



Mr. Bongo: Upcoming Orson Welles Films Dated Posted April 28, 2015 04:13 PM by



Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight (1965), Too Much Johnson (1938), and The Stranger (1946).



Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight



For the 50th anniversary edition of Chimes At Midnight, Mr. Bongo worked with Luciano Berriatúa at Filmoteca in Madrid. The restoration has been undertaken with utmost respect for Welles' original vision of the movie, and is not based on providing a quality of picture and sound according to the standard of current technologies (attempting to better what Welles filmed in the sixties), but to recover the film so that the viewer can experience the movie the same way they could watch it at the time.



On the brink of Civil War, King Henry IV (John Gielgud) attempts to consolidate his reign while fretting with unease over his sons seeming neglect of his royal duties. Hal (Keith Baxter), the young Prince, openly consorts with Sir John Falstaff (Orson Welles) and his company of Diana's foresters, Gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon . Hal's friendship with the fat knight substitutes for his estrangement from his father. Both Falstaff and the King are old and tired; both rely on Hal for comfort in their final years, while the young Prince, the future Henry V, nurtures his own ambitions.



Orson Welles considered Chimes at Midnight his personal favorite of all his films. Perhaps the most radical and ground-breaking of all Shakespeare adaptations, the film condenses the Bard's Henriad cycle into a single focused narrative. Its international cast comprises of Jeanne Moreau, Fernando Rey, Margaret Rutherford, and Ralph Richardson as the narrator, in addition to Welles and Gielgud. The film's harrowing war scenes have proven especially influential, cited in Kenneth Branagh's Henry V as well as Mel Gibson's Braveheart.



STREET DATE: JUNE 29.



Too Much Johnson



Shot in 1938 Too Much Johnson was Welles first feature, the film that helped him hone his craft and led him to create to the masterpiece that is Citizen Kane. The footage was presumed destroyed in a fire in Welles home in 1971 but was recently rediscovered in Italy and the restored 66 mins version makes its UK Blu-ray/DVD debut.



Too Much Johnson is an elaborate 1890s farce of mistaken identity. Cuckolded husband Dathis (Edgar Barrier) is on the tale of a man named Billings (Joseph Cotten), who has been having an affair with Dathiss wife (Arlene Francis). Billings flees by ship to Cuba, where now also hiding from his own wife (Ruth Ford) and mother-in-law (Mary), he adopts the identity of a plantation owner named Johnson, who is expecting a mail-order bride. Orson Welles plays a Keystone Kop.



STREET DATE: JUNE 29.



The Stranger



Based on Victor Travias Oscar nominated original story, The Stranger earned Orson Welles a nomination at the Venice Film Festival. The first film after World War II to show footage of concentration camps, this restored classic noir stars Edward G Robinson, Orson Welles and Loretta Young.



Mr Wilson (Edward G Robinson) of the War Crimes Commission is seeking Nazi war criminal and architect of the Holocaust Franz Kindler (Orson Welles). Erasing all evidence of his past, Kindler is now Charles Rankin, a high school teacher married to the headmasters daughter Mary Longstreet (Loretta Young). In order to entrap Kindler, Wilson releases his former comrade Meinike (Konstantin Shayne) from prison and follows him to Connecticut. With the arrival of his ex-Nazi comrade and his wifes growing suspicion, Kindler knows that his past is catching up with him and will go to any lengths to prevent his identity being revealed.



Special Features: Original Theatrical Trailer

Image Gallery

Orson Welles Wartime radio. Four complete programmes exemplify Welles blending of propaganda and entertainment: Alameda (Nazi eyes on Canada 1942), War workers: (Ceiling Unlimited 1942), Brazil (Hello Americans 1942), Bikini Atomic test (Orson Welles Commentaries 1946). STREET DATE: JUNE 29.



The Immortal Story



Orson Welles' second-to-last feature, The Immortal Story is an adaptation of a book by Danish author Isak Dinesen and stars Jeanne Moreau.



The year is 1860 in the Portuguese colony of Macao, Mr. Clay (Welles) is an aging, rich merchant, who is the subject of town gossip. He likes his clerk Levinsky (Roger Coggio), to read to him to help him relax in the evenings and one night he recounts a tale about a rich man who paid a poor sailor five guineas to father a child with his beautiful young wife. Mr. Clay has no wife and no heir to his fortune and resolves to make the story true... Levinsky approaches Virginie Ducrot (Moreau), another clerk's mistress, and strikes a bargain for 300 guineas. Now to find the sailor... DVD ONLY.



STREET DATE: JUNE 29.







Photo courtesy of Mr. Bongo





Source: Blu-ray.com | Permalink | [Country settings]



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Top contributor rapta Apr 28, 2015 Restored version of Falstaff sounds promising, and glad to hear Too Much Johnson has been restored (but a bit strange being only 66 minutes long with no special features...gonna be a bit of an empty Blu-ray!), but still no word on which transfer of The Stranger is being used. As some have said, the Kino one's a little disappointing and the MGM one is a little better, generally speaking. No mention of which they went with in any of the press material so far, as far as I can tell.

Matt Wilson Apr 28, 2015 I assume these are to be Region 2 only?

sjt Apr 28, 2015 Almost certainly, though stranger things have happened. Am I alone in finding the hideous and incomprehensible "Mr. Bongo" logo plastered over the front covers - particularly that of Falstaff - visually insensitive and very disruptive?

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Top contributor noirjunkie Apr 28, 2015 @sjt



Yes, that logo is very annoying. Hopefully, it's just some sort of digital watermark that won't show up on the finished artwork.

BobbyMcGee Apr 29, 2015 I own a number of Mr. Bongo DVDs and their logo is on the artwork. Their DVDs leave much to be desired, but I applaud them for the titles that they release. Hopefully, the Blu-rays of Mr. Welles fare much better. nitin Apr 29, 2015 "The restoration has been undertaken with utmost respect for Welles' original vision of the movie, and is not based on providing a quality of picture and sound according to the standard of current technologies (attempting to better what Welles filmed in the sixties), but to recover the film so that the viewer can experience the movie the same way they could watch it at the time"



Hopefully all that statement means is that there is no surround remix and grain removal. And not that it's basically a crappy restoration.

Philly Q Apr 29, 2015 The only Mr. Bongo Blu-ray I have is Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre. If I remember right, the video looks better than the US version but the audio is lossy. I'd imagine they're a very small company who use whatever material is available to them, so the quality of these Welles discs is likely to be hit-or-miss. Could be interesting though.

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