Saturday Night At The Movies: CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT

While it's unfortunate that this film is still commercially unavailable in the United States, it's understandable; no self-respecting [much less art-respecting] studio would dare release this film without doing a lot of work on its soundtrack first.

One of the more ironic-tragic aspects to Welles' struggle to make movies outside of the studio system is that, as his visual sense grew even more sophisticated and daring, his soundtracks became more and more of a low-budget crazy quilt instead of the immaculately crafted whole cloth he could craft in Hollywood. The Welles of even THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS era wouldn't dare try to match-cut across time and space the way he would later in Europe -- but casts of non-English speakers and budget/location problems requiring M.O.S. [silent, "mit out sound"] filming resulted in stunning visions and cinematic storytelling with Japanese-monster-movie lip-syncing and the look that a summer intern cut the master negative. I suppose this isn't as big a deal in non-English-speaking countries, which explains why CHIMES has been available available in Europe and Asia for years.

Here's hoping that Criterion is on the case for this film and Welles' buttinski daughter [the one responsible for OTHELLO's score being butchered, and for threatening to sue the pants off any of the other custodians of her father's unfinished work if they actually dare finish the work without her input.] is caught in a bear trap or something, at least until the DVD is released. Until then or the clips are taken offline, here is one of Welles' lost classics, in eleven parts. Enjoy.