- One Man Band (Orson Welles film)
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One Man Band
aka London
aka Swinging London
aka Orson's BagDirected by Orson Welles Written by Orson Welles Starring Orson Welles
Tim Brooke-Taylor
Charles Gray
Jonathan Lynn
Oja KodarCinematography Gary Graver
Tomislav Pinter
Ivica Rajkovic
Giorgio TontiRunning time 29 min Country United States
One Man Band, also known as London and Swinging London is an unfinished short film made by Orson Welles between 1968 and 1971. The film started life as a TV special for CBS, entitled Orson's Bag and consisting of assorted sketches around Europe; but after this was abandoned, Welles continued to fashion the footage in his own style.
Contents
Segments
The film consists of five segments, all of them comic: Churchill, Swinging London, Four Clubmen, Stately Homes and Tailors.
1. Churchill
The first segment is filmed entirely in silhouette. Welles plays Winston Churchill fielding press questions and then exchanging bon mots with Nancy Astor (Oja Kodar). Each line spoken by Churchill is a well-known witticism commonly attributed to him.
2. Swinging London
The longest segment of the film (9 mins) has a bowler-hatted reporter (Tim Brooke-Taylor) wandering through "Swinging London", searching for Carnaby Street with limited success. Most of the supporting roles are played by Welles in a variety of disguises: a British policeman, a Morris dancer, an old lady selling "dirty postcards", a Chinaman luring customers into a strip club, and the omnipresent one-man band. This segment is noteworthy for what reviewers have called its "Pythonesque" style[1] - which is significant as it was filmed before Monty Python's Flying Circus first aired in October 1969.
3. Four Clubmen
Apart from Welles' introduction, the soundtrack has been lost for this segment. It is set in a London club in which Welles plays four different members, all under heavy make-up, plus a noisy waiter who drops things.
4. Stately Homes
This segment features Welles as a journalist wandering around the stately home of Lord Plumfield. Welles also plays the eccentric, penniless Lord Plumfield. Tim Brooke-Taylor has a cameo as Plumfield's son.
5. Tailors
Welles plays a shy American tourist being measured by two rude English tailors (Charles Gray and Jonathan Lynn) who are dismissive of his ignorance of tailoring, and keep mocking his weight.
Production
The bulk of filming was completed in 1968-9, although assorted linking narrations and inserts were filmed by Welles in 1971. The 1971 sequences are noticeable because Welles had grown a long beard by then, whereas he was clean-shaven in all the parts he played in 1968-9. The film was left unfinished in Welles' lifetime.
After Welles' death in 1985, all of his unfinished films were bequeathed to his long-term companion and mistress Oja Kodar, and she in turn donated many of them (including One Man Band) to the Munich Film Museum for preservation and restoration. In 1999 the Munich Film Museum then edited together the complete footage into a 29-minute cut, which has subsequently been screened at numerous film festivals.
The full restored footage has never been released on video or DVD, although an unrestored print is used in Vassili Slovic's 1995 documentary Orson Welles: the One Man Band, which includes the segments Churchill, Stately Homes and Tailors in their entirety, as well as clips from Four Clubmen and One Man Band.
The non-London segments of Orson's Bag were edited by the Munich Film Museum into the 9 minute short Vienna.
Cast
- Orson Welles as Presenter / Winston Churchill / One-man band / Policeman / Morris dancer / Old lady / Chinaman / Four clubmen / Waiter / Journalist / Lord Plumfield / American tourist
- Tim Brooke-Taylor as Reporter / Young aristocrat
- Charles Gray as Tailor
- Jonathan Lynn as Tailor's Assistant
- Oja Kodar as Nancy Astor
References
External links
Works directed by Orson Welles Filmography · Awards and nominations1940s Citizen Kane (1941) · The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) · The Stranger (1946) · The Lady from Shanghai (1947) · Macbeth (1948)1950s 1960s 1970s Shorts The Hearts of Age (1934) · Too Much Johnson (lost film) (1938) · The Miracle of St. Anne (lost film) (1950) · The Spirit of Charles Lindbergh (1984)Unfinished It's All True (1942) · Don Quixote (1956~69) · Vienna (1968) · The Merchant of Venice (1969) · The Deep (1967~70) · One Man Band, aka London (1968~71) · Moby Dick (1971) · The Other Side of the Wind (1969~76) · Filming 'The Trial' (1981) · The Dreamers (1980~2) · Orson Welles' Magic Show (1976~85)Television Orson Welles' Sketch Book (1955) · Around the World with Orson Welles (1955) · Orson Welles and People (lost) (1956) · The Fountain of Youth (1958) · Portrait of Gina (1958) · In the Land of Don Quixote (1964) · The Orson Welles Show (1979)Theatre Voodoo Macbeth (1936) · Horse Eats Hat (1936) · The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1937) · The Cradle Will Rock (musical) (1937~8) · Caesar (1937~8) · Heartbreak House (1938) · The Shoemaker's Holiday (1938) · Too Much Johnson (1938) · Danton's Death (1938) · Five Kings (Part One) (1939) · Native Son (1941) · The Mercury Wonder Show (1943) · Around the World (musical) (1946) · The Blessed and the Damned (1950) · Othello (1951) · The Lady in the Ice (ballet) (1953) · Moby Dick Rehearsed (1955) · King Lear (1956) · Five Kings (1960) · Rhinoceros (1960)Radio The Shadow (1937~8) · Les Misérables (1937) · The Mercury Theatre on the Air (including The War of the Worlds) (1937~8) · The Campbell Playhouse (1938~40) · Orson Welles Show (1941~2) · Hello Americans (1942~3) · Ceiling Unlimited (1942~3) · Orson Welles Almanac (1944) · This Is My Best (1945) · Orson Welles Theatre (1945) · Orson Welles Commentaries (1945) · The Mercury Summer Theatre (1946) · The Adventures of Harry Lime (1951~2)Categories:- Short film stubs
- 1971 films
- American films
- Avant-garde and experimental films
- Films directed by Orson Welles
- Short films
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