Now I Lay Me Down...

"I was eternally grateful to Harry Cohn for what he did for me, because I had a musical, Around The World In Eighty Days, and I had to open in Boston, I had a lot of costumes waiting in the railway station, which couldn't go from the railway station to the theatre about eight blocks away unless someone paid Brookes Costume Company forty-seven thousand dollars..." 

 Hm. Transcribing even this almost definitely exaggerated anecdote from Orson Welles, it strikes me how meandering and ultimately inconsequential the story behind the making of The Lady From Shanghai is, especially given it was Welles' one onscreen collaboration with both his wife Rita Hayworth, and her longtime harasser, producer Harry Cohn. 

 

 But that's fine, I guess. It's called Show Business, not Show Interesting. Let's finish...

 "I found myself in the box office trying to think of who could send me this money, and I thought: Harry Cohn. I hardly knew him. And I called him up on the long distance phone. I said 'Harry Cohn, this is Orson Welles. I've just read a book –' and I turned a paperback around which the girl had in front of her who was selling tickets and I said 'It's called...' something or other, it wasn't called Lady From Shanghai then – I said: 'Buy it, and I will make it for you if you send me forty-seven thousand dollars in two hours.' And he did." 

 So I guess Around The World In Eighty Days did happen. Actually this is the internet, isn't it, I can check... Okay that's interesting, there's a contemporary recording on youtube (brought to you by "splendind, splendid Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer even in this time of grain restriction") that sounds like Americans doing The Goon Show, which I don't think I like. The video description suggests the show inspired the pretentious flop in Fred Astaire's musical The Band Wagon. Astaire worked a lot with Hayworth... 

 

"Unidentified young starlet" left. Harry Cohn right.

 

 Anyway, ultimately Welles blamed composer Cole Porter for the failure of Around The World In Eighty Days, and film historians blamed Cohn for the failure of the The Lady From Shanghai, as they blame nearly every one of Welles' producers for the messy, unfinished nature of nearly every one of Welles' films. I don't know who they blame for the messy, unfinished nature of Welles' marriage to Hayworth or his political career, but don't get me wrong, I love Welles probably as much as he'd want me to: I love Citizen Kane unreservedly, I love The Trial unreservedly, and I love F for Fake unreservedly, and that's it, but that's more than enough. Joe Dante below also blames Cohn, and he'll know more than I do. He also mentions in his retelling the surprising involvement of William "The Tingler" Castle. But be warned: Rita Hayworth gets slapped in the face in the trailer's closing seconds. And be reminded: I'm playing both Welles and Cohn in the musical The Love Goddess at the Cockpit in a few weeks. Tickets HERE!