Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Loui Blair It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

bkoganbing When one talks of the extravagance that Orson Welles is known for they usually have Othello in mind. When people talk of screen Othellos it's usually the one Laurence Olivier did in 1965 for which he got one of his Oscar nominations. It's good, but it's essentially a photographed stage version.If he didn't have the budget problems he did Welles might have done the acclaimed Othello for the ages. This took over three years of shooting and it's lucky that he was able to hold as much of his cast together as he did. As it was Suzanne Cloutier as Desdemona was a third choice and Michael McLiammor was a second choice after Everett Sloane had to leave for other commitments. Interesting because Sloane was apparently the only old Mercury Theater regulars slated for Othello although Joseph Cotten is reputed to be an extra as is Joan Fontaine. I searched for them and did fine.That all being said Welles really had a sure hand with Othello, the man who wrestled with the green eyed monster and lost. Although I think Everett Sloane would have done wonders with Iago we are privileged to see Irish player Michael McLiammor in his only feature film role and he certainly knows the right buttons to press with the man he serves.Welles started Othello after he had done MacBeth for Republic Pictures and he was certainly constrained by the notorious penny pinching Herbert J. Yates there. I think he needed a big studio to have faith in him to being this off the way Olivier did with his Shakespeare films. Failing that he went independent and pledged the salaries he commanded for three fine films, Prince Of Foxes and The Black Rose with Tyrone Power and The Third Man the last being one of the greatest films ever made to keep Othello going.Maybe this is not the definitive Othello film, but it's one fine piece of work achieved under remarkable circumstances. Maybe one day someone will make a movie about the making of Othello. It's a great story.

Steffi_P Some years ago I saw a comedy acting troupe called The Reduced Shakespeare Company, who would perform a series of sketches on the bard's work. This culminated with a three-minute version of Hamlet – a few key lines blurted out (plus a few they made up), characters hurrying on and off, but every strand of the plot just about accounted for. It was a good laugh. When I see this screen adaptation of Othello from half a century earlier, it feels like I'm seeing more or less the same thing. Except it isn't funny.This is one of a number of productions which star and director Orson Welles had trouble getting off the ground. As such it was filmed in bits and pieces, very much on the cheap. Perhaps Welles also had trouble getting permission to film in certain places, as every scene seems incredibly rushed, as if cast and crew were eager to wrap up. And the amount of editing going on suggests that perhaps Welles was using cameras that wouldn't hold more than two feet of film. There's a section of voice-over narration about ten minutes in where there is a cut every two words or so. It looks like a joke.Welles knew what he was doing of course, and there is some kind of method to all this. When Othello makes his first appearance (shortly after the aforementioned voice-over sequence) we do at last get a slightly longer take, which gives an air of power and dignity in contrast to the rush of what went before. But Welles gets the balances wrong. Most of the movie is too fast, too choppy. The actual images are some of the most breathtaking Welles ever shot (and that is saying something), beautifully baroque compositions of shadow and architecture, but a motion picture must be more than a series of pretty pictures.The principle victim of this hurried version of Othello is probably Shakespeare himself. Shakespeare's dialogue, for all its brilliance, can be hard going on an audience at the best of times and it takes skilled interpretation to bring it to life. By condensing the play and rushing the performances, Welles has actually made it more impenetrable. In short, this one is probably only of interest to the Welles fanatics. Don't see it if you want to know Othello. It simply doesn't do the bard justice.

Michael Neumann The re-release in the early 1990s of Orson Welles' cut-and-paste Shakespeare tragedy was greeted by near unanimous critical acclaim, but all the belated comparisons to 'Citizen Kane' couldn't hide the desperate circumstances under which the film was made. Welles himself gave an impressive, suitably moody performance in the title role, but all his efforts were undone by too many budget restrictions (consecutive scenes were sometimes shot years apart), leaving only a flimsy shadow of what could have been another masterpiece. Visually, the film highlights all the trademark eccentricities of its director, including some ostentatious, imitation Gregg Toland cinematography. But the shoddy editing and poorly recorded sound track diminish the impact and beauty of Shakespeare's language, and the occasional flash of brilliance isn't enough to salvage yet another compelling failure from a wayward genius.

writers_reign If you would seek some kind of perspective on the Motion Picture industry you could do worse than study the career of old Awesome; a string of masterpieces - Kane, Chimes At Midnight, Touch Of Evil - and nearasdammit masterpieces - Ambersons, Mr. Arkadin, Journey Into Fear -which he either wrote, directed and appeared in, sometimes all three, liberally laced with the trash in which he deigned to act - The Black Fox, Ferry To Hong Kong etc - in order to finance projects like this one, which belongs right up there with the masterpieces. I note that much verbiage has been spilled under this title on IMDb debating and disputing the pros and cons of the 'restored' version and whether or not it was indeed ever 'lost'. This is surely academic at best; what matters is that we now HAVE a close approximation of what Awesome intended and frankly if it were any closer I couldn't stand it. The pre-credit sequence alone is worthy of one of the great Silent masters, Gance, Dreyer and like that and the first shot proper is magisterial. Time and time again Welles uses the landscape to compose startling images only to contrast this with key speeches like 'farewell the tranquil mind ...' which he shoots more or less straight and who else but Awesome could make such a virtue out of necessity as in the scene slated for conventional filming until the costumes failed to turn up; his solution, stage it in a bath-house with the actors wearing towels which were themselves borrowed from their hotel. It was Welles himself who made the finest Shakespearean film of all time in Chimes At Midnight and with Othello he runs it a close second. Unmissable.