{"id":25470,"date":"2017-06-09T08:38:12","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T12:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=25470"},"modified":"2017-06-09T09:06:41","modified_gmt":"2017-06-09T13:06:41","slug":"the-bootleg-files-orson-welles-frozen-peas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/09\/the-bootleg-files-orson-welles-frozen-peas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: Orson Welles’ Frozen Peas"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 593: <\/strong>\u201cOrson Welles\u2019 Frozen Peas\u201d (1970 audio outtakes of Orson Welles\u2019 tumultuous recording of a series of British TV advertisements).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN: <\/strong>It is on YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> Various tributes to the recordings are on a several home entertainment releases.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: <\/strong>These were never supposed to be publicly released.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Maybe as a special feature.<\/p>\n

Orson Welles is revered today as one of the most innovative and daring artists to work in the cinematic arts. During his lifetime, however, Welles often struggled to gain the respect of his peers whenever he sought funding for his film projects. Having been burned on several occasions by dubious financial backers and business partners, Welles often sought to self-fund his projects. As a result, he appeared in too many film and television projects that were far beneath his talents just for the sake of getting extra money to keep his dreams alive.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In 1970, Welles was hired by the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency to go into a recording studio and narrate a series of British television commercials produced on behalf of the Findus brand of frozen foods. It is not certain whether Welles came to work in a supremely bad mood or whether he was astonished to find himself in an endeavor that he viewed as significant. In any event, Welles roared through the recording session with a mix of bafflement, angst and emotional exhaustion \u2013 and it was all captured on audio tape.<\/p>\n

It appeared that Welles was cold-reading his script while the footage of the commercial was being broadcast on a screen \u2013 and this may have been the start of the problems. The first commercial was for Findus Frozen Peas, and it showed a Lincolnshire farm inexplicably covered in snow during the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know a remote farm in Lincolnshire, where Mrs. Buckley lives,\u201d Welles says in his narration. \u201cEvery July, peas grow there.\u201d At this point, Welles stops and asks the session\u2019s director, \u201cDo you really mean that?\u201d The director answers, \u201cUh, yes, so in other words, I\u2013I\u2013I\u2019d start half a second later.\u201d To which Welles responds, \u201cDon\u2019t you think you really want to say \u2018July\u2019 over the snow? Isn\u2019t that the fun of it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Welles tries again, and the second take is even more difficult than the first. From the audio transcript:<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: We aren\u2019t even in the fields, you see? We\u2019re talking about them growing and she\u2019s picked them. What?<\/p>\n

Director: \u2026in July.<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: I don\u2019t understand you, then. When must\u2013what must be over for \u201cJuly\u201d?<\/p>\n

Director: Uh, when we get out of that snowy field.<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: Well, I was out! We were onto a can of peas, a big dish of peas when I said, \u201cIn July.\u201d<\/p>\n

A second voice \u2013 we don\u2019t know if this is another director or a producer or sound engineer \u2013 asks Welles to emphasize the \u201cin\u201d in \u201cin July.\u201d And that was the match in the fuel tank. \u201cWhy?\u201d bellowed Welles. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t make any sense. Sorry. There\u2019s no known way of saying an English sentence in which you begin a sentence with \u2018in\u2019 and emphasize it. Get me a jury and show me how you can say \u2018in July\u2019 and I\u2019ll\u2026 go down on you. That\u2019s just idiotic, if you\u2019ll forgive me by saying so.\u201d Welles later grumbles about the \u201cbad copy,\u201d adding that \u201cthere\u2019s too much directing around here.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, Welles and his collaborators attempt to record the narration for a commercial highlighting Findus\u2019 frozen fish. The results are no better than the frozen peas effort.<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: \u201cWe know a certain fjord in Norway, near where the cod gather in great shoals. There, Jan Stan\u2013, Stangdilan\u201d\u2026shit!<\/p>\n

Director: A fraction more on the\u2013on that shoals thing, \u2019cause you rolled it round very nicely.<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: Yeah, roll it round and I have no more time. You don\u2019t know what I\u2019m up against. Because it\u2019s full of\u2013of\u2013of things that are only correct because they\u2019re grammatical, but they\u2019re tough on the ear. You see, this is a very wearying one, it\u2019s unpleasant to read. Unrewarding. \u201cBecause Findus freeze the cod at sea and then add a crumb, crisp\u2026\u201d ooh, \u201ccrumb, crisp coating.\u201d<\/p>\n

To his credit, Welles insists that \u201ccrumb, crisp coating\u201d is not \u201cconversationally written,\u201d so the director agrees to remove \u201ccrumb.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a third commercial, Welles prefixes his narration \u201cunder protest\u201d and then \u201cWe know a little place in the American Far West, where Charlie Briggs chops up the finest prairie-fed beef and tastes\u2026This is a lot of shit, you know that?\u201d he complains.<\/p>\n

When the director argues that Welles emphasizes \u201cprairie-fed\u201d rather than \u201cbeef,\u201d he replies, \u201cBut you can\u2019t emphasize beef\u201d \u2013 that\u2019s like he\u2019s wanting me to emphasize \u2018in\u2019 before \u2018July.\u2019 Come on, fellas, you\u2019re losing your heads! I wouldn\u2019t direct any living actor like this in Shakespeare! Will you do this? It\u2019s impossible!\u201d<\/p>\n

And then comes the final showdown:<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: The right reading for this is the one I\u2019m giving it!<\/p>\n

Director: For the moment.<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: I spent\u2026 twenty times more for you people than any other commercial I\u2019ve ever made. You are such pests! Now, what is it you want?<\/p>\n

Director: Now, I think\u2026<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: In your depths of your ignorance, what is it you want? Whatever it is you want, I can\u2019t deliver it because I just don\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n

Director: That was absolutely fine, it really was.<\/p>\n

Orson Welles: Here, you\u2026 (crumples script, stands up) This isn\u2019t worth it. No money is worth listening to\u2026<\/p>\n

From there, Welles angrily exits the studio. It is uncertain whether any of his narration ever made it to the three commercials, but the tape of the ill-fated session was preserved. Over the years, it circulated through bootleg audio channels and became known as \u201cFrozen Peas,\u201d in honor of Mrs. Buckley\u2019s July wintertime crop. The first major parody of the recording was an \u201cSCTV\u201d spoof with John Candy as Welles, and other spoofs were seen in a \u201cPinky and a Brain\u201d episode and the animated series \u201cThe Critic.\u201d An animated recreation of the doomed session is a popular YouTube video, while the standalone audio<\/a> is also all over YouTube.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is no likelihood that roughly four minutes of audio outtakes would qualify for a standalone DVD release, but maybe someday the \u201cFrozen Peas\u201d recording will turn up as a special feature on a Welles release. Hey, if \u201cThe Other Side of the Wind\u201d ever gets a DVD send-off, that would be a perfect bit of fun to add to the disc!<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 593: \u201cOrson Welles\u2019 Frozen Peas\u201d (1970 audio outtakes of Orson Welles\u2019 tumultuous recording of a series of British TV advertisements). LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: Various tributes to the recordings are on a several home entertainment releases. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: These were never supposed to be publicly released. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":25471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[1733,1732,1477],"class_list":["post-25470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-bootleg-audio","tag-frozen-peas","tag-orson-welles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25470"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25474,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25470\/revisions\/25474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}