One Man Band

One Man Band (1999)

One Man Band (1999) is a posthumous archival reconstruction created by the Munich Film Museum from unfinished footage shot by Orson Welles between 1968 and 1971. The film assembles five comic vignettes—Churchill, Swinging London, Four Clubmen, Stately Homes, and Tailors—originally produced for Welles’s abandoned television project Orson’s Bag. Edited into a 29-minute composite short for festival exhibition, the film represents a curatorial reconstruction rather than a completed work authored or released by Welles. (Note: This is a posthumous archival assembly. The original unfinished project exists separately under the working titles London / Swinging London and was never completed or released by Orson Welles.)

Date of release
1999-10-23
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (2)
Runtime
29m
Genres
Comedy
Director
Orson Welles

Casting

Interesting facts

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 part of a 90-minute TV special for CBS, entitled Orson's Bag, consisting of Welles' 40-minute condensation of The Merchant of Venice, and assorted sketches around Europe. This was abandoned in 1969 when CBS withdrew its funding over Welles' long-running disputes with US authorities regarding his tax status, and Welles continued to fashion the footage in his own style.

Production

In 1969, Orson Welles was in London and got in touch with writer/performers Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden. Brooke-Taylor recalled,

Graeme Garden and I made two series of a sketch show called Broaden Your Mind in 1968 and '69. We were watching the first programme of the second series in Graeme's flat. As it ended Graeme's phone rang. He answered it, said a few words, put the phone down and said: "That was Orson Welles." I remember saying "What a coincidence, I was expecting a call from the Pope." It was Orson. He'd seen some of the first series and got our phone numbers.

The collaboration between Welles and Brooke-Taylor led to both men appearing in the Italian comedy The Thirteen Chairs (a.k.a. 12 + 1).

Of the "Lord Plumfield" sketch, Garden recalled,

Orson did my make up – it was pretty heavy handed! ...To grey up my hair I suggested Meltonian white tennis shoe fluid, which he used. It looked OK but flaked off over my shoulders spectacularly. He was in very jolly form. En route to the location we stopped off at the Dorchester for breakfast. Orson had steak and chips. I went to the loo when we arrived, and came back to the crowded dining room looking for our table.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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