Orson Welles
61) Citizen Kane
Series
Criterion collection volume 1104
Language
English
Appears on list
Formats
Description
In the most dazzling debut feature in cinema history, twenty-five-year-old writer-producer-director-star Orson Welles synthesized the possibilities of sound-era filmmaking into what could be called the first truly modern movie. In telling the story of the meteoric rise and precipitous fall of a William Randolph Hearst-like newspaper magnate named Charles Foster Kane, Welles not only created the definitive portrait of American megalomania, he also...
Series
Language
English
Description
In this dark comedy first released during WWII, Henri Vedoux, played by Charlie Chaplin, supports his family by first marrying, and then killing wealthy widows. On another level the film is an indictment of war in which mass murder is legalized, celebrated and paraded. "Killing is the enterprise by which your system prospers," Verdoux says. "As a mass killer, I am an amateur by comparison."
64) Mr. Arkadin
Language
English
Description
Mr. Arkadin tells the story of a reclusive billionaire who, faking a case of amnesia, hires a young adventurer who has been seeing his daughter to investigate his own past. As the inquiries begin unraveling, Arkadin's sordid history, the young man realizes he's being used to keep the truth from Arkadin's daughter and that his own life is in danger.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"Sir Thomas More, England's Roman Catholic Chancellor, is forced into a difficult position when corrupt King Henry VIII demands his approval to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. Torn between his conscience and duty to the crown, Sir Thomas chooses to say nothing, sparking the rage of the king. What unfolds is a battle of wills packed with palace intrigue, political brinksmanship, and the fate of man, church, and country. In the end, his silence...
68) The trial
Language
English
Description
Joseph K., in a nameless country, is arrested for a crime that is never explained to him. Finding no real help after many strange encounters he defies his executioners to the end.
Series
Language
English
Description
Looks at the remarkable genius of Orson Welles on the eve of his centenary - the enigma of his career as a Hollywood star, a Hollywood director (for some a Hollywood failure), and a crucially important independent filmmaker. Orson Welles's life was magical: a musical prodigy at age ten, a director of Shakespeare at fourteen, a painter at sixteen, a star of stage and radio at twenty, romances with some of the most beautiful women in the world, including...
Language
English
Description
Departing Hamburg in high spirits, 937 Jewish Germans have been offered safe haven in Havana, Cuba, in 1939. The passengers are looking forward to their new life. However, the whole voyage is actually a Nazi propaganda scheme and the passengers are never really intended to be allowed ashore once they reach their destination. After weeks of unsuccessful pleas they are forced to return back to Europe. Based on the tragic 1939 voyage of the SS St. Louis....
77) The V.I.P.s
Language
English
Description
Elite passengers waiting for London-to-U.S. flights get fogged in, and have to deal with their problems rather than run from them.
Language
English
Description
A weekly radio crime drama produced for the BBC in 1951 and based on real life cases from the files of Scotland Yard. Orson Welles was both host and narrator for these dramatized stories based on Scotland Yard's Black Museum, which housed its collection of murder weapons and various ordinary objects once associated with historical crime cases.
Language
English
Description
Christmas & A Christmas carol traces the story of the great seasonal feast, from its origins in Nordic mid-winter celebrations, through the advance of Christianity, and up to the present day. It pays particular attention to the small book entitled A Christmas carol that was published in 1843 and to the moment in time that Charles Dickens took a hand in reshaping the end-of-year feastivity.