"Director: Orson Welles"

• Orson Welles' Macbeth | DVD | (17/07/2000) from £17.46   |  Saving you £2.53 (14.49%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Orson Welles' Macbeth is an expressionist masterpiece about a doomed man of ordinary ambition who believes an evil prophecy that he will become King. The shortest of Shakespeare's tragedies, Welles long considered Macbeth to be the most filmable of the Bard's work. Produced on a slim budget over a mere 32 days, the results are consistently impressive. As depicted by Welles, the title character is not a warrior king or conscience-stricken, poetic soul on a par with Hamlet; rather, he is revealed to be a facile, superstitious man consigned to fate even as the character does not trust to fate. For her part, Lady Macbeth (Jeanette Nolan) is merely obsessed with the unimpeded exercise of her will to power, viewing her husband's life as a tale told by an idiot (she is particularly effective during the "out, damned spot" scene from Act V). Welles has also created some new scenes here, conflating several characters into a "Holy Father" (Alan Napier) while eliciting strong supporting turns from actors such as Dan O'Herlihy (Macduff) and Roddy McDowall (Malcolm). All of this unfolds within a highly disordered state in which nature itself is on the rant ("Fair is foul and foul is fair"). Though the technically poor soundtrack and the occasional indecipherable Scottish brogue make the film seem a trifle compromised at times, each moment feels preternaturally alive. There is an almost Brechtian quality here, with Welles giving us splendid pieces then leaving it to us to fit them into a theatrically coherent puzzle. Refusing to believe that Birnham Wood could ever travel to Dunsinane, Macbeth is finally exposed as a man of insufficient character. As such, some might suggest that this Macbeth is more accurately described as the story of how Malcolm became King. --Kevin Mulhall

• Citizen Kane | DVD | (20/09/1999) from £9.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (100.10%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Arguably the greatest of American films, Orson Welles' 1941 masterpiece, made when he was only 26, still unfurls like a dream and carries the viewer along the mysterious currents of time and memory to reach a mature (if ambiguous) conclusion: people are the sum of their contradictions and can't be known easily. Welles plays newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane, taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. The result is that every well-meaning or tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event. Written by Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz, and photographed by Gregg Toland, the film is the sum of Welles's awesome ambitions as an artist in Hollywood. He pushes the limits of then-available technology to create a true magic show, a visual and aural feast that almost seems to be rising up from a viewer's subconscious. As Kane, Welles even ushers in the influence of Bertolt Brechton film acting. This is truly a one-of-a-kind work, and in many ways is still the most modern of modern films this century. --Tom Keogh

• Immortal Story | DVD | (29/06/2015) from £11.59   |  Saving you £1.40 (12.08%)   |  RRP £12.99

  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...

• The Lady from Shanghai (Dual Format Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (24/04/2017) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Legend has it that Orson Welles more or less conned studio boss Harry Cohn over the phone into making The Lady from Shanghai by grabbing the title from a nearby paperback. In any case, this is one of Welles's most fascinating works, a bizarre tale of an Irish sailor (Welles) who accompanies a beautiful woman (Rita Hayworth) and her handicapped husband (Everett Sloane) on a cruise and becomes involved in a murder plot. But never mind all that (the aforementioned legend also claims that Cohn offered a reward to anyone who could explain the plot to him). The film is really a dream of Welles's driving preoccupations both on and off-screen at the time: the elusiveness of identity, the mystique of things lost, and most of all the director's faltering marriage to Hayworth. In the tradition of male filmmakers who indirectly tell the story of their love affairs with leading ladies, Welles tells his own, photographing Hayworth as a deconstructed star, an obvious cinematic creation, thus reflecting, perhaps, a never-satisfied yearning that leads us back to the mystery of Citizen Kane. --Tom Keogh

• The Magnificent Ambersons | DVD | (29/05/2006) from £6.49   |  Saving you £9.50 (146.38%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Having long passed into movie legend for director Orson Welles' battles with RKO Pictures over the content of this follow-up to Citizen Kane The Magnificent Ambersons is the haunting story of a wealthy Midwestern family's struggle to adapt to the rapidly changing world at the turn of the 20th century...

• Rita Hayworth - Screen Goddess Boxset | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

• Orson Welles - Screen Legends | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  What more is there to say about Orson Welles? One of the most talented and enigmatic artists that Hollywood has ever seen this box set gathers several films in his oeuvre for your viewing pleasure. Citizen Kane (Dir. Orson Welles 1941): In May of 1941 RKO Radio Pictures released a controversial film by a 25-year-old first-time director. That premier of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane was to have a profound and lasting effect of the art of motion pictures. It has been hai

• Citizen Kane - 75th Anniversary Edition | Blu Ray | (02/05/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £27.99

  New remastered collector's edition including extraordinary collectables. Orson Welles' masterwork (number 1 in the American Film Institute's list of Best American Movies) dazzles anew in a superb 75th-anniversary high-definition digital transfer. It's grand entertainment, sharply acted (starting many of Welles' Mercury Players on the road to thriving film careers) and directed with inspired visual flair. Chronicling the stormy life of an influential publishing tycoon, this Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winner (1941) is rooted in themes of power, corruption, vanity the American Dream lost in the mystery of a dying man's last word: Rosebud. Special Features: - Commentary by Peter Bogdanovich - Commentary by Roger Ebert - Opening: World Premiere of Citizen Kane [1941 Newsreel] - Interview with Ruth Warrick - Interview with Robert Wise - Production Stills Gallery (62 cnt.) - Still Photography Commentary by Roger Ebert - Gallery of rare photos, Alternate Ad Campaigns, Studio correspondence, call sheets and other memorabilia - Theatrical Trailer Collectables: - 5 x one sheet/Lobby card reproductions - 48-page book with photos, storyboards and behind the scenes information - 20-page 1941 souvenir programme reproduction - 10 x production memos and correspondence

• Citizen Kane | Blu Ray | (19/11/2012) from £12.13   |  Saving you £7.86 (64.80%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Digitally remastered from original film elements. In May 1941, RKO Pictures released a controversial film by a 25-year-old first-time director. That premiere of Orson Welles' Citizen Kane was to have a profound and lasting effect on the art of modern motion pictures. Through its unique jigsaw puzzle storyline, inventive cinematography, brilliant ensemble acting and direction by Welles, the story of Charles Foster Kane is a fascinating portrait of American's love of power and materialism and the corruption it sometimes fosters. Like all great films, Citizen Kane is a memorable fusion of cinematic art and marvellous entertainment, winning an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay in 1942. Special Features: Anatomy of a Classic - A 50 minute feature presented by Barry Norman Audio Commentary by Film Historian Ken Barnes The Original Film Budget Welles Off-Screen (The original 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds and Welles' 1945 commerical recording of Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince) Blu-ray Exclusive - The Restorarion of Citizen Kane

• Around the World with Orson Welles (Limited Edition Numbered Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (24/08/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Orson Welles, a hugely successful polymath who forged a career in film, radio and theatre, was little known for his TV work. In 1955, Associated-Rediffusion commissioned Welles to make his first television production, inviting him to write, direct and host a mini series. Despite its grand title, the series was filmed entirely in Europe. Part home-movie, part cinematic essay, each episode takes the viewer on a fascinating journey to see the famous people and places in key cities across the continent. In Paris, we are introduced to famous artists such as Jean Cocteau; in Madrid, we attend a bullfight; and in Vienna, in an episode which was long believed lost, we are taken to the locations of The Third Man. A unique and fascinating entry in the career of one of modern cinema's most revered figures, Around the World with Orson Welles finally receives its world premiere Blu-ray release in this strictly limited, numbered edition from the BFI

• Touch Of Evil | DVD | (10/11/2003) from £7.63   |  Saving you £2.36 (30.93%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Considered by many to be the greatest B movie ever made, the original-release version of Orson Welles' film noir masterpiece Touch of Evil was, ironically, never intended as a B movie at all--it merely suffered that fate after it was taken away from writer-director Welles, then reedited and released in 1958 as the second half of a double feature. Time and critical acclaim would eventually elevate the film to classic status (and Welles' original vision was meticulously followed for the film's 1998 restoration), but for four decades this original version stood as a testament to Welles' directorial genius. From its astonishing, miraculously choreographed opening shot (lasting over three minutes) to Marlene Dietrich's classic final line of dialogue, this sordid tale of murder and police corruption is like a valentine for the cinematic medium, with Welles as its love-struck suitor. As the corpulent cop who may be involved in a border-town murder, Welles faces opposition from a narcotics officer (Charlton Heston) whose wife (Janet Leigh) is abducted and held as the pawn in a struggle between Heston's quest for truth and Welles' control of carefully hidden secrets. The twisting plot is wildly entertaining (even though it's harder to follow in this original version), but even greater pleasure is found in the pulpy dialogue and the sheer exuberance of the dazzling directorial style. --Jeff Shannon

• Confidential Report | DVD | (02/12/2013) from £9.43   |  Saving you £3.56 (27.40%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Orson Welles wrote directed and starred in this visually dazzling 1955 thriller about a ruthless billionaire stricken by amnesia. What terrible secrets lie in his past? One man must find out - or die trying. Paola Mori and Robert Arden co-star.

• Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight | DVD | (30/04/2012) from £11.59   |  Saving you £8.40 (72.48%)   |  RRP £19.99

  On the brink of Civil War, King Henry IV (John Gielgud) attempts to consolidate his reign while fretting with unease over his son’s 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 groundbreaking 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.

• The Trial | DVD | (11/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  Josef K awakes one morning to be arrested by the police. He is to be put on trial but no one will tell him what it is he is accused of. His attempts to profess his innocence of any charge only alienates him from his friends and his whole world becomes a nightmare.

• The Orson Welles Collection | DVD | (17/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A fascinating 5 disc collection providing a fitting tribute to this giant of the silver screen including four of his films a rarely seen live TV appearance and two documentaries on his life and work. The Stranger (1946): In postwar Germany a meeting of the War Crimes Commission is being held. Those present decide that a heinous Nazi war criminal (Konstantin Shayne) should be released from prison in the hopes that he will lead the commission to his superior the infamous Franz

• Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight | Blu Ray | (29/06/2015) from £11.59   |  Saving you £6.40 (55.22%)   |  RRP £17.99

  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 groundbreaking 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.

• Rita Hayworth | DVD | (13/03/2006) from £32.43   |  Saving you £17.56 (54.15%)   |  RRP £49.99

  A bumper box set of classic films featuring 'The Love Goddess' herself Rita Hayworth! Gilda (Dir. Charles Vidor 1946): The legendary Rita Hayworth sizzles with sensuality and magnetism as she sings ""Put the blame on Mame"" and delivers a dazzling performance as the enticing temptress Gilda. In the story of Gilda Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) goes to work for Ballin Mundson (George MacReady) the proprietor of an illegal gambling casino in a South American city and quickly r

• Too Much Johnson | Blu Ray | (29/06/2015) from £11.59   |  Saving you £6.40 (55.22%)   |  RRP £17.99

  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 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 Dathis’s 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.

• F For Fake | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £17.53   |  Saving you £2.46 (14.03%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Reality and artifice truths and lies the means and the ends - these are the poles traversed by Orson Welles in his landmark examination of the nature of authenticity and artistic essence: F For Fake. Described by Welles as ""a new kind of film"" F For Fake is a prism of a movie a kaleidoscope in which fiction documentary and the poetic essay interlock fragment and recombine to form one of the most entertaining and profound works in all of cinema. How to describe a film so unlike any other ever made? In a nutshell F For Fake opens with a couple of magic tricks segues as though by sleight-of-hand into the story of master art-forger Elmyr de Hory and his relationship with biographer Clifford Irving (a sequence ""remixed"" by Welles with extant footage from Franois Reichenbach's documentary work-in-progress Elmyr) then hones in on Irving when word gets out that his purported biography of recluse-mogul Howard Hughes is a first-class hoax in its own right. Here the film erupts in all directions as Welles contrasts the sprawl of 1970s Hollywood with the halcyon Tinseltown that produced Citizen Kane; contemplates the continent that provided him with an artistic refuge some 800 years after the anonymous construction of the cathedral at Chartres; and lastly recounts a meeting between that most un-anonymous of artists - Pablo Picasso - and Welles' companion Oja Kodar which took place in her youth and during which......the nutshell here clamps shut; the film itself however opens up onto infinite space. Exhilarating hilarious and marvellously idiosyncratic F For Fake comes to us from that late period of Orson Welles' cinema which although perhaps less widely known than his Hollywood years nevertheless found one of the movies' greatest masters at the top of his powers.

• Immortal Story | Blu Ray | (09/11/2015) from £11.59   |  Saving you £2.40 (20.71%)   |  RRP £13.99

  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... Cast and Crew: Orson Welles / Jeanne Moreau / Roger Coggio / Norman Eshley. Director Orson Welles Awards and Reviews: Berlin International Film Festival 1968, Nominated Golden Bear, Orson Welles. ˜A sumptuous experience' - Time Out ˜The ending of is amongst the most beautiful and self-contained in all of Welles' cinema' - Senses of Cinema