Chimes At Midnight (Orson Welles) Part 4

Chimes at Midnight (aka Falstaff) is a 1965 film directed by Orson Welles based around the character of Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare.
The script contains text from five Shakespeare plays: primarily Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2, but also Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. The film's narration, spoken by Ralph Richardson, is taken from the chronicler Holinshed.

The film was nominated (in 1968) for a BAFTA film award for Welles as Best Foreign Actor. At the Cannes Film Festival Welles was nominated (in 1966) for the Golden Palm Award and won the 20th Anniversary Prize and the Technical Grand Prize. In Spain it won (in 1966) the Citizens Writers Circle Award for Best Film.

Welles held this film in high regard and considered it along with The Trial his best work, he said in 1982 "If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that's the one I'd offer up". Many critics, including Peter Bogdanovich and Jonathan Rosenbaum, also consider it Welles's finest work. The scene depicting the Battle of Shrewsbury has been particularly admired, serving as an inspiration for movies like Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan.

Due to complications concerning the film's ownership, Chimes at Midnight remains unavailable in the United States. It is most readily available as an import DVD from Brazil.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• chimes
• at
• midnight
• orson
• welles
• falstaff
• shakespeare

[levanyzzuf]

"Any man knows where to have me! Thou knave!"

LOL! God bless Margaret Rutherford.

[DJALIPETITA]

amazingggggggggggggggggggggg

[JubalCalif]

Jeanne Moreau was SUCH a hot babe! Hubba hubba to the max, daddy-o !!! :-)

[uclrichard]

this film is brilliant - and it is further dignified - and cultured - by gielgud's astonishing verse-speaking and textual knowledge.

[Boudosaved]

@inrwizards I like The Trial, F for Fake, Touch of Evil and Citizen Kane more.

[kkrocronos]

thanks to thee for Orson Welles. this life would suck even more if he had not rambled around this ole world. Very!!

[inrwizards]

welles greatest (no disrespec to Citizen Kane and Touch Of Evil)

[idiotboxx999]

I pray that one day we will be blessed with full audio and remaster of this masterpiece. But in the meantime, this is good enough. Thank you for the post.

[al1936ful]

When are they going to officially release this on DVD and start selling it at Amazon, so that we don't have to buy it from those Amazon sellers?!?

[Elcore]

Really brings the text to life - still the best film adaption of Shakespeare around. The bad dubbing, I can get over. Thanks so much for posting!

[TheTamHinton]

I repeat. I know that Orson has an idiosyncratic dubbing style (and one sometimes dogged by financial pressures etc.) But this is beyond that.

The soundtrack is uniformly out of synch. It just needs shifting along to match the video.

[ToadmanProductions]

@SWiNETHEA While this is a great movie, the dubbing is notoriously bad, this isn't the fault of the poster.