What is your favorite Orson Welles film?

[WI_DEM]

Citizen Kane? The Magnificent Ambersons? Lady from Shanghai? Macbeth? Touch of Evil? Chimes at Midnight? The Trial?...

My favorite Directed by Welles film is "The Magnificent Ambersons" even in its butchered state it is a brilliant film with a absolutely spellbinding performance by Agnes Moorehead as Aunt Fanny. Welles didn't appear in the film but his narration adds to the picture. It's biggest fault? a tacked on "happy ending" that the studio filmed behind Orson's back.

My favorite film featuring Orson Welles but not directed by him?
"The Third Man"

[Feanorcurufinwe]

1. Magnificent Ambersons

I only saw it once, in a hotel room 15 years ago in Ohio, but it is an experience I will not forget - unlike so many other movies.

[chelsea0011]

8. it is a terrific movie with many lost scenes

It would be great to find them to see how Welles really wanted the movie to look like

[elperromagico]

18. Welles had a plan to reshoot his original ending,

twenty years after the fact, using the same actors. Pity he never managed to do it. The script for that final scene is a beautiful read.

[GainesT1958]

2. Gotta be "Citizen Kane"...

"Rosebud....Rosebud...!"

B-)

[wakfs]

3. NEWS ON THE MARCH!!!

Oh come on, Citizen Kane is his best work hands down, even with all the hype from every movie critic for the last fifty years.

[FunBobbyMucha]

4. Kane.

It's kind of a shame when an artist's first work is his most successful, most cherished, most respected, and that dynamic probably explains a lot about his later sad end as a wine pitchman shuckin' and jivin' on Dean Martin roasts, but Kane, I think, wrote the vocabulary for the creation of motion pictures. I always feel a little sad when I watch it, though, because of his subsequent downfall and because he did so much with so little and today we can virtually create anything on film and so much of it is complete shit. Imagine if a hack like Michael Bay had even a portion of Orson's genius, vision, and drive.

[a_random_joel]

5. I saw a short film he did in Film class about ghosts

It was pretty cool... I can't remember the name(something Irish or Scottish) but I think Welles fans would enjoy it.

[MiddleRiverRefugee]

6. The Long Hot Summer (1958), also not directed by him...

..where Welles plays "Big Daddy." At the time, he's 42 and plays a 60 year old man.

[lpbk2713]

19. I'll agree with The Long Hot Summer

He played Will Varner exceptionally well. For that matter, the rest of the cast was exceptional.

[chelsea0011]

7. Starring?..the Third Man

But overall...Kane is the greatest and the special edition with voice over by Ebert and Bogdonovitch is excellent

[WI_DEM]

10. I agree

especially the Bogdonovich voice over--Ebert never stops talking for a moment.

[Westegg]

9. Welles shoulda won the Oscar for "Third Man"...

in the Best Supporing category. But he wasn't even nominated. George Sanders won for "All About Eve." A fine performance, but can't hold a candle to the great creepiness of Welles.

[DinahMoeHum]

11. Citizen Kane, of course.

"quote 'singer' unquote"


:evilgrin:

[NightTrain]

12. No contest: CITIZEN KANE.

Terrific, terrific film!!!

[frylock]

13. the third man..

Awesome film noir. Great radio serial as well.

[ACK]

14. Macbeth or Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane is in my top ten films but I have a soft spot for Macbeth.

We watched this film in English class in High School and it blew me away.

[SpaceCatMeetsMars]

17. I love the sets and costumes on Macbeth and also, it shows

what an amazing actor he was and Lady Macbeth was really great too.

[Zolok]

15. "The Chimes at Midnight" obiviously

since I named my blog after said film...
But also "F For Fake" which is just...sublime.

Honorable mention "The Fountain of Youth" a pilot to an unproduced half TV show-directed by the master.

www.chimesatmidnight.blogspot.com

[elperromagico]

16. Welles as Director? Citzen Kane. Welles as Actor? Jane Eyre.

I have liked all of his early films a great deal. But Kane is really the only film where Welles had free reign and total control creatively, and it shows. The other films are all compromised to one degree or another.