16:40
Speaker
you Sorry, i just collected that your screen name for this recording is Wellsfan420. Yeah. Oh my fucking god. aren't you Aren't you just so glad to know me? Steven, goddamn delighted.
00:16:54
Speaker
how How do I change my name on this shithole so that I can do that? I think you have to do it before you log in. I don't know if you can do it if you're hosting, too. Alright, fine. ah The Night of the Loss, Bernstein writes to Orson ah saying, applause means little in the long run, and not all the things we do that are worthwhile receive recognition.
00:17:17
Speaker
Look at all the great works of art that slumbered without being recognized. And so let this be a lesson to you. There will be times in your life when you will meet up with the same situation. Someday you will be in the eyes of the world doing big things, as I know you will.
00:17:31
Speaker
You will look back upon this disappointment as having been just a passing experience.
Adventures and Early Experiences in Europe
00:17:35
Speaker
We must learn to accept disappointments and profit by them. Success is in the silences, though fame is in the song.
00:17:46
Speaker
um but buth Oh, yes. I know your true values, and I hope you live long enough to see them grow into fruition. I love you more than all else. Dada. data Oh, right.
00:17:59
Speaker
That's, that's, that's very sweet. Absolutely. Like that's just such an incredible, like, and I wasn't going type all that out here in the, yeah, no, I get it.
00:18:10
Speaker
But no, I mean like such an incredible, and and I think it speaks volumes of the relationship that the two of them had that for, for everything else.
00:18:23
Speaker
Bernstein truly did love Orson. And I know we've kind of covered that over the past few episodes, but like, yeah and, and I think Bernstein's entire Orson became after a point, Bernstein's entire world to some degree ah with, you know, his dalliances for married women, notwithstanding, but yeah, we'll, we'll get to that more later too.
00:18:48
Speaker
Yeah. But Wells finishes the school year out ah with his final red and white as editor, ah bringing us to the summer of 1929. ah Basically, every adult in his life um is afraid of what's going to happen if Orson has too much time on his hands.
00:19:08
Speaker
Ah, so that's fabulous. That's Bernstein. That's Hill. That's Dick Wells himself. ah Roger Hill arranges for Orson to join the Todd Orchestra choral director Carl Hendrickson and another Todd student on an art travel tour through Europe.
00:19:25
Speaker
um so Something that would never happen today. Two students and a teacher on a tour of Europe? Nope. Dick agrees. did Yeah, that's... Boy, howdy.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, right? Like, hmm. One of those things that in the 20s, apparently no big deal, but... o Yeah, this is how a Batman got away with just having a 12-year-old around at all times. he ah How a single bachelor can adopt a 12-year-old. Just adopt a 12-year-old out of the circus.
00:19:54
Speaker
Yeah. the Jesus Christ. um Dick Wells agrees, which and then promises that he's going to meet them there at the end of the summer. Yeah, no, it's fine. Just take take my boy.
00:20:05
Speaker
I'll show up at the end. It's fine. It's fine. Take my child, please. um that's Hendrickson brings an eight millimeter camera that he had just purchased ah to do filming while on tour.
00:20:19
Speaker
ah McGilligan calls the shorts that they filmed there Orson's first brush with filmmaking. I would think so. I don't think he was like shooting shit on an iPhone in 1928. So like, yeah, it'd be amazing since iPhones are, you know, almost 100 years away from being invented. so yeah, chip you know,
00:20:37
Speaker
I'd go back in time and give him a decent digital camera. That'd be fun. Oh, hell yeah. Just really blow up the timeline. Fuck you. Fuck you timeline. If we gave Orson Welles a digital camera, like a modern day high end digital camera in like ah in, in say Citizen Kane time, we would have had bullet time 50 years earlier.
00:21:00
Speaker
I'm just going to put that out there. Orson could have played Morpheus. Let's keep going. Um, Wells would claim to... would say could and have played more films. I will say Fishburne is the one actor I don't think you could or should replace in those movies. Opinions about the other actors and performances, notwithstanding.
00:21:18
Speaker
But regardless, Wells would claim to having his first decision encounter on the boat to Europe... ah his first decision encounter. You've, I did this on my phone. Uh, that's probably supposed to be sexual encounter.
00:21:31
Speaker
Ah, I, okay, good. That's a strange way of accidentally. Oh, you're in the notes right now. Whoops. Oh, he's editing the Google doc as we speak kids.
00:21:43
Speaker
Uh-oh. His first sexual encounter, and I have no memory of the other thing. Wells would claim to have had his first sexual encounter on the boat to Europe with a girl two to three years his senior.
00:21:55
Speaker
ah He even admits it wasn't very good. Bull, Dorsen! Bold. He says, i was, however, not a wonder kind in that department, merely precocious. yeah Jesus Christ. He was 14.
00:22:08
Speaker
Motherfucker. Yeah. Yeah. Would have been good. You know, Hey, yeah. When i drunk texted you, this is not what I expected to talk about. Although I guess low key, it is kind of what I expected to talk about.
00:22:20
Speaker
I mean, we can't talk about Orson Welles without talking about the various women he bedded across the the course of his life. Yeah, get ready for episode 69, kids. That's going to be fun. Hey-o!
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah, we'll we'll call that one Orson Welles' Loverboy. that what we had? Well, that's if we want to get past like the censors on podcast dispensaries. um I've been calling it Orson Welles' Fuckboy, but it's B-O-I. Of course. yeah Exactly. yeah not Christ alive.
00:22:52
Speaker
yeah um Dead Dove, Do Not Eat.
Return to School and Theatrical Ambitions
00:22:56
Speaker
I don't know I was expecting. Yeah. Well, stories about this trip are incredible. He claims to have had and been invited to a meeting of militant socialists in London and encountered Adolf Hitler delivering an angry angry rant in a beer hall in Munich.
00:23:11
Speaker
This is just Forrest Gump. He is describing Forrest Gump. Correct. Orson Welles is basically the inspiration for Forrest Gump. Correct. Christ alive.
00:23:22
Speaker
um ah Claims to have having yeah commandeered Hendrickson's camera while waiting to see the Pope and using it to film an impromptu documentary yeah about St. Peter's Basilica, if I'm saying that word correctly.
00:23:34
Speaker
You are? Great. ah Running out of film just as the Pope made his appearance. Orson. Classic Orison. Foolish. And then he had to go, you know, borrow money all around town and do a bunch of crazy commercials in order to get money to film the Pope.
00:23:49
Speaker
Oh, Jesus Christ. um He, while there, also saw multiple Max Reinhart productions, a schnitzel comedy in Vienna, and Romeo and Juliet in Berlin, by which point Dick Wells had joined up with the rest of them.
00:24:05
Speaker
ah will um Wells, of course, enamored of these experiences. Max Reinhart, one of the great theater directors, his version of Midsummer Night's Dream, his film version of Midsummer Night's Dream is famous.
00:24:18
Speaker
That's the one where I think James Cagney plays Nick Bottom, if I'm not mistaken. okay I have not seen it since high school. I have not seen it ever. Well, there you go. All right. I've got one up on you.
00:24:31
Speaker
i You have several. Let's be honest. There's a funny bit with a wall, I want to say. Yes, absolutely. Great. Okay.
00:24:42
Speaker
I did Midsummer Night's Dream. Oh, I played it. Oh, wait. I thought you just said you hadn't seen it, but you were in it. I was in it. I was not. I did not see. i did not see the Max, the Max Reinhardt version. Sorry. I thought we were just talking about Shakespeare in general.
00:24:58
Speaker
Oh, no. Okay. i I have, I have, that is one two Shakespeare plays. I have three Shakespeare plays I have been in. um ah No one expects the Midsummer's Night Dream.
00:25:09
Speaker
um Yeah, i I saw some Shakespeare in the Park adaption adaptation. um Did you say the bit about how later Wells would call Reinhardt a great master of spectacle as well as intimate comedy?
00:25:24
Speaker
I did not say that, but you just said that. You should attribute it to Yo 160, which is my favorite citation ever. Young Orson. I got it I picked up on it. It's just a fun abbreviation. 160. In the fall of nothing bad happened in the fall of Bernstein.
00:25:44
Speaker
a
00:25:46
Speaker
say it you started at say
00:25:52
Speaker
I have broken her with my notes. Damn it. Son of a bitch. I'm cold reading these. Fall of 1929. Dr. Bernstein. Bernstein. Did we land on that? Where am I putting the stress? Bernstein is how it's pronounced in Citizen Kane. So I've always assumed it was Bernstein.
00:26:10
Speaker
Oh, that's very, that's good reasoning. All right. Dr. Bernstein, AKA the Cuckmaster General manages to steal Chicago based opera star, Edith Mason, away from her third husband, civic opera conductor, uh, Giorgio Palacco.
00:26:24
Speaker
If I'm saying that at all correctly, Let's assume you are. Yeah, my my whole experience with opera of this time period is the Marx Brothers, a night at the opera after the divorce, ah Bernstein and Mason would elope in October in Antioch, Illinois, before Justice of the Peace, Yost 162.
00:26:42
Speaker
um Jesus fucking Christ. Cuckmaster General. that's I mean, the man has a thing for married women. That I think is well established at this point. Wow.
00:26:53
Speaker
I told you we'd get to it later and here we are. Wow. try on that it's later It's 20 minutes, not even 20 minutes later. yeah um Key Riced Alive.
00:27:04
Speaker
Orson the Hills and the Moors were in attendance though Dick Wells was not. Can't imagine why. no Christ alive.
00:27:17
Speaker
ah you You take the next picture, please. I don't want to get jump scared again. Like his first marriage, this one did not last a long time. Right. I know.
00:27:29
Speaker
ah Mason's ex-husband is just proved incapable of leaving them alone. He'd call them at all hours of the night, show up at their door unannounced and refuse to leave. At one point, even threatened them all with a gun. Well, I i got it up until that point, but okay.
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah. ah When Orson visited during the Christmas of 1929, sick with a cold, ah Mason, who had apparently just recovered from a cold herself, demanded her husband find the boy other lodgings.
00:27:59
Speaker
And when Bernstein refused, she left the suburbs for a suite in the city. Divorce papers served within months. Shit. Okay, so he was literally the cause of that divorce. Of that divorce, yeah. Wow.
00:28:14
Speaker
And then after that divorce, Mason would go on to remarry Polacco, the guy who threatened her with a gun, 1931, only to divorce him again six years later You know, sometimes we have to make the same mistakes a few times before we truly learn.
00:28:32
Speaker
um Christ. ah Orson also claims Mason's ex-husband, Giorgio Palacco, was securely ah omnivorous and made several inappropriate advances.
00:28:46
Speaker
Towards Wells when no one was looking good. I'm glad I randomly swung back in for that. i you You just have this ah tonight. I don't know what it is, but you're you're just finding finding the worst sentences, really.
00:29:02
Speaker
ah um Meanwhile, when Orson returns to school, Todd is in the midst of an expansion. That's going to include a renovated auditorium nicknamed Rogers Hall, a swimming pool and a writing academy.
00:29:18
Speaker
um They would also add road trips to important American historical sites to the curriculum as well. Oh, that's fun. um Orson also found himself frequently at odds with Tony Roski, who took over as the athletic director at Todd from Roger Hill.
00:29:34
Speaker
ah The two butted heads over everything from Orson's lack of participation in physical education ah to, quote, Oriental decorations the boy kept in his single room, including burning incense, which was, of course, not allowed.
00:29:49
Speaker
And the frequency with which Orson would steal off campus to flirt with the townie girls. Oh boy, Orson. Was Orson like the equivalent, like compared to the rest of the kids at the school, was he the equivalent of like that odd kid that had just anime figures all over the dorm room?
00:30:08
Speaker
Maybe. Yeah. yeah God in heaven. Yeah. I think Orson kind of like bound up most of Asia into kind of one neat camp that he bundled Oriental. oh Oh, oh, really? You say a kid in 1929 wasn't culturally sensitive to all of the different ah cultures that come from the other half of the planet? About as sensitive as a kid in 1929 can be, really. Oh, boy, howdy.
00:30:36
Speaker
The fact that he knew anything of them at all probably makes him step ahead of anyone else. That's fair. I'm not going to miss this opportunity to call Orson a weeaboo shit. Any punishment Wells might have received for flaunting school rules were quickly waived by Hill, something that the faculty, faculty especially Roski, disapproved of, you don't say.
00:30:59
Speaker
Right. um Funny, funny. Imagine that. Yeah. Wells maintained that even Hill's three children despised Orson due to the preferential treatment their father showed him. You don't say.
00:31:10
Speaker
Right. He is kind of the first amongst Hill's children and easily the most obnoxious. i'm sure boy boy. No, hang on. Orson Welles, obnoxious?
00:31:21
Speaker
Hard to believe I know. No. know. No. I know. Orson, you wacky bitch. His tricks to the theaters in Chicago became more frequent this year thanks to a free and slash or discounted student tickets.
00:31:39
Speaker
Thanks, Yo 164 and 5. These trips fueled Orson's ambitions to mount more and more serious dramatic productions rather than the, quote, foolishments that the Todd Troopers had been mostly known for to that point. Oh, that's an excellent word. I'm going to start using foolishments in my daily life.
00:31:58
Speaker
I just want a t-shirt with the word foolishments across the front. Foolishments with a period. And then maybe another one with that says foolishments with a question mark. Maybe maybe that's what we do.
00:32:10
Speaker
Maybe that's our first Wells merch. Foolishments? Foolishments. Let's leave it up to the audience to decide what gets slapped on a t-shirt first. True. Considering we've not released any of these episodes yet.
00:32:23
Speaker
Right. that' change That'll change soon. But, uh-oh. Foolishments. It was a double bill play ah with a... Sorry. It was a double bill with a one-act play of Dust of the Road starring Orson's as the... Orson's, multiple Orson's, as the ghost of Judas Iscariot that Orson would mount his first original play called Purple Joss, an Oriental Mystery.
00:32:50
Speaker
Oh boy. In which he wrote, directed, and acted as the lead. That'll never happen again, ever. Nope. He also wrote, directed, and starred in a parody sketch of Dust in the Road called Scum of the Earth.
00:33:03
Speaker
Scum spelled S-K-U-M. Good. An important distinction to be sure. Correct. um I don't think spelling was one of Orson's strong suits, if I'm being honest.
00:33:15
Speaker
ah it's way He disregarded mainstream education in favor of just doing whatever the fuck he wanted? ah No. That is a boy who would have excelled in the Montessori system, except it didn't exist ed price at this point in this time. and i i just I just realized I'm absolutely reacting to every...
00:33:36
Speaker
Orson Welles action ah this session as if I were reacting to a 14 year old boy that I just happened to know and I'm like yeah no that this kind of shitty behavior tracks yeah that track imagine a famous person was shitty as a teenager in a way that all teenagers are shitty I mean kind of yeah I was kind of a shitty 13 14 year old yeah I get it who among us right but um I can't lie Orson is Judas sounds kind of cool um At this point, he was essentially running the drama program at Todd. This led to Orson's grade suffering. You don't say.
00:34:11
Speaker
And to his paying another student, the aforementioned Paul Guggenheim, for assistance in Latin geometry. ah Hill, as he was wont to do, looked the other way. I'm sure that was a real challenge for him, ethically speaking. Right.
00:34:26
Speaker
Of Orson's directorial style, fellow student Harsey Tarbox, which again, like top 10 names of all time, Harsey Tarbox. Harsey Tarbox.
00:34:38
Speaker
I've been listening to a lot of James Bonding, the James Bond podcast with Matt and Matt. And I got to say, Harsey Tarbox sounds like a Bond girl name. Kind of does. In like, yeah, in one of the Moore era pictures. Yeah.
00:34:55
Speaker
Hello, I'm Harsey Tarbox. Here it is a knife strapped to my thigh. Also, this gun at your neck. Harsey would later say it was Simon Legree. He never said anything about interpretation. If you had a lead, you did exactly as you're you were told.
00:35:12
Speaker
He choreographed everything. That's your mark. Don't move. Don't wiggle. ah He was a merit... merit Martinette. Okay. Wanted to read that as Marionette. ah The result was a remarkable theater.
00:35:24
Speaker
His vitality swept you away. He drilled us and we became magnificently choreographed company. Interesting.
1930s Film Industry and Welles' Vision
00:35:30
Speaker
So basically he's a cruel taskmaster, but the result like justified the good yeah abuse, I guess. The same thing we so often say of geniuses in art. Hang on. Let me Google something to make sure I'm saying the the joke right.
00:35:48
Speaker
vamping, vamping, vamping. I'm definitely not vamping as I do a Google search. Yeah. Tell that to Shelley Duvall. um Yeah, exactly. ah God was the joke worth that build up. Let's move on. According to John Dexter, I can remember a number of times in a rehearsal, he would stop and explain one to one and all the plot, the feeling he wanted, the mood, speed, et cetera.
00:36:12
Speaker
He knew it, ah how he knew it. I don't know. yeah that's, yeah. yeah That sounds like Orson. Just as again, he knows what he wants and knows how to get what he wants out of his actors.
00:36:25
Speaker
Which is the mark of a good director. If you can do it without abusing them, great. Yeah, yeah, exactly. More the better. um Spielberg, great with actors. Lucas, bad with actors. Bad with actors, yeah.
00:36:38
Speaker
Wait, oh, no, wait, hang on. we can We can break this down. Okay, Spielberg is the good kind of good. um I don't have an example for the bad kind of good. Are we doing and ah are we doing ah an alignment chart of of filmmakers? think we could. joyfully or is a project for next episode yeah George Lucas is bad and gets bad results.
00:36:59
Speaker
um ah And Kubrick is bad but gets good results. so we we We'll work on that. We'll button that for later. Who's good but gets shitty results?
00:37:12
Speaker
Who's bad but gets bad results? ah That's George Lucas. Okay, who's good but gets bad results? ah that's what That's what I'm trying to think. ah Turtle Top? No.
00:37:24
Speaker
No. I enjoyed National Treasure and The Meg. um I don't know. Turtle Top feels like punching down. It does. It does. I really like National Treasure. That movie slaps.
00:37:35
Speaker
But that takes us to 1930. nineteen thirty March of 1930, Wells delivers a travel talk to the Woodstock Women's Club about his European travels, punctuated ha by caricatures that he sketched as he spoke, channeling the music talks given by his mother back in Kenosha ah in the early days of his life.
00:37:57
Speaker
Later that spring, Orson and Hill would co-write and co-direct Troopers Trifles of 1930, which was itself a very popular naming convention of the time. i think the second ever Academy Award winner was a Broadway Melody of 1930. So it was just kind of a blank blank of insert year.
00:38:17
Speaker
was kind of a really good, just very common naming convention of the time. ah That, of course, a jokey review for which Orson would design costumes, lighting and sets. Basically, the 30, 31 year school year is Wells' last year at Todd.
00:38:32
Speaker
And Wells basically spearheaded five full-fledged productions, like full productions basically on his own. um And this is the first of those.
00:38:45
Speaker
And we'll kind of peek in and talk about some more of those as we get going. All right. Now I'm going to just real quick, because I don't know if you have this in your notes for 1930, and it looks like 1930 takes up less than a page of notes, so probably not.
00:39:00
Speaker
But I'm not going to do the whole on this day horse shit for 1930, because this is in the middle of an episode. But on March 31st of 1930, the Motion Pictures is production code is Institute. And I feel like we should talk about that real quick.
00:39:14
Speaker
Also known as the Hayes code. Absolutely. yeah It's, uh, applied to most motion pictures released by major studios from 1934, uh, to 1968 in the United States.
00:39:29
Speaker
Um, named after will H Hayes, president of the motion picture producers and distributors of America. Um, Yeah, The Hays Code. It's it's why, ah I mean, the the the collapse of The Hays Code will later give way to exploitation movies and many more good movies.
00:39:52
Speaker
But i feel like we can do an entire goddamn episode on just The Hays Code and the hell that it wrought. It's definitely, yeah, it'll definitely come up. as we get when Once Wells gets to Hollywood, it's gonna it's going to be a big show for sure. Oh, yeah. But yeah, so let's just leave the Hays Code right now as the creepy Michael Myers standing standing behind a shrubbery about 20 yards away.
00:40:19
Speaker
Um, and, uh, if, uh, if we, if we edit this episode, uh, we'll just have a slow, quiet, creeping voice get ever closer until we actually talk about it in, uh, two years.
00:40:32
Speaker
We'll just, we'll just play a little five second snippets of the Halloween theme every time the Hays Code rears its head. Right. Yeah. Thanks, John. Um, and We love you, John. You're the best. Come on the podcast. Yeah, yeah. My God, I'd kill to hear ah John Carpenter get bitchy about Orson Welles. I want, here's what I want. I want. Tell me what you want, Stephen. I want you and John Carpenter to just talk about Orson Welles while smoking a shit ton of weed.
00:40:59
Speaker
That is what I want. ah Only if you moderate it, because it'll just devolve into video games real fast. and like, here's the thing. John, do you like Fallout 76? What the fuck, man?
00:41:10
Speaker
if john If John Carpenter comes on this podcast, he could talk about any damn thing he wants. Yeah, hey, John, do you like Halo? That's the last time I was good at video games. ah Halo 3, specifically.
00:41:22
Speaker
Either way, in spring of 1930, Orson and Hill co-wrote and co-direct Troopers Trifles of 1930, jokey review... Wait, have you read that? Skip to summer. Ah, fuck.
00:41:34
Speaker
ah Dick Wells... Plans on a trip to China and Japan with Orson. I don't recognize those as two distinct kind countries because it's 1930 who had been long obsessed with Eastern culture. You don't say we've Orson uses this trip as an opportunity to change his column in the highlighted park news to a travelogue now called Inklings.
00:41:59
Speaker
Clever. Highland Park, I think I mentioned last time or an episode or two ago, a place I have been. um Ravinia, the first stage on which Orson Welles ever performed, is hosting The Great Weird Al Yankovic this summer. Oh, hey, hell yeah.
00:42:13
Speaker
So that'll be fun. Yeah, nice. Did you look up ticket prices for that? Because Weird House coming to The Man in Philly in September, and they're like $300. Yep, about the same.
00:42:24
Speaker
I saw that motherfucker in 2000 for the Running With Scissors tour, and I don't remember them being that expensive. Here's the thing. The internet has made Weird Al like one of the totemic figures on the ah on on the Mount Rushmore of of music.
00:42:41
Speaker
I mean, starting to recognize that he's been around forever. So he's really able to pull these days. I mean, I'd argue that he was starting to get recognized as that in the 90s. um so Sure. But like now you've got people like Lin-Manuel Miranda revering him. Someone that cut pop culture either reveres or hates.
00:43:01
Speaker
So, ah you know, that's that's definitely going to play a role in increasing his cultural cachet. Like people like Questlove and Tariq from The Roots and Lin-Manuel Miranda, like are like backing you and like proclaiming your genius. You're.
00:43:19
Speaker
You can pull $300 a ticket. That's very fair. It's also strange that it's $300 considering he, I don't think he's put out a full album in over 10 years at this point. He doesn't need to. He's Weird Al. I understand. I'm not arguing with you. I am a big Weird Al fan.
00:43:34
Speaker
Weird Al, come on the podcast. Yeah, fuck it. and the we show Who cares? um let's learn out outcome from this podcast You can talk about any damn thing you want. yeah orson could have Orson could have played Dr. Demento.
00:43:46
Speaker
ah But Dick, however, was generally overcome with drunkenness. You don't say. Frequently sending Orson out for more and more drinks and becoming furious when he discovered the 15-year-old grabbing drinks for himself in the process.
Personal Loss and Artistic Growth
00:43:57
Speaker
You don't say. ah While Wells himself and as a result, most of his biographers tend to agree that Dick's sleeping is a result of alcoholism.
00:44:08
Speaker
ah McGilligan actually, who seems, I think, to be a lot more sympathetic to Dick Wells than a lot of Orson's other biographers are, ah seems to suggest that the symptoms were a result of him being prescribed alcohol.
00:44:19
Speaker
but digitalis, which is a drug that quote, that stopped quote, the swelling of body tissue and stimulated normal heart rhythms. And it was often prescribed in combination with lengthy bed rest.
00:44:32
Speaker
ah So bad was the, was Dick's condition that he made his son promise that if he were to die overseas, that he would either be cremated or buried at sea. So as not to be buried on foreign soil.
00:44:45
Speaker
That's rough. Good Christ. Um, So embarrassed was Orson by his father's behavior that he would tell Barbara Leeming that he was, that he bluntly told his father at the Hill's insistence.
00:44:56
Speaker
He'd vowed not to see his father again until he'd sobered up. That was the last I ever saw of him. Well said, Jesus Christ. Right. In case we needed, you know, in case we needed a dark cloud over the rest of this episode.
00:45:10
Speaker
Um, basically it, it, it it Well, let's get into December of 1930. True to his word to the hills, Wells kept his distance from his father, seeing him for the very last time as he exited quickly after the last act of the final Todd production of 1930, a British drama called Wings Over Europe.
00:45:30
Speaker
ah Dick would pass away shortly after on December 28th, 1930 at the age of 58 in his room at the Hotel Bismarck in Chicago, Illinois, of chronic myocarditis and chronic intestinal nephritis.
00:45:46
Speaker
Basically, his insides done fucked up. Both heart and intestines pretty much fucked. um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah.
00:45:58
Speaker
ah That'll that'll do it. um ah His body was taken to Green Ridge Cemetery in Kenosha for internment. Orson was saddened. He hadn't saddened that he hadn't arrived in time to honor his father's wishes to be cremated or buried at sea.
00:46:14
Speaker
Mostly, though, Wells would regret his abandonment of his father during his final days, calling it a great sorrow that haunted him for the rest of his days. Yes, and as we all know, director has ever been affected by daddy issues ah before, and I'm sure that will never come up ever again. Nope.
00:46:34
Speaker
Nope. Yeah, Wells losing both parents by the by the age of 15 in no way had a negative effect on the rest family. No, no. Or on the art that he wouldn't make later in life. yeah I mean, in fairness, he was doing that before his dad died. I mean, that that takes us to January of 1931. We are just blasting through years at this point. I'm proud of us.
00:46:57
Speaker
ah Orson presents an account of his travels in Asia to the Dean Street ah PTA decked out in a Japanese outfit he'd purchased while abroad and at times decked out in Japanese dialect as well.
00:47:09
Speaker
You sure know how to pick them tonight, girl. I got to tell you, you're doing great. Jesus Christ. i God. In spring of 1931. This is absolutely going to turn into, at some point, it's going to turn into like ah Ron Burgundy. Go fuck yourself, San Diego. That's what it's going to turn into.
00:47:30
Speaker
um You're just going to go in and like just start fucking with the notes. Yeah. Yeah. No, you could do that. You could literally like, if I'm reading the notes, I had a Bic in my mouth. Sorry.
00:47:41
Speaker
ah If you're reading the, if you're following along the notes, you could probably just change the teleprompter on me. um I haven't done it yet. That's the thing. I cut my yeah general was in my original notes. Oh man. And I told you about that the last, before the last time we recorded. and I think in like the three weeks since then you have forgotten. Yeah.
00:48:03
Speaker
It's been a busy several weeks. yeah um We i always are like, next week we're going to get together and we're going to record this next episode. And then like three weeks pass we're like, should we probably record something?
00:48:15
Speaker
Oh man, we we we better get in the habit of doing this regular because we're finally starting to release these soon. And oh no, but in the spring of 1931,
00:48:26
Speaker
Definitely not pulling from a pipe right now. Orson once again throws himself into his theatrical endeavors at Todd, mounting productions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in late February. Moliere's, pretty sure I got that right, the fishes The Physician in spite of himself in early spring and culminating in an adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III in May, which well is retitled King Richard May.
00:48:51
Speaker
Orson, you don't have to do that to Shakespeare, man. We get it. yeah Here's the thing is a lot of people are very reverent about Shakespeare. Wells really isn't, which is very fascinating for someone as well schooled on Shakespeare as he was.
00:49:08
Speaker
Like he will take the text and just cut it to shreds, keep the parts he wants and chucks out everything else.
00:49:16
Speaker
I wonder if it's just like the director's eye for being like, we can streamline this. I mean, i look at a movie that's over two hours and I think, why, why ah we can cut this down. Come on, Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, 86 minutes in out credits done.
00:49:31
Speaker
um i mean, there, there's probably something to that, but again, Wells, I think for the respect that he has for Shakespeare and we'll cover again, we'll get to the, there's going to be so much Shakespeare on this podcast. Yeah.
00:49:44
Speaker
We're going to talk about so much. But i'm what what I'm really looking forward to is at some point after we cover Chimes at Midnight in like six years. Yeah. um Is comparing Wells' Shakespeare trilogy of Macbeth, Othello, Chimes at Midnight to Lawrence Olivier's Shakespeare trilogy. oh boy.
00:50:05
Speaker
ah Hamlet, Richard Yeah. And the other one, the name of which I am completely forgetting right now, but each of them did three Shakespeare films, three completely different Shakespeare plays, adapted them to film, but they could not be more different.
00:50:19
Speaker
But they were basically the two guys doing Shakespeare at the time. And I find the distinctions fascinating. Wells did about one a decade. I think Olivier churned all of his out in the fifties, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong on that.
00:50:34
Speaker
Interesting. I want to, I want to, I, that's an episode. I am very much looking forward to. Oh gosh. Uh, King Richard III was well as most ambitious theatrical endeavor to date involving him cutting and pasting from multiple Shakespearean plays to craft a tale that spanned the entire war of the roses.
00:50:53
Speaker
Uh, Henry, the sixth part one through three and Richard Yo one 80, uh, yo one eighty ah
00:51:02
Speaker
Basically, this is a project that would continue to haunt Orson for the rest of his life. And nothing else would ever haunt him for the rest of his life. A mega Shakespearean adaptation that combined multiple Shakespearean texts.
00:51:17
Speaker
um He does this. ah He'll revisit this idea a few times. ah He does the play Five Kings. He does the film Chimes at Midnight. There are several other attempts at at doing this as well. It becomes kind of his...
00:51:31
Speaker
his project in a lot ways. Would you consider Orson Welles to be the first person making super cuts? And more importantly, considering the video essay nature of ah f for Fake, how much would Orson Welles have killed as a YouTuber in modern day? mean, yes.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yes. Absolutely. 100%. Like, long-form video... F for Fake kind of reads like a long-form YouTube content in a very real way. um In a way that is, i think, anticipatory of that rather than you know make trying to diminish what he actually did Efferfake. Because Efferfake is fucking amazing.
00:52:10
Speaker
and oh Oh, no. 100%. It's probably my favorite film of his, honestly. um Which it's it's, you know, it's a choice. um Considering I've not seen half of them and I wanted to do this podcast so I'd have an excuse to watch all of them.
00:52:26
Speaker
ah Yeah. Yeah. This is going to be a fun learning curve for me. um Whereas I think there's only one. I just really want to see an Orson Welles. We're going to have to do an Orson Welles video game streaming session is what I'm saying.
00:52:40
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I don't play video games. So bear that in mind. Now I don't really either. um but That doesn't, that doesn't mean it won't be funny to watch Orson Welles get murdered repeatedly every death. Ah, um,
00:52:56
Speaker
The French. there are The French. if we put him If we put him into, what's the name of that World War II video game um that people really love? Call of Duty. Call of Duty. Yeah. If we put a well-skinned into Call of Duty. Among Us.
00:53:12
Speaker
Oh, my computer just blipped out of existence there. can still hear you. We are. Okay. I changed... tabs And it decided to to say goodnight for a few minutes.
00:53:26
Speaker
That'll learn you. Uh-oh. Let's see. these This echoes the project that would consume most of Welles' life. ah You've already read that. Welles is charged with making cuts to keep the production at a reasonable length, ah which he did right up until showtime.
00:53:41
Speaker
Again, very on-brand for Orson. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. ah King Richard III was performed on closing day, ahtenib but ostensibly Well's last act as a Todd student before his graduation to locally critical acclaim.
00:53:55
Speaker
Good for you, Orson. There you go. Holy Christ. Oops, sorry. The end is in sight. On May 7th, literally the day after his 16th birthday, ah Dr. Bernstein is officially named Orson's legal guardian following the death of Dick Wells.
00:54:12
Speaker
Oh, boy. Wells himself had asked Roger Hill to be his guardian, but Hill declined. ah Not just due to the responsibility of having to be the father of Orson Welles, ah but also because he knew it would absolutely gut and shatter Bernstein, who had effectively been Orson's second father and surrogate parent for most of the guy's life.
00:54:35
Speaker
ah yeah Yeah, it makes a lot of sight a sense. that That feels very like a tactical move on his part. um Dick had left his son Orson, as previously mentioned, six-sevenths of his estate, comprising various shares and holdings in mostly oil and railroads.
00:54:52
Speaker
The totals are really kind of difficult to pin down. McGilligan does ah like yeoman's work trying to track all this down. He ends up estimating that Welles' is share ah would have been around, at the time, $63,535.82, which 2025 dollars $1.3 million, actually $1,311.00
00:55:09
Speaker
which in twenty twenty five dollars is going to be around one million one point three million dollars and actually one million three hundred eleven dollars 216 and 31 cents.
00:55:23
Speaker
Not too bad. Not too shabby. Per the US inflation calendar.com in 1931. Fuck. Yeah. That's, that's, that's good coin. That's what we call walking around money.
00:55:35
Speaker
That's, that's pizza money right there. And this is two years after the stock market collapse. So Wells managed to get through Dick Wells managed to get through the stock market collapse. with that much coin.
00:55:46
Speaker
That's the really incredible thing. Can I tell you just a real quick sidebar about yeah ah the the stock market crash in 1929? We got time. Yeah. have time um yeah ah Yeah. Short episode this time around. We'll talk about the syllabus a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Apologize ah to the people for the thing we're doing for fun.
00:56:04
Speaker
um but So I don't know if I've said this before, but my great and great great grandfathers on my mother's side were bootleggers in Philadelphia during the prohibition.
00:56:19
Speaker
Hell yeah. Which is pretty goddamn cool. i I think to myself every time I yeah rescue a piece of media, I'm just following the family tradition.
00:56:31
Speaker
um But here's the thing. They went straight and got clean in 1929.
00:56:40
Speaker
And I don't know what they got into instead, but they ah essentially got out of the life, as it were. Feels like a hell of a time to get out of that. John Wick style. Yeah, no, I know. And I remember my great grandmother telling me a story ah that when when she was ah in her early 20s, she ate breakfast at a hotel every day of the week.
00:57:06
Speaker
um And then after the stock market crash, she had to get a job painting the gold leaf onto the page sides of the pages of Bibles.
00:57:16
Speaker
Oh my God. You don't think that's a job. And then you realize, oh no, it was 1929. That was a job. Someone fucking had to do that shit. Yeah. So, so um if they had just stayed in business.
00:57:30
Speaker
A little while longer. ia i would i would be living a very different lifestyle, my friends. I'd be driving a DeLorean for starters. I guess it makes sense. and You wouldn't be driving DeLorean. You'd be inconveniently parking a DeLorean in random places.
00:57:47
Speaker
um Those things are notoriously shitty cars. Yes, I also don't. i Look, ah hey, I know a shitload about the history of the DeLorean Motor Vehicle Company. And I also know for sure I do not fit in one.
00:57:59
Speaker
So you and me both, sister. Yeah, people people fucking forget that Michael J. Fox is like five fucking four. why he's he's ah He's a wee lad.
00:58:10
Speaker
um We're not in Ireland yet. Calm down. No, but we're it's it's getting closer We're so close. I can taste that bangers and mash on the wind. um Money was was... I'm sorry. we um um I do not mean to cut your story short. No, no, no. that That's basically the story.
00:58:30
Speaker
I wish I had more from that time period, but that's all I got. I mean, I guess in some ways it does make sense. Excuse me. It does make sense for them to get out of bootlegging in 1929 because prohibition ends.
00:58:41
Speaker
you can get you cancquire You can acquire alcohol legally. Why would you need to sell it illegally, particularly when you were probably getting a premium on that shit? I mean, hang on. No, I thought prohibition.
00:58:53
Speaker
prohibit date I think just takes place in the decade of the 1920s. If I'm not mistaken, if I'm remembering my high school history class, correct? Yeah. Cause I want to say it was repealed because of, uh, 1920 to 1933. Aha.
00:59:09
Speaker
e I remember it was repealed because the, the depression was on and people were fucking mad about it. Um, uh, he's the short version.
00:59:21
Speaker
Um, I remembered something from high school. I get a memory award. Yay. ah So in the equivalent of a Marvel, no prize. Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:34
Speaker
Yeah. An Orson. No prize. Before we move on, before we move on to the summer of 1931, though, we need to mention that money is taken out ah for Orson's education, with the remainder being held in a trust until he turns 25, move that perhaps inspired a similar plot point in a little movie called Citizen Kane.
00:59:55
Speaker
Heard of it? Heard of it? Upgrading Orson from weeaboo shit to trust fund weeaboo shit. Uh... I mean, is there any other reason why a 16 year old could just afford to abscond to Ireland for,
Pursuit of Acting and Journey to Ireland
01:00:12
Speaker
for a couple of years? Like I don't, man, this, this pod is going to make me hate Orson Welles. I just, I just knew it.
01:00:19
Speaker
Once we get more into the tragedy of, of, of life conspiring against him, I'll feel a little more sympathetic. But man, I do not like this 15-year-old little shit. you Young Orson, I think, is going to be the bane of Hope's existence. think you would just be able to luxuriate in old Orson. It truly feels like I would bully young Orson. Like, holy shit.
01:00:42
Speaker
yeah ah this bit This big fucking weightlifting dyke just not letting this fucking little weed just like... Hey, yo, you motherfucker. That's racist. Get back here.
01:00:55
Speaker
um i was just not expecting. I was not expecting. I get honest with you i can say it. I'm allowed. i have a car. allowedud i have a permit. um This just says you do what you want.
01:01:07
Speaker
to either one Let me check. No, no, that checks out. It's fine. i did I did take a bike ride along the Delaware River ah this past weekend. Lovely. Perfect weather for it this time a year.
01:01:20
Speaker
um Got a ah sunburn in the shape of a boob window thanks to my sports bra. Irrelevant, but I did take a selfie standing on the dam in the middle of the Delaware, just south of Lambertville.
01:01:33
Speaker
Sent it to a bunch of friends with the caption, a dyke in the river. Yeah. Very proud of that. I just made you collapse again. Should have waited until you were taking a drink. Let's move just summer of 1931. Not much. Roger Hill was very insistent that Orson go to college.
01:01:49
Speaker
Not so much because it was the best option for him, but to get him away from Chicago. I mean, it's kind of like you've lived your entire life around this one area. You need to see that there's more of the world. i think he's kind He's taking trips to, quote unquote, the Orient. He is already more well-traveled than most people I assume he knows at the time.
01:02:11
Speaker
He's been to Europe several times with his father and with various teachers for some reason. Fucking Christ. Right. Like, and, and these are not the end of Wells's travels by any stretch of the, he'll end up living in Europe for a bulk of the like seventies and eighties.
01:02:27
Speaker
Like, I mean, the, the man, the man is well-traveled and it, I think it shows in a lot of his work. Like he has this kind of eye for place as setting,
01:02:41
Speaker
that that feels very well actualized in a way that a lot of filmmakers don't have. So that's I'm interested when we start to get into stuff like Othello and Lady from Shanghai to kind of see the ah the way that he captures place very well.
01:02:58
Speaker
It's also, I mean, he's also incredibly well trapped. My laptop just decided to blank out again. We still recording? We're still recording. Great. Um, God almighty. I don't like that. I'm going to reboot this thing afterwards.
01:03:11
Speaker
Um, he's also like, as we've said, he's, he's very progressive for his day, you know big asterisk on the word progressive, but like, yeah, being well-traveled will do that to somebody being exposed to different cultures and lifestyles and, and everything else will do that to somebody.
01:03:29
Speaker
The things you can do. A bunch of theatrical fucking gays is going to do that to somebody. and There are so many things you can do that can like increase your progressiveness. And I mean, for me, it was theater. I got into theater um and that did wonders. you know You actually meet people that are different from you and you learn a lot. Imagine that.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah. If you're actually willing to kind of meet them where they are and engage with them as human beings. God, you can learn all sorts of crazy things. Yeah. um yeah But, you know, engaging with art in, you know, traveling, reading. And well, these are all things that Wells did voraciously.
01:04:06
Speaker
So, yeah, it makes perfect sense that even as a what it was that we have a shit trust fund. We have a shit. Trust fund. We have a shit. he He still ends up being ah kind of very progressive and and ultimately, i would say, relatively well-rounded, although, um you know, your mileage may vary on that particular. Yeah, it's going to vary real hard.
01:04:28
Speaker
um ah But as such, he wrote numerous letters of recommendation to places as diverse as the Massachusetts Harvard University and Iowa's Cornell College.
01:04:39
Speaker
However... Orson remained unenthusiastic about college, desiring instead to begin acting professionally. ah He reached out to frit Fritz Lieber, a Shakespearean producer and actor ah with whom he'd become acquainted, to ask to join his company.
01:04:55
Speaker
ah Lieber said he could not make any promises given that his troop was at liberty until autumn, basically not working regularly. So not to be outdone, Wells took out self-promotional ads in Billboard in an attempt to join another ah to to join another acting troupe, get another acting gig.
01:05:16
Speaker
The responses were underwhelming, to say the least. ah So basically he was forced to stay with Dr. Bernstein in Chicago for the summer.
01:05:26
Speaker
And so Orson began taking private classes with set designer Boris Anisfeld, who had taken up residence at the Art Institute of Chicago through the month of June. ah Great place, the Art Institute. Love. One of my favorite museums in the city.
01:05:40
Speaker
um it It currently houses, it's the museum that Ferris Bueller goes to and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Oh, when in Chicago. Right. you You guys both, need you and Bex both need to get out here and I will take you around and show you the good shit.
01:05:54
Speaker
I want to see Sue the T-Rex. That's priority number one. That, I think Sue is at the field and that is my partner's favorite museum in the city. so You mean the dinosaur is in at the art museum? What? I know, right?
01:06:07
Speaker
Yeah. Night at the museum told me lies. The museum told you a lot of things. Yeah, yeah. Of course, I don't think that was the Art Institute of Chicago either.
01:06:17
Speaker
I also don't think any of those movies took place in Chicago. So it's been a while since I've seen any of them. I don't know. i think the first one's in New York. The second one is the Smithsonian. The third one's the Louvre.
01:06:29
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense. My ex was a big fan of those movies, particularly the second one. that's That's fair. I mean, the Smithsonian does rock, although I can't go there right now. um ah Legally speaking.
01:06:43
Speaker
Um... At a loss to his future prospects, Orson and Bernstein handed out over three days of particularly vicious domestic warfare. First off, I like how warfare is hyphenated. that's I love seeing words hyphenated like that in the wild.
01:06:58
Speaker
Pregnant Orson to take ah he take a walking tour of Ireland, Scotland, England, culminating in Orson enrolling in Trinity College in Dublin upon arriving there.
01:07:10
Speaker
Uh, hmm. I, that's something's going to happen there. Uh, let's see. Uh, you want to finish this off? Yeah. So, uh, basically Orson was like, you know what?
01:07:22
Speaker
Walking tour of Europe sounds better than being here. ah so, um, Bernstein basically agrees, um, to, to Orson's, uh, uh,
01:07:36
Speaker
Postulation. Proposal is the word I'm looking for. Proposal. There's the word. That's the word. And on August 13th, 1931, Orson Welles departs from New York on the white line, white star liner for County Galway in Ireland.
01:07:54
Speaker
Oh, we made it. We got that mother fucker to
Podcast Wrap-Up and Host Projects
01:07:58
Speaker
Ireland. And I can officially say sayonara, you weeaboo shits. um That's a Tumblr joke for anybody that gets Tumblr jokes.
01:08:08
Speaker
Which is not me. Not you. um All right. So we we finally made it to fucking Ireland. um Do you have a copy of the syllabus handy? What are we going to be...
01:08:23
Speaker
Covering next time. Next week, the proposal, and we'll see how long this takes based on, because I think there's at least one, maybe two chapters on this and in Young Orson.
01:08:34
Speaker
ah But the proposed proposal for next episode, episode six, is going to be Orson in Ireland, where he's going to meet some characters that will become... Very important to his his later life and including two individuals who will have a big role in the production of his film Othello in the 1950s.
01:08:55
Speaker
Something that won't come back to haunt us specifically. Correct. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Remember when they painted Charlton Heston Brown?
01:09:08
Speaker
I do. For Touch of Evil? Even though that film is in black and white? Yeah, that movie slaps, but then you just stop and think, it's like, I don't think that man is actually that color. And here's the thing, he's not.
01:09:20
Speaker
He's Not even a little bit. Wicked no. um
01:09:26
Speaker
um'm I'm looking here through the syllabus just to to make sure...
01:09:31
Speaker
Yeah, it looks like 31... love that have 1931, 1932. that Wells spends in in Ireland. so Great.
01:09:43
Speaker
Just to give us ah kind of an idea of where we're going. um It's Ireland. We're going to Ireland, which means the next episode will absolutely start with a Dropkick Murphy's riff.
01:09:55
Speaker
um i I have confidence in us that we can get through two years in one podcast episode. know, man. Oh ah no.
01:10:07
Speaker
All right. use man as punctuation. Oh no. i use man as punctuation i no i I was, I saw Bill and Ted at a very formative age. I, a dude is just like a verbal tick for me, ah regardless of who I'm talking to.
01:10:22
Speaker
call myself dude. I get a big kick out of, because my eyes are brown. That's relevant in the next 12 seconds. I have listed on my driver's license, bro.
01:10:33
Speaker
So I still kind of accept bro or bra. Yeah. Yeah. ah i am I am trying to be less gender specific in my interjections and that is something I am learning and trying to do better I understand and I appreciate that, especially for our wider audience. If there's any other ah ah gender nonconformists out there in the Orson Welles land, hi. I guess I technically count since I'm a femme built like a Peter built truck.
01:11:04
Speaker
Yes, you you are at least that. I was talking to a friend recently, speaking of John Carpenter, about ah Big Trouble in the Little of China, and I made an offhand comment about how I dress like Jack Burton and I'm built like the Pork Chop Express.
01:11:20
Speaker
And ah very proud of that. um I mean, you are lesbian Jack Burton, let's be honest. I am lesbian Jack Burton. um Lest we forget. Yeah, ah never forget. Hashtag...
01:11:32
Speaker
um Is there anything else we need to add? and i guess just our plugs. I have two podcasts that are at the time of this recording, ah currently on hiatus. ah ah Not exactly ah planned, but them's the breaks.
01:11:51
Speaker
ah You can listen to me on Highland Cartoons with my partner, Bex, or The Matrix Reclamations with my friend, Ella, although I do have a new shout out, you can go look up on YouTube, Ella's musical that she wrote, directed, and starred in, if I'm remembering all of her credits properly, called Alien Maternity.
01:12:14
Speaker
It is a parody musical of the Alien franchise, And I saw it live and it was one of the funniest fucking things I've ever seen. i i am kind of jealous because that looked really hilarious. ah You can look it up on YouTube now. Okay, great. well it fucks I'm pretty sure it is. I'll have to double check with her ah to make sure it wasn't a temporary thing. But my God, it was one of the funniest things I've seen.
01:12:40
Speaker
And it plays like an episode of The Muppet Show. And you can totally believe that one of her chief influences was Weird Al Yankovic. So, but yeah. Ella is crazy talented. Go go look up her ship. It rolls.
01:12:52
Speaker
I look forward to the day I finally get to meet like all of your friends. Because you talk about all of them incessantly. And I'm just like, I want to meet all of these people. i My friends are just the fucking Muppets. So, like, yeah. You're... you Oh, God. There wound up being a queer table by accident at the wedding where just kind of all the queers conglomerated around one end of the table.
01:13:14
Speaker
Just one? ah Yes, actually, just one because there was a lot of family members there. So, um yeah. But ah the family were mostly straight. The friends were almost entirely queer. Yeah.
01:13:27
Speaker
except for the one, except for the one straight girl who dressed like Morticia Adams. And, uh, I mean, but let's be honest, she fit in just fine. She was problems that iss immediately just like, wonderful. You are now part of the tribe.
01:13:42
Speaker
It was, yeah, kind of fabulous. That's all I got going on. Steven, what do you get? Uh, I am in, uh, I have two podcasts as well.
01:13:54
Speaker
I am the host of... I'm the one that's stoned. What the fuck, I have had two gin and tonics. Leave me alone. Okay. I host the podcast Disenfranchise, where we cover ah movies that failed to kick off the franchises they were hoping for.
01:14:09
Speaker
um Go listen to that. It's a lot of fun. i enjoy it quite a lot. um And then I'm also a frequent collaborator with the Pod and the Pendulum podcast, a movie that are a podcast that covers all horror film franchises, one episode, one movie at a time.
01:14:23
Speaker
I think when this one starts or when this one comes out, we'll be in the Romero living dead movies. So go check that out. um If you like Romero living dead movies, which why wouldn't you um actually the host of the show? Mike does not. Which think is.
01:14:41
Speaker
It's going to make for a fun listen because everyone else kind of reveres those movies, myself included. so Well, they do range from Night of the Living Dead to the rest of the franchise. so I will say Dawn and Day are pretty solid. It's the it's the latter trilogy that's very... yeah. Oh, no.
01:15:00
Speaker
my My ex was big into zombies and oh ah diary Diary of the Dead is the, I think, first, maybe second Living Dead movie I ever saw. The found footage one is not good.
01:15:12
Speaker
ah is pretty bad. But I'm going to go on and cover that episode with them because why the hell not? um You can also follow me on social media if you want. at I'm on Letterboxd and Blue Sky at Chewy Walrus.
01:15:26
Speaker
You can find this podcast, Well's You Pod. i think we're just going to stick to Blue Sky for the time being. oh no. Technically, I have a Tumblr. I think it's just Well's You.
01:15:37
Speaker
Oh, fantastic. I can't forget because i've I've not done a goddamn thing with it yet because we're not publishing the show yet. wow But it's, yeah, Wells University on Tumblr. Look at that. Right on. And I know we've got, we have a YouTube, or not a YouTube, we have a Instagram account, but I'm not sure how much use I'm going to get out of it, particularly given that Meta sucks.
01:15:57
Speaker
ah Yeah, they they they called me mentally ill and I am mentally ill, but not for the reasons they say. Correct. And fuck that shit. So not fucking with that at all.
01:16:12
Speaker
um So yeah, that, and I'm also in rehearsals right now for a play that will have ah ended a month ago as of the time of this release. ah i'm I'm sure it went great. i hope so. It's the first time I've ever been like actually properly cast as a lead in a, in a play.
01:16:29
Speaker
Oh yeah, you said, congratulations. very excited. The last time I accidentally fell into the lead, the last time I was a lead, that was one of those, like I didn't show up to the audition,
01:16:40
Speaker
And there were only enough guys to cover the cast, but there's this tiny role that nobody wanted. So the director is a friend of mine called me up. It's like, hey, do you want this tiny little role? And I was like, sure. What the hell? I have I barely have to be at rehearsals. Sign me up.
01:16:53
Speaker
um And then a week into the show, our lead just drops out and he's like, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And someone's like, you have Stephen Foxworthy in the cast. Just move him up. And so he calls me He's like, um hey, you want to be the lead? And I was like, congratulations on being a known entity. Jesus Christ.
01:17:11
Speaker
I had worked with I had worked with this guy for years. Like this was like the second to last show I ever did in Indianapolis before I moved out to Illinois. So how you do it. So you do it. go But yeah, so but this one, they actually it's the first show I've auditioned for since I moved out to Illinois.
01:17:25
Speaker
Fuck yeah. They're like, that guy for the lead, he he's not age appropriate, but he'll work. He's about 10 years too young to play this role, but God, we're going to get him in here. That's fine. Orson was 40 some years too young and in most of the shit we've been talking about.
01:17:41
Speaker
correct um yeah all we're really doing here is recreating uh events from orson's life but like on an extreme time delay yes yeah yeah we're getting the ripple effects of his life absolutely cool Uh, well, class, I think that about wraps it up for today.
01:18:05
Speaker
um I think it's a free period next. Please stop putting gum underneath the seats. Uh, it expires quickly. And yeah if you move, if, if you keep it up, we're going to be making you, a you know, clap erasers and, and clean wash, clean chalkboard. So, and then bringing back other arbitrary rules they had in a American public school, like no hats. You're not allowed to wear hats.
01:18:28
Speaker
Yeah, or hoods. Keep your hoods down. Yeah, you you can't wear a hat or a hood while listening to this podcast unless it's a big fancy fedora. That's the only hat you're allowed to wear while listening to this podcast. If it's a hat that Orson Welles ever wore in a film, you're allowed to wear it listening to this podcast. Everybody immediately start furiously Googling Orson Welles hats, and that's the the note we'll leave you on. That's the homework.
01:18:54
Speaker
Yeah, look up Orson Welles hats. Orson Welles hats, just for kicks and giggles and also for your homework assignment. So we'll we'll talk to you next time. In the meantime, class dismissed.
01:19:06
Speaker
Go home. I'm Googling Orson Welles hats now. Hell yeah, you are. Images. Oh, shocker. It's a lot of fedoras.
01:19:17
Speaker
Yeah. A lot of third man, a lot of F for fake.
01:19:24
Speaker
There's just a free floating picture of a bowler and it amuses me to no end. All right. ma I'm hitting stop. Yeah.