BOOTLEG FILES 930: “Orson Welles at the Magic Castle” (1978 television special starring the Big O).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: The production was considered lost for many years, and its return came via an unauthorized upload.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not unless a restored copy is produced.
Orson Welles is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving. Since his passing in October 1985, a steady stream of long-lost and hitherto-unknown works directed by or involving this extraordinary talent have emerged, offering new insight into his colorful and often erratic output.
Among the most recent rediscoveries of the Welles canon was a 1978 one-hour special called “Orson Welles at the Magic Castle,” which was produced for the short-lived ON TV subscription service. At the time of its debut, ON TV was limited to the Los Angeles area. The production also turned up the same year on Showtime, which also had a relatively limited audience watching its broadcast.
The Magic Castle is a private club in Hollywood operated by the Academy of Magical Arts for magicians and magic enthusiasts. Welles, of course, could claim magician feats among his many talents – and for those of us who recall his talk show and variety show gigs in the 1970s and early 1980s, Welles would often perform magic tricks that either involved cards or telepathy.
In the biography “Orson Welles Remembered,” magician Abb Dickson took credit for this production.
“I picked up the phone, I called Orson, I said, ‘Look, I’ve written this magic special,’” Dickson recalled “I need for you to do the introduction and the in-and-out. It will probably be one day of shooting, at the most two, and I’ve only got, I think, $25,000. Will you shoot this?” And he said, ‘Sure! But I get the extra film.’”
Dickson arranged for Columbia Pay Television to produce the special. Welles and Dickson shot for one day, but on the following day Welles declined to show up to shoot the scenes where he was supposed to be standing outside the Magic Castle to welcome the viewers amid a heavy fog.
Dickson recalled, “Well, Orson called me at about 7 o’clock in the morning and said, ‘I’m not coming. I’ve shot everything they need, you can shoot the rest of it. I’ll send you my wardrobe, but you’re going to have to have a hat made because your head is smaller than mine and my hat won’t fit you.’”
Dickson had a rotund physique that rivaled Welles’ girth, so with a clever use of shadow, fog, and a low camera angle Dickson passed for Welles in the special’s introduction while miming to the great auteur’s pre-recorded lines.
Welles’ appearance in this production is very interesting. When he is on camera to open the show, he is dressed in the theatrical garb that he wore in “F for Fake” and almost seems to be doing a self-parody in his melodramatic line readings. In this case, however, Welles offers his recitation at a somewhat faster pace than his usual sonorous narration speed, as if he was too eager to get through his segment. A fez-wearing Dickson joins him in the special’s opening sequence.
After the opening, Welles is absent for the bulk of the production. Instead, we get a line-up of magicians doing their respective acts for an appreciative audience.
As with any revue-style presentation, the offering is hit and miss. The show gets off to a good start with Dutch performer Peter Pit, who mixes faux-bumbling comedy with his trickery for a fun introduction. Also worth noting is the veteran magician Kuda Bux, an Indian entertainer who specialized in the “X-ray eyes” act of being able to read through thick blindfolding. Abb Dickson returns for a jolly act that previous generation would have referred to as Orientalism. The other acts, to be cruel, aren’t worth mentioning.
For those who patiently sit through the various acts (or fast-forward past them), Welles turns up with the magical tomfoolery that he enacted on several TV specials of that era. His act involves multiple volunteers, sealed messages, picking random names from telephone directories, and the challenge of making great cash payments to anyone who could prove on the spot that he was engaged in chicanery. Unlike the other magicians in this production, Welles did not have a live audience. And whereas Tom Trobvich directed the segments without Welles, the great man himself directed his sequences (which is rather obvious in how the segments were edited).
Seriously, this is not a very interesting endeavor. Only Welles addicts would be interested in it today, and even then it would only be for completist viewing purposes.
“Orson Welles at the Magic Castle” made absolutely no impression when it was first broadcast and it quickly fell out of sight. Indeed, the production disappeared completely from view until it emerged last October via the YouTube channel for the collector-to-collector endeavor called The Museum of Classic Chicago Television which admitted the video was “sourced from a relatively-good Betamax dub.” Whether the original source material exists for this offering is uncertain, nor is it clear who owns the rights to the production.
Until the niceties of the proper ownership of “Orson Welles at the Magic Castle” are sorted out, take an hour to enjoy this entertaining bootleg:
IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.
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