News

Stars: Orson Welles, Micheál MacLiammóir, Suzanne Cloutier, Robert Coote, Fay Compton, Michael Laurence | Written by William Shakespeare, Orson Welles, Jean Sacha | Directed by Orson Welles

We open with a funeral. For whom we’re not sure, but by the end of Orson Welles’ 1952 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Moorish tragedy Othello we can be certain that more than one of the main characters will be dead.

The location is Cyprus, and Venetian General Othello (Welles) is married to Desdemona, much to the chagrin of Othello’s supposedly loyal ensign, Iago (Micheál MacLiammóir). The latter sets about bringing ruin to his master through a convoluted campaign of rumour and hearsay. Specifically, he makes Othello believe that one of his captains, Cassio (Michael Laurence), is romantically involved with Desdemona. In all of literature a simple handkerchief has never held such power.

MacLiammóir is having an absolute riot in the upsetter role (the painted-on...

Othello

Blu-ray

Criterion

1952 / Black and White / 1:33 / Street Date October 10, 2017

Starring Orson Welles, Suzanne Cloutier, Micheál MacLiammóir

Cinematography by G.R. Aldo, Anchise Brizzi, George Fanto, Alberto Fusi, Oberdan Troiani

Written by William Shakespeare (Adapted by Orson Welles)

Edited by Jenö Csepreghy, Renzo Lucidi, William Morton, Jean Sacha

Produced by Orson Welles, Julien Derode

Directed by Orson Welles

Shakespeare didn’t invent Orson Welles but he did define him; it can be said that if any one director took arms against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, it was the man behind Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil and Chimes at Midnight. The 1952 production of Othello is exhibit A.

Filmed over a turbulent three year period in and around Morocco, Venice and Rome, Welles was bedeviled by an ever-changing cast and crew resulting in reshoots by five different cinematographers and assembled by four different editors. The sound recording was a joke.

Irish stage and screen character actor who appeared in Barbarella, The Verdict and the BBC's 1969 sitcom Me Mammy

For a performer of such fame and versatility, the distinguished Irish character actor Milo O'Shea, who has died aged 86, is not associated with any role in particular, or indeed any clutch of them. He was chiefly associated with his own expressive dark eyes, bushy eyebrows, outstanding mimetic talents and distinctive Dublin brogue.

His impish presence irradiated countless fine movies – including Joseph Strick's Ulysses (1967), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968) and Sidney Lumet's The Verdict (1982) – and many top-drawer American television series, from Cheers, The Golden Girls and Frasier, right through to The West Wing (2003-04), in which he played the chief justice Roy Ashland.

He had settled in New York in 1976 with his second wife, Kitty Sullivan, in order to be equidistant from his own main bases of operation, Hollywood and London. The...

Here Lies... Hilton Edwards' short film Return to Glennascaul, mauled by Disney's Bear Country.

Andreas here with another spooky Oscar Horrors case file! This time, it's a ghost story. And who doesn't love a good ghost story? (Other than the Academy, I suppose.) Return to Glennascaul (1953) retells a traditional urban legend, that of the "vanishing hitchhiker," but with so much flair and atmosphere that its overfamiliarity doesn't matter. The set-up is classic: it's late at night, on a winding road outside Dublin, and the narrator stops to pick up a stranded motorist. But aha, a twist: the narrator is in fact Orson Welles, on a break from Othello! What better addition to a ghost story than Orson, that master raconteur, he of the perfect radio voice?

Aother small twist: his passenger isn't a ghost, but instead has his own eerie story of two mysterious women and the old abandoned house he drove them to,...

The distinctive and beguiling Irish actor David Kelly, who has died aged 82, was as familiar a face in British television sitcoms as he was on the stage in Dublin, where he was particularly associated with the Gate theatre. But he was perhaps best known in recent years for playing Grandpa Joe in Tim Burton's movie adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), an engaging performance that was honoured with a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Film and Television Academy; Johnny Depp, who played Willy Wonka, paid a touching tribute on a video link from Hollywood to Dublin.

Kelly was a tall and flamboyant figure who was often cast as a comic, eccentric Irishman, notably as Albert Riddle, an incompetent, one-armed dish-washer in the late 1970s British sitcom Robin's Nest; he...

A talented Irish actor on stage and in films for Ford and Huston

For an actor who worked with two of the greatest movie directors of the last century and appeared in the world premieres of plays by Brian Friel, Ireland's leading contemporary dramatist, Donal Donnelly, who has died after a long illness, aged 78, was curiously unrecognised. Like so many prominent Irish actors in the diasporas of Hollywood, British television, the West End and Broadway – all areas he conquered – Donnelly was a great talent and a private citizen, happily married for many years, and always seemed youthful.

There was something mischievous, something larkish, about him, too. He twinkled. And he had a big nose. He had long lived in New York, although he died in Chicago, and had started out in Dublin, although born in England.

In John Huston's swansong movie The Dead (1987), the best screen transcription of a James Joyce fiction,...

Gates Of Gold, a new comedic drama by Frank McGuinness will hold its American Premiere at 59E59 Theaters. Previews begin Thursday, February 19, 2009. The official opening will be on Sunday, March 1, 2009. Produced by Artists Theatre Group, Inc., Warren Baker and Sally Jacobs, the production is directed by Kent Paul. Written by acclaimed Irish author Frank McGuinness, who earned a Tony Award nomination for Someone Who'll Watch Over Me, and received a Tony Award for best revival in 1997 for A Doll's House, Gates Of Gold is an acerbic duel between Hilton Edwards and Miche?l MacLiamm?ir, fashionable and eloquent theatrical trailblazers who founded Dublin's Gate Theatre. Gates Of Gold is funny, witty, deeply moving and a vibrant celebration of art, love, and, finally, life itself. This production marks the American premiere of Gates Of Gold, which starred Alan Howard in Dublin and William Gaunt in the West End. Frank McGuinness was born in Buncrana,...