• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Sep 01, 2016 Web Exclusive By Austin Trunick

Late into his directing career, the great Orson Welles was finding it difficult to secure financing for his grand visions. To pull off his long dreamed-of take on Shakespeare’s Falstaff, he had to lie to a Spanish producer about working on an adaptation of Treasure Island while he took the hired cast and crew and instead shot what eventually became Chimes at Midnight. The results were stunning, but went little seen in America when tepid reviews – and rights issues – put the film on ice for half a century.

Welles’ script is a mash-up edit of five of the Bard’s plays, taking a recurring character who pops up throughout and putting him at the center of his own story. Welles’ Sir John Falstaff is a boisterous lush, braggadocio, and knave – a portly fellow who holes himself up inside a whorehouse and acts as a bad influence on the king’s son, Prince Hal (Keith Baxter). Welles gives the character considerable depth beneath his doughy cheeks and unruly, white beard. The film focuses on Falstaff and Hal’s father/son-like relationship and their eventual parting, as the prince assumes the throne and casts aside the roguish ways to which Falstaff had led him.

Sticky ownership disputes kept the film from receiving any significant distribution in the United States for nearly five decades. This, combined with Welles citing it – rather than Citizen Kane, or any of his other features – as the film of which he was most proud, has left Chimes of Midnight regarded by many as something of a lost masterpiece. Janus Films was finally able to sort out those issues and restore the film for a limited repertory release, and now their gorgeous transfer is available for wider audiences in a deluxe Criterion Collection Blu-ray.

Chimes’ reputation somewhat exceeds it; those seeking it out for the first time in hopes of a Citizen Kane 2.0 will be a little disappointed, but it’s still a fantastic movie with beautiful black-and-white cinematography and a compelling performance from Welles. His Falstaff is a sympathetic character whose jocular (yet charismatic) exterior belies a sadder, more thoughtful individual – this is all read in Welles face, which regularly fills the frame in extremely intimate close-ups. The visuals are expectedly Wellesian and perhaps the movie’s greatest draw, especially its stark-contrast lighting. The film’s grandiose battle scene is a standout, spread out across a muddy, fog-covered battlefield and surprisingly brutal for a movie of the era. It will help greatly if the viewer is up-to-snuff with Shakespeare’s Henry IV 1 & 2, Richard II and Henry V – otherwise, a little brush-up before going in may make things easier to follow.

The Blu-ray contains a host of newly-recorded interviews with Keith Baxter, Beatrice Welles, and scholars Simon Callow and Joseph McBride. Also included are a scholarly commentary, a contemporary interview with Welles shot for the Merv Griffin show, and the theatrical trailer. The main attraction, of course, is the long-unseen film itself, which will delight Welles fans most of all and hold some additional interest for fans of Shakespearian and medieval cinema.

www.criterion.com/films/28756-chimes-at-midnight