A whirling dervish of a film that starts with an epic four minute tracking shot and then literally explodes into a frenetic firework of cutting, camera moves, grotesque scenes and performances, an overheated Latino score (Mancini) and overlapping dialogue ad extremis. And a sensational turn by Marlene Dietrich at her most world-weary - "Your future is all used up."
Joseph Cotten's in it? Where? Q spotted Zsa Zsa Gabor, I don't know how. With Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Akim Tamiroff, Joseph Calleia, Joanna Moore, Ray Collins, Valentin de Vargas, Dennis Weaver, Mercedes McCambridge. Must have been weird being directed by Orson when's he's in all his makeup and getup.
There's a sequence of Heston and Mort Mills driving at speed through the streets that is just like no other - camera mounted at the front. Russell Metty shoots the whole thing brilliantly, whether a sweaty close up or one of his trademark sweeping crane shots. Those silhouettes all over the place are also brilliant. Orson is using a 'snip-frame' technique in which he's cutting every other frame out of a shot to speed it up, e.g. zoom when car explodes.
And - Psycho all over the place - Janet Leigh alone in motel where 'we don't get much passing trade since they closed down the motorway' - Mort Mills is only the traffic cop who wakes her up! -!¬
The restoration was supervised by Walter Murch.
Originally cut by Welles and Virgil Vogel, recut at the studio's insistence by Ernest Nims. Camera operators are John Russell (" a great camera operator - one of the last great ones") and Philip Lathrop, but Welles also gives much credit to the grip, steadying the camera on its rails.
The long take that no one ever notices was where they 'find' the dynamite in the boy's apartment. It was the first thing filmed. They rehearsed all day, then at ten to six filmed it - twelve pages of script in one shot.
Leigh's brilliant. And Heston was apparently 'the nicest, nicest man' (quotes from 'This Is Orson Welles' by Peter Bogdanovich).
Something about the film (the black comedy?) so upset Universal that when he arrived to the studio one day, he simply wasn't allowed in. The film was taken away from him and he never made another studio picture.
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