Don't forget to order your copy of 'Orson Welles Great Mysteries' vol 2 out today featuring 'The Dinner Party' starring Joan....
ORSON WELLES GREAT MYSTERIES VOL 2 from NETWORK OUT NOW!
There’s no doubting Orson Welles’ ability to tell a good story. His 1938 radio dramatisation of The War of the Worlds led to newspapers reporting mass panic, and listeners taken in by the classic Martian invasion being presented as a live broadcast. Three years later, his debut film Citizen Kane contained a one-word pay-off so iconic it would go on to fuel a whole Columbo episode. Even fans of superhero sagas have felt his narrative touch: Welles famously voiced metal demigod Unicron in Transformers: The Movie (1986).
So it’s a major scoop that, in 1973, Anglia TV were able to recruit the filmmaker to host their 26-episode Great Mysteries anthology series. The first thirteen episodes were released by Network last year, and boasted ideas as diverse as Edward Albert and Doctor Who’s Colin Baker as preyed-upon gamblers, Peter Cushing being cuckolded by Susannah York of Superman (1978), and Ian Holm – late of Alien (1979) and the Lord of the Rings saga – as a haunted juror. The second collection doesn’t drop the ball, again scored by Bond composer John Barry, and featuring tales introduced by Welles as a cigar-puffing polymath. Here are some of the highlights.
THE DINNER PARTY ....
At first, it might seem a strange premise for a story in a mysteries anthology: whizz-kid accountant and John Thaw lookalike Anton Rodgers is invited to the big company dinner party. Ostensibly, the evening is about brandies and golfing anecdotes, but it’s actually a cover for pinstriped chairman Anthony Sharp – otherwise known as Alex’s political benefactor in A Clockwork Orange – to assess the calibre of his employee’s wife, and judge whether his executive is suitable for promotion. Joan Collins is dazzling in her role as the pivotal spouse: saying all the wrong things at the dinner table, and turning husbands’ heads in her mass of curls and revealing orange cocktail dress. This is cringe comedy from a time when Ricky Gervais was still in shorts, and as the keen-to-impress couple return to their flat, the true nature of Mr and Mrs Blake’s behaviour is revealed.
(c) Network Distributing Ltd..
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