Orson Welles Great Mysteries: Volume One [DVD]

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This was time when British television was starting to up the ante as far as violence was concerned, and to a lesser extent becoming a bit more daring in regard to sexual content. Orson Welles Great Mysteries is however very subdued in its treatment of such matters. The violence is mostly offscreen. The general approach is low-key. Compared to Brian Clemens’ Thriller anthology series, which began to air at around the same time, it seems rather genteel. This is however part of its charm. It’s content to be subtle and to rely on suggestion. However, the show didn’t really need Welles at all. The episodes – which, once his segments are taken out last maybe 20 minutes each – stand up in their own right. However, Stephen Peart, who was working at a different department at Anglia TV at the time, said the reality of his “disappearance” was more likely simply down to boredom.

An Affair of Honour starring Harry Andrews, Michael Gambon and Jeremy Clyde; script by Carey Harrison; story by F. Britten Austin; directed by Alan Bromly A Terribly Strange Bed starring Edward Albert and Rupert Davies; story by Wilkie Collins; directed by Alan Cooke There’s quite an array of acting talent on view in this series including quite a few who were already major stars (such as Susannah York and Bond girl Jane Seymour). And there are plenty of cult movie stars, like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence. And some good directors, like Peter Sasdy. The series received critical acclaim both on American TV, where it debuted and at home in Britain when it was eventually aired there. Episodes

He may have been one of the world’s greatest and most innovative film-makers, but Orson Welles wasn’t appreciated by Hollywood during his lifetime, so spent much of his career struggling to get the money needed to finance his own projects. The Ingenious Reporter starring Geoffrey Bayldon, Ronald Radd and David Birney; script by Carey Harrison

His visit to Norwich was very, very brief. The show was all footage that had been filmed elsewhere which we bought and just filmed Orson’s parts to introduce them. Network, which released the DVD Orson Welles Great Mysteries Volume 1 in the United Kingdom last year, will release the second and final volume on October 26. Welles' introductory sequence was parodied by Benny Hill (as "Orson Buggy") in an episode of his television program. All episodes were introduced by Orson Welles himself, though, in actuality, the great man provided little more than window dressing. La Grande Breteche is based on story by Balzac. A handsome dashing young Spaniard is a prisoner-of-war of the French during the Napoleonic Wars. As was the custom at the time, being a gentleman of breeding and an officer and having given his word not to escape, he is housed comfortably in an inn and allowed to come and go freely. Nearby in the house known as La Breteche lives the Count Gerard De Merret (Peter Cushing) with his wife. The Countess (played by Susannah York) is much younger than her husband, she is very beautiful and she has a romantic and passionate nature. You can see where such a situation could lead. In fact it leads to a horrifying conclusion. An excellent episode with a very nasty sting in the tail.After the wife of a famous artist is stabbed to death, the police investigate four people connected to the case and present in the building when the murder happened - the artist himself, his gallery manager, his old friend and fellow artist, and the latter's wife. From their recollection emerges the image of a shrewd and manipulative woman, who ingrained herself into the artist's life, destroyed his previous marriage and drove the wife to suicide, and then completely took over his life and financial situation, alienating him from his friends. It seems everyone had a reason to kill her, but perhaps, it wasn't any of them who held the knife... He said: “It was certainly quite a coup to get somebody of his stature to come to Norwich and there was a real buzz around the news. I know people used to call him ‘awesome’ Welles, he was that well thought of. When Sheile Parnell is phoned by her employer and warned that one of the three experts who are arriving to view his collection of valuable old manuscripts has been replaced by a thief, she is worried... and then when call is interrupted and she receives news that her employer has been found dead, she is terrified. But the road is snowed in by a blizzard, and the murderer has cut the phone line, so apart from the curmudgeonly driver who does not believe her story, she has no-one to rely on but herself, as she tries to listen to the three experts talk and find out which one of them could be the murderer... A Spanish officer, captured by the French during the Peninsular War, is imprisoned near the country house of an elderly aristocrat with a bored young wife - whose lover he becomes, with deadly consequences. (Based on a story by Honoré de Balzac While Welles’ sequences have been shot on film and (not altogether successfully) processed onto video, the Mysteries themselves – and they’re really more cautionary tales than mysteries – were all recorded on video in an electronic studio with little or no location filming. Because this method of producing TV drama has been virtually abandoned, the finished result looks more like a stage play than the frenetic, location-heavy drama of television today. But this only adds to the atmosphere, with brilliantly detailed, vintage performances from the actors that could only be accomplished after a week or so’s intensive rehearsal.