105-620: Cyril Raker Endfield (November 10, 1914 – April 16, 1995) was an American film director, who at times also worked as a writer, theatre director, magician and inventor. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, he worked in the New York theatre in the late 1930s before moving to Hollywood in 1940. After World War II, his film career was interrupted by the Hollywood blacklist. He resettled in London at
210-524: A 1947 novel by Jo Pagano that dealt with a notorious kidnapping and lynching case of 1933. The events, in San Jose, had already loosely inspired Fritz Lang’s Fury (1935), with Spencer Tracy. Endfield put heart and soul into the project, which was filmed on location in Phoenix, Arizona, and which starred Lloyd Bridges, Frank Lovejoy, Katherine Ryan and Art Smith. There were disagreements over the script, but
315-413: A baby due, the couple moved to Hollywood, and Endfield looked for work in the studios. His first assignment, a short-lived engagement with Orson Welles ’s Mercury Theatre unit at RKO, followed a random meeting with Welles at a Los Angeles magic shop. During this period, Endfield was one of the few people to view the original, uncut version of Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). Eventually he secured
420-630: A commercial production of the work. In a last-minute move, Welles announced to waiting ticket-holders that the show was being transferred to the Venice , 20 blocks away. Some cast, and some crew and audience, walked the distance on foot. The union musicians refused to perform in a commercial theater for lower non-union government wages. The actors' union stated that the production belonged to the Federal Theatre Project and could not be performed outside that context without permission. Lacking
525-554: A correspondence with science writer Martin Gardner on close-up card magic, and science and pseudo-science, and was encouraging to younger practitioners, for example, Michael Vincent. Science fiction literature was another of his passions. Parallel to his film career, Endfield was periodically involved with the theatre. After his time at the New Theatre League in the late thirties he ran a leftist ‘social’ theatre for around
630-518: A hotel in Chicago. Shortly before this, Welles had told his father that he refused to see him until he stopped drinking. Welles suffered lifelong guilt and despair that he was unable to express. "That was the last I ever saw of him," Welles told biographer Barbara Leaming 53 years later. "I've never, never ... I don't want to forgive myself." His father's will left it to Welles to name his guardian. When Roger Hill declined, he chose Dr. Maurice Bernstein,
735-581: A physician and friend of the family. Following graduation from Todd in May 1931, Welles was awarded a scholarship to Harvard College , while his mentor Roger Hill advocated he attend Cornell College in Iowa. Instead, Welles chose travel. He studied for a few weeks at the Art Institute of Chicago with Boris Anisfeld , who encouraged him to pursue painting. Welles occasionally returned to Woodstock,
840-509: A position with the short subject department at MGM. But his first film, Inflation (1943), a well-regarded propaganda short approved by the Office of War Information , was quickly withdrawn from distribution following criticism from the Chamber of Commerce. The United States' entry into World War II had made studios very sensitive to criticism. Endfield remained at MGM until he was called up to
945-653: A predecessor to the Berkshire String Quartet , which had made its first appearance at her home in 1921, played at Beatrice's funeral. After his mother's death, Welles ceased pursuing a musical career. It was decided that he would spend the summer with the Watson family at a private art colony established by Lydia Avery Coonley Ward in the village of Wyoming in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. There, he played and became friends with
1050-563: A prime unifying scenic element in a nearly black stage, presented January 8 – May 9, 1937, at Maxine Elliott's Theatre. Outside the scope of the Federal Theatre Project, American composer Aaron Copland chose Welles to direct The Second Hurricane (1937), an operetta with a libretto by Edwin Denby. Presented at the Henry Street Settlement Music School in New York for the benefit of high school students,
1155-461: A routine in a magicians’ magazine at the age of 16. In 1932 he won a scholarship to Yale, but delayed his arrival by a year because of the collapse of his father’s business during the Depression. While in Scranton, he first met Israel Shapiro (Paul Jarrico), a politically conscious screenwriter-to-be who would become a life-long friend. In his two years at Yale, Endfield’s attitude to his studies
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#17327809420871260-524: A series of low budget films. His association with the producer Benjamin Fisz led to two better funded productions, Hell Drivers (1957) and Sea Fury (1958), for Britain’s largest production company, the Rank Organisation; both featured Stanley Baker, who was to appear in six of his films. Endfield was eventually issued with a new passport and in 1957 he was given permission to remain permanently in
1365-497: A seven-week series to adapt Les Misérables . It was his first job as a writer-director for radio, the debut of the Mercury Theatre , and one of Welles's earliest and finest achievements. He invented the use of narration in radio. "By making himself the center of the storytelling process, Welles fostered the impression of self-adulation that was to haunt his career to his dying day", wrote critic Andrew Sarris . "For
1470-878: A short article in the Film Society magazine Film (1958), in which he discussed his approach to directing. In 1964 Pierre Rissient, a French critic, cinėaste and sometime producer, drew more attention to the director’s work by organizing a partial retrospective of six of Endfield’s films at the Cinémathèque française. This included the first French release of The Sound of Fury. While in Paris for this event, Endfield commented about his approach to directing, noting that ‘you don’t necessarily have to go to art theatres to find art.’ He revealed his admiration for storyteller directors – he mentioned Fritz Lang and Raoul Walsh - who were able to make some degree of personal comment on
1575-576: A short story by John Kruse, concerned the trucking industry, and the short-haul transport of ballast, by a private company that stokes the ultra-competitive behaviour of its drivers. A publicity still of the time described it as a ‘drama of men who battle for their livelihood in ten-ton trucks.’ Stanley Baker plays the driver (and ex-con) Tom Yately, while the strong cast includes Herbert Lom, Peggy Cummins, William Hartnell, and Wilfred Lawson, together with, in small but significant roles, emerging British actors Sean Connery and Patrick McGoohan. Endfield wrote at
1680-511: A studio project that successfully exploited Ray Harryhausen’s special effects to tell the Jules Verne story. For several years the director worked on commercials, while he and Baker engaged in a long struggle to make Zulu (1964), a recreation of the 1879 engagement between four thousand Zulu warriors and a small garrison of British soldiers at Rorke’s Drift, in southern Africa. With a script by John Prebble, Endfield and Baker (co-producers of
1785-477: A summer show for 13 weeks. The series began July 11, 1938 with the formula that Welles would play the lead in each show. . The weekly hour-long show presented radio plays based on classic literary works, with original music composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann . The Mercury Theatre's radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells October 30, 1938, brought Welles instant fame. The combination of
1890-523: A time when he and Stanley Baker were working to try and set up an ambitious production of Zulu on location in South Africa. The short period from 1949 to 1951 was one in which Endfield’s profile was on the rise. He directed The Underworld Story (1950), a crime story with social overtones (with Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall and Howard da Silva), that was made for a subsidiary of Monogram Pictures. He followed this up with The Sound of Fury (1950), for
1995-620: A year in Montreal. In the UK he was involved as director of several theatrical performances, the most notable of which was the run, for over a year (1962–63), of Neil Simon’s play Come Blow Your Horn , in London’s West End. Endfield was also interested in invention, technology and design, and was often ahead of his time. He designed and patented a portable chess set composed of hand-crafted pieces that could be fitted into silver cylinders. The set
2100-629: A year of his debut Welles could claim membership in that elite band of radio actors who commanded salaries second only to the highest paid movie stars," wrote critic Richard France . Part of the Works Progress Administration , the Federal Theatre Project (1935–1939) was a New Deal program to fund theatre and other live artistic performances and entertainment programs in the United States during
2205-545: A year of military service at Camp Crowder, in Missouri. After the war he returned to the studio, before writing and directing several low budget Joe Palooka features (based on the comic strip) for Monogram. What he later called his first ‘auteur effort,’ The Argyle Secrets (1948), was made after nine days of shooting, from his own short¹ radio play for the CBS Suspense series. Endfield’s career revived in 1950, with
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#17327809420872310-431: A ‘remarkable tour de force of action filmmaking’. Late in life Endfield gave a long interview to American writer Jonathan Rosenbaum, a film critic who was an early champion of the director’s work. Rosenbaum referred to Endfield’s ‘remarkable noir efforts,’ and wrote of ‘a poetry of thwarted ambitions, dark, social insights, and awesomely orchestrated struggle.’ Despite ill-health, Endfield accepted an invitation to attend
2415-537: Is buried in Highgate Cemetery . Endfield’s first critical success (apart from the studio and trade praise for the largely unseen 1943 short, Inflation ) came with the release of The Sound of Fury ( Try and Get Me! ). The film attracted positive attention, despite its commercial failure. The Saturday Review of Literature (in February 1951) welcomed the low-budget feature that ‘challenges comparison with
2520-667: Is much evidence here that Cy Endfield still had a few tricks up his sleeve." Cinematique Francaise, Paris, 1964 Chicago Film Center, 1992 Amiens Film Festival, Amiens 2008 Cinematheque francaise, Paris 2008 Anthology FilmArchives, New York, 2015 University of Wisconsin, 2015 UCLA, 2016 This profile draws on Brian Neve, The Many Lives of Cy Endfield: Film Noir, the Blacklist and Zulu (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015). Neve (2015), 16. Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985)
2625-530: The CBS Radio series The March of Time , performing a scene from Panic for a news report on the stage production. By 1935, Welles was supplementing his earnings in the theatre as a radio actor in Manhattan , working with many actors who later formed the core of his Mercury Theatre on programs including America's Hour , Cavalcade of America , Columbia Workshop and The March of Time . "Within
2730-946: The Gate Theatre in Dublin and claimed he was a Broadway star. The manager of the Gate, Hilton Edwards , later said he had not believed him but was impressed by his brashness and an impassioned audition he gave. Welles made his stage debut at the Gate Theatre on October 13, 1931, appearing in Ashley Dukes 's adaptation of Jud Süß as Duke Karl Alexander of Württemberg. He performed small supporting roles in subsequent Gate productions, and he produced and designed productions of his own in Dublin. In March 1932, Welles performed in W. Somerset Maugham 's The Circle at Dublin's Abbey Theatre and traveled to London to find additional work in
2835-820: The Golden Lion in 1947, the Palme D'Or in 1952, the Academy Honorary Award in 1970, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1975, and the British Film Institute Fellowship in 1983. In 2002, he was voted the greatest film director of all time in two British Film Institute polls among directors and critics. In 2018, he was included in the list of the 50 greatest Hollywood actors of all time by The Daily Telegraph . Micheál Mac Liammóir , who worked with
2940-589: The Great Depression . It was created as a relief measure to employ artists, writers, directors and theatre workers. Under national director Hallie Flanagan it was shaped into a truly national theatre that created relevant art, encouraged experimentation and innovation, and made it possible for millions of Americans to see live theatre for the first time. John Houseman , director of the Negro Theatre Unit in New York, invited Welles to join
3045-881: The greatest films ever made . He directed twelve other features, the most acclaimed of which include The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), The Stranger (1946), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Touch of Evil (1958), The Trial (1962), Chimes at Midnight (1966), and F for Fake (1973). Welles also had roles in other directors' films, notably Rochester in Jane Eyre (1943), Harry Lime in The Third Man (1949), and Cardinal Wolsey in A Man for All Seasons (1966). His distinctive directorial style featured layered and nonlinear narrative forms, dramatic lighting, unusual camera angles, sound techniques borrowed from radio, deep focus shots and long takes . He has been praised as "the ultimate auteur " . Welles
3150-519: The 16-year-old Welles on the stage in Dublin and later played Iago in his film Othello , wrote that "Orson's courage, like everything else about him, imagination, egotism, generosity, ruthlessness, forbearance, impatience, sensitivity, grossness and vision is magnificently out of proportion." George Orson Welles was born May 6, 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin , a son of Richard Head Welles and Beatrice Ives Welles ( née Beatrice Lucy Ives). He
3255-677: The Air made its last broadcast on December 4, 1938, and The Campbell Playhouse began five days later. Welles began commuting from California to New York for the two Sunday broadcasts of The Campbell Playhouse after signing a film contract with RKO Pictures in August 1939. In November 1939, production of the show moved from New York to Los Angeles. After 20 shows, Campbell began to exercise more creative control and had complete control over story selection. As his contract with Campbell came to an end, Welles chose not to sign on for another season. After
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3360-597: The Air —through actor-director Paul Stewart , who introduced him to director Knowles Entrikin. That summer, Welles staged a drama festival with the Todd School at the Opera House in Woodstock, Illinois, inviting Micheál Mac Liammóir and Hilton Edwards from Dublin's Gate Theatre to appear along with New York stage luminaries in productions including Trilby , Hamlet , The Drunkard and Tsar Paul . At
3465-779: The Committee in August 1958, but it was in March 1960 that he reluctantly made the flight to Washington D.C. to appear before the Committee. He there admitted his associations with the Communist Party, and of distancing himself from the Party after the war, such that some left-wing friends saw him as a renegade. At this late stage, with the blacklist beginning to collapse, all of those named were already blacklisted. Yet some of his fellow American exiles were not impressed by his action, which allowed him to direct Mysterious Island (1961), at
3570-708: The Far East. When they returned, they settled in a hotel in Grand Detour, Illinois , that was owned by his father. When the hotel burned down, Welles and his father took to the road again. "During the three years that Orson lived with his father, some observers wondered who took care of whom," wrote biographer Frank Brady. "In some ways, he was never really a young boy, you know," said Roger Hill, who became Welles's teacher and lifelong friend. Welles briefly attended public school in Madison, Wisconsin, enrolled in
3675-452: The Federal Theatre Project in 1935. Far from unemployed—"I was so employed I forgot how to sleep"—Welles put a large share of his $ 1,500-a-week radio earnings into his stage productions, bypassing administrative red tape and mounting the projects more quickly and professionally. " Roosevelt once said that I was the only operator in history who ever illegally siphoned money into a Washington project," Welles said. The Federal Theatre Project
3780-648: The King of the Zulus at the time. Caine has long recalled that it took an American to give this working-class actor the chance to play a British officer role. His acting career never looked back. The resulting film uses the epic scenery of the Drakensberg Mountains and the Royal National Park, establishing the beleaguered colonial garrison and then elegantly depicting the hour-long battle. For all
3885-623: The Lithuanian-born pianist-composer Leopold Godowsky . She played during lectures by Dudley Crafts Watson at the Art Institute of Chicago to support her son and herself. As a boy, Welles received piano and violin lessons arranged by his mother. The older Welles boy, "Dickie", was institutionalized at an early age because he had learning difficulties. Beatrice died of hepatitis in a Chicago hospital on May 10, 1924, just after Welles's ninth birthday. The Gordon String Quartet,
3990-620: The Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in 1992, where he was awarded the festival’s Silver Medallion and was interviewed by National Public Radio’s Howie Movshowitz about The Sound of Fury , Zulu and the effect of the blacklist. In 1989 and 1992 Endfield also gave interviews to Brian Neve, talking at length, in particular about his American work and the blacklist. Since Endfield’s death in Shipston-on Stour, in
4095-499: The UCLA film & television archive. His later work also received further discussion. Sheldon Hall wrote a major examination of Zulu , a film that was given a 50th anniversary showing in London in 2014. Critic Nick Pinkerton celebrated the range of Endfield’s cinematic achievement in a 2015 piece that concluded: "He had done a great deal in cinema, but late in life he rued the fact that he hadn’t done more – as should we, for there
4200-603: The UK, having remarried in March 1956, to the model, Mo Forshaw. Yet Endfield’s career remained something of a struggle, and the blacklist still prevented him being considered for international productions, with American finance. It was in 1960, when he was offered the direction of Mysterious Island by Columbia Pictures, that he decided that he needed to clear himself by appearing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in Washington. Endfield had written to
4305-431: The UK, on April 16, 1995 (aged 80), a number of writers have continued to explore political and other aspects of film noir, and to credit his contribution. James Naremore , in his survey of film noir and its contexts, highlights The Sound of Fury : "… the film’s lynch-mob sequences are profoundly unsettling, and the story as a whole is such a thoroughgoing indictment of capitalism and liberal complacency that it transcends
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4410-680: The Welles unit at RKO. The director recalled Cotten’s comment after the showing: ‘Cy, we’ve both grown up in the same country, but I’m telling you, the America you know is not the America that I know.’ To the director this reaction indicated how such a film could be viewed in the febrile atmosphere of the Cold War. The critic Manny Farber also saw the film in these terms, describing it as ‘an ominous snarl at American life.’ Endfield talked to theatre managers who reported that some patrons had complained that
4515-627: The [American] theater", Lloyd said of Welles in a 2014 interview. "When you saw a Welles production, you saw the text had been affected, the staging was remarkable, the sets were unusual, music, sound, lighting, a totality of everything. We had not had such a man in our theater. He was the first and remains the greatest." The Mercury Theatre opened November 11, 1937, with Caesar , Welles's modern-dress adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar —streamlined into an anti-fascist tour de force that Joseph Cotten later described as "so vigorous, so contemporary that it set Broadway on its ear." The set
4620-553: The ameliorative limits of the social problem picture." Glen Erickson and others have referred to the prescience of The Sound of Fury , with its frightening depiction of populist anger. A book-length treatment of Endfield’s life and work was published in 2015. Since then there have been several retrospectives of the director’s work, notably at Anthology Film Archives in New York City, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and
4725-702: The books, while onboard ship. After landing at Morocco, he stayed as the guest of Thami El Glaoui , in the Atlas mountains surrounding Tangier , while working on thousands of illustrations for the Everybody's Shakespeare series of educational books, a series that remained in print for decades. In 1933, Hortense and Roger Hill invited Welles to a party in Chicago , where Welles met Thornton Wilder . Wilder arranged for Welles to meet Alexander Woollcott in New York in order that he be introduced to Katharine Cornell , who
4830-568: The bride's godmother. Welles wore a cutaway borrowed from his friend George Macready . A revised production of Katharine Cornell's Romeo and Juliet opened December 20, 1934, at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York. The Broadway production brought the 19-year-old Welles to the notice of John Houseman , a theatrical producer who was casting the lead role in the debut production of one of Archibald MacLeish 's verse plays, Panic . On March 22, 1935, Welles made his debut on
4935-464: The broadcast of March 31, 1940, Welles and Campbell parted amicably. RKO Radio Pictures president George Schaefer eventually offered Welles what generally is considered the greatest contract offered to a filmmaker, much less to one who was untried. Engaging him to write, produce, direct and perform in two motion pictures, the contract subordinated the studio's financial interests to Welles's creative control, and broke all precedent by granting Welles
5040-453: The cast, Welles primarily used actors from his Mercury Theatre. Filming Citizen Kane took ten weeks. Welles called Toland "the greatest gift any director—young or old—could ever, ever have. And he never tried to impress on us that he was performing miracles. He just went ahead and performed them. I was calling on him to do things only a beginner could be ignorant enough to think anybody could ever do, and there he was, doing them." The film
5145-490: The children of the Aga Khan , including the 12-year-old Prince Aly Khan . Then, in what Welles later described as "a hectic period" in his life, he lived in a Chicago apartment with both his father and Maurice Bernstein, a Chicago physician who had been a close friend of both his parents. Welles briefly attended public school before his alcoholic father left business altogether and took him along on his travels to Jamaica and
5250-417: The combination was reported as fact around the world and disparagingly mentioned by Adolf Hitler in a public speech. Welles's growing fame drew Hollywood offers, lures that the independent-minded Welles resisted at first. The Mercury Theatre on the Air , which had been a sustaining show (without sponsorship), was picked up by Campbell Soup and renamed The Campbell Playhouse . The Mercury Theatre on
5355-415: The controversial labor opera The Cradle Will Rock in 1937. He and John Houseman then founded the Mercury Theatre , an independent repertory theatre company that presented a series of productions on Broadway through 1941, including a modern, politically charged Caesar (1937). In 1938, his radio anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air gave Welles the platform to find international fame as
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#17327809420875460-431: The director and narrator of a radio adaptation of H. G. Wells 's novel The War of the Worlds , which caused some listeners to believe that a Martian invasion was in fact occurring. The event rocketed 23-year-old Welles to notoriety. His first film was Citizen Kane (1941), which he co-wrote , produced, directed, and starred in as the title character, Charles Foster Kane . It has been consistently ranked as one of
5565-444: The end of 1951. He is particularly known for The Sound of Fury / Try and Get Me! (1950), Hell Drivers (1957) and Zulu (1964). Cyril Endfield was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on November 10, 1914, the first of three children. His parents were first generation Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe; his father ran a fur business. A bright boy, Cyril developed an early interest both in chess and sleight-of-hand card magic, publishing
5670-527: The fall of 1936 Welles adapted and performed Hamlet in an early two-part episode of CBS Radio 's Columbia Workshop . His performance as the announcer in the series' April 1937 presentation of Archibald MacLeish 's verse drama The Fall of the City was an important development in his radio career and made the 21-year-old Welles an overnight star. In July 1937, the Mutual Network gave Welles
5775-567: The fifties he was in demand, and gave presentations, including at the Magic Circle, while he maintained friendships with other exponents of card magic, including Dai Vernon, as well as with scientists with an interest in card magic and issues of probability. A book of Endfield’s card magic was published in Britain in 1955, while in 1959 he appeared on a BBC programme on contemporary magic, along with Vernon and (Tony) Slydini. Endfield maintained
5880-518: The film industry union, the Association of Cinematograph Technicians (ACT), as well as the reluctance of American distributors to handle films that carried the names of those blacklisted. Such films included The Limping Man (1953) and Impulse (1955), while for The Master Plan (1955) Endfield was credited as Hugh Raker. The director’s credit for The Secret (1955), and Child in the House (1956)
5985-484: The film was ‘un-American’, at a time when Americans were fighting and dying in Korea. Early in his time in London Endfield worked without credit for the American producer Hannah Weinstein, directing three pilot episodes for a television series called Colonel March Investigates , with Boris Karloff. His other films were directed anonymously, with another director – Charles de la Tour – often being credited, and being paid to stand by on set. This partly reflected then rules of
6090-432: The film) eventually achieved financing from Joseph Levine, as well as from Paramount. The resulting film was a huge success in Britain and has remained one of the most popular of British war films. It was Endfield who took a chance on inexperienced 30-year-old actor Michael Caine to play (opposite Baker) one of the two British officers, and personally engaged the then Zulu chief, Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi to play Cetshwayo,
6195-463: The film?’ Endfield had a range of interests that crossed the traditional ‘two cultures’ of British life. First and foremost, he had a life-long passion for close-up, sleight of hand magic, particularly involving card manipulations. As a youngster in Scranton he gave demonstrations and published tricks for the magic fraternity, while in New York in the late thirties, and in Los Angeles in the forties he designed popular magic acts. When he came to London in
6300-613: The first-draft screenplay under the supervision of John Houseman . Welles wrote his own draft, then drastically condensed and rearranged both versions and added scenes of his own. The industry accused Welles of underplaying Mankiewicz's contribution to the script, but Welles countered the attacks by saying, "At the end, naturally, I was the one making the picture, after all—who had to make the decisions. I used what I wanted of Mank's and, rightly or wrongly, kept what I liked of my own." Welles's project attracted some of Hollywood's best technicians, including cinematographer Gregg Toland . For
6405-707: The fourth grade. On September 15, 1926, he entered the Todd Seminary for Boys , an expensive independent school in Woodstock, Illinois , that his older brother, Richard Ives Welles, had attended ten years before until he was expelled for misbehavior. At Todd School, Welles came under the influence of Roger Hill, a teacher who was later Todd's headmaster. Hill provided Welles with an ad hoc educational environment that proved invaluable to his creative experience, allowing Welles to concentrate on subjects that interested him. Welles performed and staged theatrical experiments and productions there. "Todd provided Welles with many valuable experiences," wrote critic Richard France. "He
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#17327809420876510-455: The independent company Robert Stillman Productions (distributed by United Artists), at the end of the year. He described both films as ‘nervous A’ pictures, meaning that they had a budget of around $ 500,000. Their cost was beyond that of a B-picture, but still well short of that of ‘A’ pictures. This was a step up for directors such as Endfield, and followed in the tradition of the successful pictures associated with rising producer Stanley Kramer in
6615-415: The lack of historical context, and developed characters on the Zulu side, the film avoids jingoism, and presents the British officers as having a final sense of self-disgust at their survival. Despite this success, Endfield struggled in the following years, as American financing for British projects became scarcer. His last film as a director was Universal Soldier (1971), with George Lazenby, while he wrote
6720-492: The late 1930s, and in Hollywood in 1943). Endfield was called to testify and, while he was reluctant to plead the Fifth Amendment before the Committee, he found the option of ‘naming names’, so as to clear himself for further Hollywood film work, to be unacceptable. He made a hurried settlement with his wife, with whom he had separated, and sailed for England on the Queen Mary in December 1951. He slowly re-established his filmmaking career in London. He later commented: Endfield
6825-431: The late forties, notably Champion (1949) and Home of the Brave (1949). Both the 1950 films, and particularly the second, came to be seen as film noirs, to use the term then being applied by critics to a series of American crime films that were released in France after the war. The success of The Underworld Story led to the effort by new producer Robert Stillman to set up The Sound of Fury ( Try and Get Me! ), based on
6930-456: The lead role. Welles conceived the project with screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz , who was writing radio plays for The Campbell Playhouse . Mankiewicz based the original outline of the film script on the life of William Randolph Hearst , whom he knew and came to hate after being exiled from Hearst's circle. After agreeing on the storyline and character, Welles supplied Mankiewicz with 300 pages of notes and put him under contract to write
7035-420: The leftist New Theatre League, supporting himself by taking acting jobs and contributing magic acts to new theatre movement revues. At age 23 he joined the League as a teacher, before spending a year directing an amateur theatre group in Montreal, where he met writers and playwrights including – briefly – Clifford Odets. It was also here that he married actress Fanny Shurack (stage name Osborne). In 1940, with
7140-435: The million-dollar epics.’ After the film’s UK release, Gavin Lambert reviewed it in the British Film Institute (BFI)’s Monthly Film Bulletin . Lambert referred to the film's remarkable ‘characterisation and the handling of the drama’ – ‘at times reaching a complexity rare in films of this type.’ (Lambert, with Lindsay Anderson , had founded the influential post-war British film magazine Sequence .) Endfield himself wrote
7245-413: The most part, however, Welles was singularly generous to the other members of his cast and inspired loyalty from them above and beyond the call of professionalism." That September, Mutual chose Welles to play Lamont Cranston, also known as The Shadow . He performed the role through mid-September 1938. After the theatrical successes of the Mercury Theatre , CBS Radio invited Orson Welles to create
7350-445: The negative and existing prints of the film. While waiting for Citizen Kane to be released, Welles produced and directed the original Broadway production of Native Son , a drama written by Paul Green and Richard Wright based on Wright's novel . Starring Canada Lee , the show ran March 24 – June 28, 1941, at the St. James Theatre . The Mercury Production was the last time Welles and Houseman worked together. Citizen Kane
7455-416: The news bulletin form of the performance with the between-breaks dial-spinning habits of listeners was later reported to have created widespread confusion among listeners who failed to hear the introduction, although the extent of this confusion has come into question. Panic was reportedly spread among listeners who believed the fictional news reports of a Martian invasion. The myth of the result created by
7560-553: The night before," said Lloyd. Beginning January 1, 1938, Caesar was performed in repertory with The Shoemaker's Holiday ; both productions moved to the larger National Theatre . They were followed by Heartbreak House (April 29, 1938) and Danton's Death (November 5, 1938). As well as being presented in a pared-down oratorio version at the Mercury Theatre on Sunday nights in December 1937, The Cradle Will Rock
7665-531: The old firehouse in Woodstock, he also shot his first film, an eight-minute short titled The Hearts of Age . On November 14, 1934, Welles married Chicago socialite and actress Virginia Nicolson (often misspelled "Nicholson") in a civil ceremony in New York. To appease the Nicolsons, who were furious at the couple's elopement, a formal ceremony took place December 23, 1934, at the New Jersey mansion of
7770-425: The participation of the union members, The Cradle Will Rock began with Blitzstein introducing the show and playing the piano accompaniment on stage with some cast members performing from the audience. This impromptu performance was well received by its audience. Breaking with the Federal Theatre Project in 1937, Welles and Houseman founded their own repertory company, which they called the Mercury Theatre. The name
7875-419: The place he eventually named when he was asked in a 1960 interview, "Where is home?" Welles replied, "I suppose it's Woodstock, Illinois, if it's anywhere. I went to school there for four years. If I try to think of a home, it's that." After his father's death, Welles traveled to Europe using a small portion of his inheritance. Welles said that while on a walking and painting trip through Ireland, he strode into
7980-584: The production opened April 21, 1937, and ran its scheduled three performances. In 1937, Welles rehearsed Marc Blitzstein 's political opera, The Cradle Will Rock . It was originally scheduled to open June 16, 1937, in its first public preview. Because of cutbacks in the WPA projects, the show's premiere at the Maxine Elliott Theatre was canceled. The theater was locked and guarded to prevent any government-purchased materials from being used for
8085-582: The release of two well-received crime features, The Underworld Story and The Sound of Fury ( Try and Get Me! ). In 1951 Endfield found his career derailed as a result of hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities . Screenwriter Martin Berkeley named him in September 1951 as known to have been involved with left wing political associations (at the New Theatre League in New York in
8190-418: The right of final cut. After signing a summary agreement with RKO on July 22, Welles signed a full-length 63-page contract August 21, 1939. The agreement was bitterly resented by the Hollywood studios and persistently mocked in the trade press. RKO rejected Welles's first two movie proposals, but agreed on the third offer— Citizen Kane . Welles co-wrote, produced and directed the film, and he performed
8295-402: The screenplay (with Anthony Storey) for Zulu Dawn (d. Douglas Hickox, 1979), and a novel with the same title (also 1979). The science fiction writer Brian Aldiss, who worked on several unrealised projects with the director, made his own comment: ‘I admired Cy. He never had another success like Zulu . But then, how many people could have achieved the sheer organisation and artistry that went into
8400-752: The setting to a mythical island suggesting the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe , with Haitian vodou fulfilling the role of Scottish witchcraft . The play opened April 14, 1936, at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem and was received rapturously. At 20, Welles was hailed as a prodigy. The production then made a 4,000-mile national tour that included two weeks at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas. Next mounted
8505-497: The social analysis of his Hollywood The Sound of Fury , their harsh energy is exhilarating and disturbing." In addition, Thom Andersen, in 1985, first drew attention to a group of post-war film noirs that were particularly sensitive to social and political issues. He listed thirteen examples, released between 1947 and 1951, including films directed by Robert Rossen, Abraham Polonsky , Jules Dassin , John Huston , Joseph Losey and Cy Endfield. Andersen described The Sound of Fury as
8610-459: The story was a powerful one of a decent, family man (Lovejoy) whose desperation for work leads to an ill-fated, criminal alliance with a psychopath (Bridges). The climax, in which a mob invades a prison where the two criminals are being kept, had a particularly strong impact on critics. Endfield arranged a private showing of The Sound of Fury for friends and associates. In the audience was the actor Joseph Cotten, who Endfield had got to know well at
8715-465: The theatre. Unable to obtain a work permit, he returned to the U.S. Welles found his fame ephemeral and turned to a writing project at Todd School that became immensely successful, first entitled Everybody's Shakespeare , for the first three volumes, and subsequently, The Mercury Shakespeare . In Spring 1933, Welles traveled via the SS Exermont , a tramp steamer, writing the introduction for
8820-586: The time of the rationale for the film, and for the Rank film that followed, Sea Fury (1958), seeing both as drawing inspiration from Hollywood dramas of working-class life. The Sunday Times review referred to ‘a pace and muscular command of violent action uncommon in British cinema,’ while another critic, referencing Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 film The Wages of Fear ( Le salaire de la peur ), wrote of ‘a British Wages of Fear ’. Sea Fury drew on similar aspects of
8925-410: The value to the country (as it slowly emerged from austerity) of the employment and dollar investment that the filmmaker began to attract. Endfield was one of a number of American filmmakers with left-wing associations who moved to Europe in the early fifties because of the blacklist (notably Joseph Losey, John Berry, Jules Dassin, and Carl Foreman). His stay in the UK was gradually extended, and he made
9030-478: The world of work, in this case following the efforts of men on salvage boats off the coast of Spain; the action sequences attracted particular critical attention. Yet neither film was successful internationally, and in the late fifties Endfield become discouraged by the lack of opportunities in the industry. Several film projects collapsed, including adaptations of Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop , and Mary Webb’s Precious Bane , although he did direct Mysterious Island (1961),
9135-488: The world while still being appreciated by a popular audience. Late in his life Endfield referred to the upheavals in his life, and notably the lost opportunities attendant on his unplanned move to the UK. But he had also received critical recognition there: Raymond Durgnat, a highly respected writer on British cinema, wrote positively of Endfield’s work in his A Mirror for England (1970). He noted that: "… even if Cy Endfield’s Hell Drivers (1957) and Sea Fury (1958) lack
9240-490: Was 37 when he began his new life in the UK, and it was a struggle to get work both in theatre and film. The British security services took a close interest, and for a time there was a real possibility of him being sent back to the United States. His FBI and Home Office files reveal something of this struggle. Only slowly, as he found film work (and some work in the theatre), did the Board of Trade become more sympathetic, recognising
9345-514: Was C. Raker Endfield, although the latter film still saw la Tour standing by. There are some resonances of the blacklist experience in The Secret (with Sam Wanamaker) and in Child of the House , the first of Endfield’s films with Stanley Baker. Hell Drivers (1957) was a breakthrough in terms of scale and ambition; it was successful in the UK and has attained a cult reputation. The subject, from
9450-469: Was able to explore and experiment in an atmosphere of acceptance and encouragement. In addition to a theatre, the school's own radio station was at his disposal." Welles's first radio experience was on the Todd station, where he performed an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes that was written by him. On December 28, 1930, when Welles was 15, his father died of heart and kidney failure at the age of 58, alone in
9555-500: Was an American director, actor, writer, and producer who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time. At age 21, Welles was directing high-profile stage productions for the Federal Theatre Project in New York City—starting with a celebrated 1936 adaptation of Macbeth with an African-American cast, and ending with
9660-478: Was an outsider to the studio system and struggled for creative control on his projects early on with the major film studios in Hollywood and later in life with a variety of independent financiers across Europe, where he spent most of his career. Many of his films were either heavily edited or remained unreleased. Welles received an Academy Award and three Grammy Awards among other numerous honors such as
9765-591: Was assembling a theatre company for a seven-month transcontinental repertory tour . Cornell's husband, director Guthrie McClintic , immediately put Welles under contract and cast him in three plays. Romeo and Juliet , The Barretts of Wimpole Street and Candida began touring in repertory in November 1933, with the first of more than 200 performances taking place in Buffalo, New York. In 1934, Welles got his first job on radio—with The American School of
9870-659: Was at the Windsor Theatre for 13 weeks (January 4 – April 2, 1938). Such was the success of the Mercury Theatre that Welles appeared on the cover of Time magazine, in full makeup as Captain Shotover in Heartbreak House , in the issue dated May 9, 1938—three days after his 23rd birthday. Simultaneously with his work in the theatre, Welles worked extensively in radio as an actor, writer, director and producer, often without credit. Between 1935 and 1937 he
9975-479: Was completely open with no curtain, and the brick stage wall was painted dark red. Scene changes were achieved by lighting alone. On the stage was a series of risers; squares were cut into one at intervals and lights, designed by Jean Rosenthal , were set beneath it, pointing straight up to evoke the " cathedral of light " at the Nuremberg Rallies . "He staged it like a political melodrama that happened
10080-478: Was earning as much as $ 2,000 a week, shuttling between radio studios at such a pace that he would arrive barely in time for a quick scan of his lines before he was on the air. While he was directing the Voodoo Macbeth Welles was dashing between Harlem and midtown Manhattan three times a day to meet his radio commitments. In addition to continuing as a repertory player on The March of Time , in
10185-601: Was essentially an early form of word processor. He worked with Chris Rainey on the device on which text could be inputted and subsequently connected to a printer. In the early 1980s the finished product, the Microwriter , was sold around the world with (for a time) some success. A related personal organiser led to Endfield and his collaborators receiving a British Design Award in 1990. Cy Endfield died in 1995 in Shipston-on-Stour , Warwickshire, England, age 80. He
10290-659: Was given a limited release and the film received overwhelming critical praise. It was voted the best picture of 1941 by the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle . The film garnered nine Academy Award nominations but won only for Best Original Screenplay , shared by Mankiewicz and Welles. Variety reported that block voting by screen extras deprived Citizen Kane of Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor (Welles), and similar prejudices were likely to have been responsible for
10395-462: Was inspired by the title of the iconoclastic magazine The American Mercury . Welles was executive producer, and the original company included such actors as Joseph Cotten , George Coulouris , Geraldine Fitzgerald , Arlene Francis , Martin Gabel , John Hoyt , Norman Lloyd , Vincent Price , Stefan Schnabel and Hiram Sherman . "I think he was the greatest directorial talent we've ever had in
10500-595: Was marketed to commemorate the World Championship match between Bobby Fischer of the United States and Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, in Reykjavik in 1972. In 2021 there was a renewed interest in developing a miniature chess set based on Endfield’s design. Also, in the late 1970s and into the 1980s, Endfield became intensely interested in devising, financing and marketing a hand-held mechanism that
10605-433: Was named after one of his great-grandfathers, influential Kenosha attorney Orson S. Head , and his brother George Head. Despite his family's affluence, Welles encountered hardship in childhood when his parents separated and moved to Chicago in 1919. His father, who made a fortune as the inventor of a popular bicycle lamp, became an alcoholic and stopped working. Welles's mother was a concert pianist who had studied with
10710-430: Was scored by Bernard Herrmann , who had worked with Welles in radio. Welles said he worked with Hermann on the score "very intimately." Hearst's newspapers barred all reference to Citizen Kane and exerted enormous pressure on the Hollywood film community to force RKO to shelve the film. RKO chief George Schaefer received a cash offer from MGM 's Louis B. Mayer and other major studio executives if he would destroy
10815-461: Was the farce Horse Eats Hat , an adaptation by Welles and Edwin Denby of The Italian Straw Hat , an 1851 five-act farce by Eugène Marin Labiche and Marc-Michel . The play was presented September 26 – December 5, 1936, at Maxine Elliott's Theatre , New York, and featured Joseph Cotten in his first starring role. It was followed by an adaptation of Dr. Faustus that used light as
10920-489: Was the ideal environment in which Welles could develop his art. Its purpose was employment, so he was able to hire any number of artists, craftsmen and technicians, and he filled the stage with performers. The company for the first production, an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth with an entirely African-American cast, numbered 150. The production became known as the Voodoo Macbeth because Welles changed
11025-584: Was ‘rather lackadaisical’ (his own description in a letter to Jarrico), although he read widely, and developed an extra-curricular interest in new science fiction. Much of his time in New Haven was devoted to the intertwined worlds of theatre and radical politics: he joined the local Unity Theatre and was an active member of the Young Communist League. Rather than graduate, Endfield left Yale in early 1936, moving to New York and taking classes at
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