"Director: Orson Welles"

• Too Much Johnson | DVD | (29/06/2015) from £9.98   |  Saving you £5.00 (62.58%)   |  RRP £12.99

  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.

• The Stranger | DVD | (07/03/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Confidential Report | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £5.02   |  Saving you £-2.03 (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Guy Van Stratten a convicted American smuggler leaves an Italian prison term with one asset a dying man's words about the wealthy mysterious and elusive Gregory Arkadin. Guy sets out in search of the enigmatic Arkadin and starts to scrutinize him through his lovely daughter Raina. To thwart Van Stratten's investigation Arkadin claims amnesia about his early life and sends Guy off to investigate his unknown past. Guy's quest spans many continents and unearths eccentric characters who contribute information about the shadowy Arkadin. But the real purpose of Guy's assignment proves deadly - can he survive it? Orson Welles wrote directed and co-starred in this stylish serpentine mystery that carries echoes of his masterpiece 'Citizen Kane'.

• Orson Welles - Citizen Kane/Waterloo/The Lady From Shanghai/A Man For All Seasons | DVD | (27/09/2010) from £30.90   |  Saving you £-0.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  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 hailed as the best American film ever made and it's as powerful a film today as it was fifty years ago. It earned eight Academy Award nominations and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. 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 America'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. Waterloo (Dir. Sergei Bondarchuk 1970): Waterloo is a film on an epic scale with a cast to match. Rod Steiger Christopher Plummer Orson Welles and Jack Hawkins all contribute brilliant performances of great men against a magnificent backdrop of battle and bloodshed. Napoleon's final bid for power and glory and his narrow defeat at Waterloo. Lady From Shanghai (Dir. Orson Welles 1948): Fascinated by the gorgeous Mrs. Bannister (Hayworth) seaman Michael O'Hara (Welles) joins a bizarre yachting cruise and ends up mired in a complex murder plot... A Man For All Seasons (Dir. Fred Zinnemann 1966): A Man For All Seasons: a motion picture for all time! Winner of six Academy Awards - including 1966 Best Picture - A Man For All Seasons stars Paul Scofield as Sir Thomas More a respected English statesman whose steadfast refusal to recognise King Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn cost him his head.

• Orson Welles' Othello | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A newly restored edition of Orson Welles's adaptation of the Shakespeare classic. The production began in 1948 but would not be completed untill four years later due to financial difficulties. Without full financing in place Welles would shoot until the money ran out shut down production while he tried to raise more in acting roles then reassemble the cast and crew months later. But typically the challenges presented by budgetary constraints only heightened Welles technical flair

• The Trial | DVD | (13/08/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  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.

• Falstaff-Chimes At Midnight | DVD | (28/02/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  This film is an amalgam of Henry IV parts 1 & 2 and also Richard II Henry V and the Merry Wives of Windsor. It's based on Welles' play Five Kings an adaptation of four Shakespeare plays which he produced in 1939 and again in 1960. The film's narration spoken by Ralph Richardson is taken from the chronicler Raphael Holinshed. Orson Welles plays Sir John Falstaff alongside an incredible cast featuring Margaret Rutherford Jeanne Moreau and John Gielgud. Welles is uncompromising as the tragicomic Shakespearean character and many critics believe this is the greatest screen portrayal of Falstaff.

• Immortal Story (Restored Edition) | DVD | (09/11/2015) from £9.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (30.03%)   |  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... 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

• Mr Arkadin | DVD | (16/02/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  Guy Van Stratten a convicted American smuggler leaves an Italian prison term with one asset a dying man's words about the wealthy mysterious and elusive Gregory Arkadin. Guy sets out in search of the enigmatic Arkadin and starts to scrutinize him through his lovely daughter Raina. To thwart Van Stratten's investigation Arkadin claims amnesia about his early life and sends Guy off to investigate his ""unknown"" past. Guy's quest spans many continents and unearths eccentric character

• Citizen Kane | DVD | (29/05/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  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 hailed as the best American film ever made and it's as powerful a film today as it was fifty years ago. It earned eight Academy Award nominations and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. Through its unique jigsaw-puzzle storyline inventive cinemato

• The Stranger | DVD | (07/04/2008) from £7.09   |  Saving you £-1.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Orson Welles stars and directs in this classic 1946 movie. Welles portrays Charles Rankin a respected academic at a Connecticut college. He seems to have the perfect American life - A beautiful new wife (Loretta Young) and a charming home in a small town that holds him in high esteem. Enter Mr. Wilson (Edward G. Robinson) a detective who is on the hunt for Nazi war criminal Franz Kindler. The appearance of Mr. Wilson threatens to reveal that beneath Charles Rankin's idyllic veneer is a very disturbing secret.

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Edward G. Robinson - Scarlet Street / The Stranger | DVD | (18/03/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In a way, Scarlet Street is a remake. It's taken from a French novel, La Chienne (literally, "The Bitch") that was first filmed by Jean Renoir in 1931. Renoir brought to the sordid tale all the colour and vitality of Montmartre; Fritz Lang's version shows us a far harsher and bleaker world. The film replays the triangle set-up from Lang's previous picture, The Woman in the Window, with the same three actors. Once again, Edward G Robinson plays a respectable middle-aged citizen snared by the charms of Joan Bennett's streetwalker, with Dan Duryea as her low-life pimp. The plot closes around the three of them like a steel trap. This is Lang at his most dispassionate. Scarlet Street is a tour de force of noir filmmaking, brilliant but ice-cold. The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture". But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as the Nazi Franz Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clocktower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: sparse pickings. Both films have a full-length commentary by Russell Cawthorne which adds the occasional insight, but is repetitive and not always reliable. The box claims both print have been "fully restored and digitally remastered", but you'd never guess. --Philip Kemp

• Confidential Report | DVD | (02/04/2007) from £9.43   |  Saving you £-3.44 (-57.40%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Guy Van Stratten a convicted American smuggler leaves an Italian prison term with one asset a dying man's words about the wealthy mysterious and elusive Gregory Arkadin. Guy sets out in search of the enigmatic Arkadin and starts to scrutinize him through his lovely daughter Raina. To thwart Van Stratten's investigation Arkadin claims amnesia about his early life and sends Guy off to investigate his ""unknown"" past. Guy's quest spans many continents and unearths eccentric characters who contribute information about the shadowy Arkadin. But the real purpose of Guy's assignment proves deadly - can he survive it? Orson Welles wrote directed and co-starred in this stylish serpentine mystery that carries echoes of his masterpiece 'Citizen Kane'.

• Stranger, The / Orson Welles On Film | DVD | (01/11/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else." True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. So Welles himself plays the supposedly cautious and self-effacing fugitive--and if there was one thing Welles could never play, it was unobtrusive. What's more, Spiegel chopped out most of the two opening reels set in South America, in Welles' view, "the best stuff in the picture". Still, the film's far from a write-off. Welles' eye for stunning visuals rarely deserted him and, aided by Russell Metty's skewed, shadowy photography, The Stranger builds to a doomy grand guignol climax in a clock tower that Hitchcock must surely have recalled when he made Vertigo. And Robinson, dogged in pursuit, is as quietly excellent as ever. On the DVD: not much in the way of extras, except a waffly full-length commentary from Russell Cawthorne that tells us about the history of clock-making and where Edward G was buried, but precious little about the making of the film. Print and sound are acceptable, but though remastering is claimed, there's little evidence of it. --Philip Kemp

• Trial | DVD | (17/10/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Stranger | DVD | (19/05/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £4.99

  The Most Deceitful Man A Woman Ever Loved! Welles stars as college professor Charles Rankin who is living a quiet life in a small Connecticut town with his lovely wife Mary. The arrival of jumpy German fellow Meineke leaves Rankin disturbed and his quiet life is destroyed as he must go to deadly measures to stop Meineke revealing his dark secret.

• The Stranger | DVD | (18/10/1999) from £4.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (160.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The legendary story that hovers over Orson Welles' The Stranger is that he wanted Agnes Moorehead to star as the dogged Nazi hunter who trails a war criminal to a sleepy New England town. The part went to Edward G. Robinson, who is marvellous, but it points out how many compromises Welles made on the film in an attempt to show Hollywood he could make a film on time, on budget and on their own terms. He accomplished all three, turning out a stylish if unambitious film noir thriller, his only Hollywood film to turn a profit on its original release. Welles stars as unreformed fascist Franz Kindler, hiding as a schoolteacher in a New England prep school for boys and newly married to the headmaster's lovely if naive daughter (Loretta Young). Welles, the director, is in fine form for the opening sequences, casting a moody tension as agents shadow a twitchy low-level Nazi official skulking through South American ports and building up to dramatic crescendo as Kindler murders this little man, the lovely woods becoming a maelstrom of swirling leaves that expose the body he furiously tries to bury. The rest of the film is a well designed but conventional cat-and-mouse game featuring an eye-rolling performance by Welles and a thrilling conclusion played out in the dark clock tower that looms over the little village. --Sean Axmaker

• Orson Welles - Double Feature 1 | DVD | (10/04/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  The Stranger: 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 Kindler (Orson Welles) one of the architects of the genocide against the Jews. A federal agent (Edward G. Robinson) is assigned to follow Shayne and the chase begins. This exciting thriller from Orson Welles moves to the town of Harper Connecticut where the Nazi Kindler is living under an assumed name... King Lear: Orson Welles stars in the title role in this made-for-television production of the Shakespearean tragedy about an aging king betrayed by his daughters.

• Confidential Report | DVD | (28/01/2002) from £14.99   |  Saving you £-9.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99