By the pricking of my thumb...

[Some borderline incoherent notes on Orson Welles' Macbeth (1948)]

So this was made on the cheap?
Well, sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit—it looks AWESOME: I love Welles’ Macbeth’s B-movie “Frankenstein Castle” look and the mish-mosh of costumes.

Incredible B&W cinematography, and LOTS of optical printer work, bolted onto Great God Orson’s super-theatrical ANTI-REALISM—

And we do have to say that The Scottish Play is my fave of The Bard’s works (followed by King Lear, brought to screen in Japanese and then in Russian, and both those versions superb) and Troilus & Cressida, which has yet to be made into a film (I think).

[I’m also a big fan of Olivier’s Richard III, but I need to see Gandalf’s version again to have a genuine opinion, though.
Meanwhile, I really dig All Night Long, Basil Dearden’s “Jazz Othello” starring Patrick McGoohan as the Iago character, with guest appearances/performances by Charles Mingus and Dave Brubeck, among others.]

[Getting back to Mack the B, I have yet to see Roman Polanski’s version, but don’t feel in a rush to do so. I’d rather watch Throne of Blood instead first.]

Getting back to Mr. Welles’ 1948 version—you enjoyment depends on your tolerance of Willie The Shakes oeuvre.
If you’ve zero tolerance for genuine classics of human civilization, well, sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit. What would you care about Orson Welles anyway, let alone visit Ivanlandia?

With his square and pointy crown, and the cat-like makeup, Welles looks like a grown-up Max (from Where the Wild Things Are), but gone very, very bad.

Being a special effects geek, the flick is a joyful cornucopia of optical effects, especially when The Weird Sisters are about.

According to Wikipoopia,
“Of all Welles's post-Kane Hollywood productions, Macbeth is closest to Citizen Kane in its use of long takes and deep focus photography. Shots of the increasingly isolated Scottish king looming in the foreground while other characters address him from deep in the background overtly reference Kane.”

And honestly, I dug how Welles has everyone speaking in thick Scotch burrs…

This flick is shamefully not available on DVD, but if you’ve the ability—or friends with the ability—it can be found by snooping about the Intertubes for a bootleg.

Why I Saw “Citizen Kane” When I Was Nine Years Old

The reason I begged my mother to take me to see Citizen Kane when I was nine years old was not because I was some sort of budding cineaste or junior film scholar—
it was because I was a budding special effects geek, with a bookshelf full of film books, including several on visual effects.

In their easy-to-read, yet info-PACKED book, The Saga of Special Effects (published by PrenticeHall in 1977), authors Ron Fry and Pamela Fourzon devote almost a whole chapter to the visual effects of Citizen Kane:
In the film there are oodles of matte paintings, stop-motion animation, miniatures, travelling mattes, rear projections,
and so many of the camera tricks that The Great Orson W. is rightly famous for
(and let’s not forget the contributions of editor—and future director—Robert Wise).

(BTW, The Saga of Special Effects is downloadable here)


For example, this shot of Boss Jim Gettys (directly above) looking down at Kane on the podium is a combo of about five (if not more) elements. You’ve got:
--Actor Ray Collins
--The actors on the podium
--The two groups of people standing in the aisles (which was two separate elements)
--A matte painting tying it all together


Brooklyn-born special effects pioneer Linwood Dunn (perfecter of the modern optical printer—which has been unfortunately replaced by computers…) is responsible for most of Citizen Kane’s effects.

No matter what side of the fence you’re on
—and The National Film Board of Ivanlandia admits a particular fondness, if not OUTRIGHT LOVE for ALL of Citizen Kane—
you have to admit that the flick is a technical marvel.


So of course a nine-year-old Ivan of Ivanlandia HAD to see this movie!
And it was playing in a couple of days at the [I forgot the name of the theater, but it’s across the street from Lincoln Center], which also made an appearance in Annie Hall—
It’s the theater where, if memory serves, and no, I’m not going to bother looking it up, Alvy and Annie are three minutes late to the movie—
which I thought was stupid at the time (although now I get it), because mom and I would ALWAYS arrive late to the movies—but we’d sit down in the middle of the flick, watch it to the end, and then stay in our seats until the next showing began—remember when you used to be able to do that?

So of course I loved Citizen Kane, but what’s funny is this:
Back in the day, some art and revival movie houses in NYC would not serve stuff like food or soda. But they—or rather, understanding staffers—would often let you bring snacks in.

So after getting our tickets, mom and I went to a deli and picked up some candy and nibbles. Among the purchases was a candy bar, perhaps a Snickers or Three Musketeers….

We probably started munching our junk food the moment we sat down, but it wasn’t until the lights went down and the projector started that I took out the candy bar.
Now, honestly, I was TRYING to be as quiet as I could be as I unwrapped it, so at the time I couldn’t understand why that ugly old lady with the REALLY short haircut kept turning around and going, “SHHH!”

She’d do that, and I would turn around to try and see who she was shushing.
The funny thing was, I did not realize until we were on the way home that the old bat was shushing ME! I laughed and laughed.

Lucky for both of us, I only had ONE candy bar. What would she have done if I had a bag of chips? I shudder to think.

“No desert island castaway ever faced so bleak a prospect.”

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
The Monolith Monsters (1957)

“I felt puny and absurd, a ludicrous midget. Easy enough to talk of soul and spirit and existential worth, but not when you're three feet tall. I loathed myself, our home, the caricature my life with Lou had become. I had to get out. I had to get away.”

Part of Universal’s “The Classic Sci-fi Ultimate Collection,” these films were re-released to DVD in early 2007. Although I don’t think Universal is marketing this collection as well as it should be (and I don’t like their box art, either, and refuse to include it), The Incredible Shrinking Man and The Monolith Monsters are a great double feature well worth renting—or even owning.


The Incredible Shrinking Man is just a great American film.
It’s not just a thoughtful and exciting action picture (man vs. cat, then spider are still thrilling scenes), but a fantastic metaphor for 1950s white collar, post-war, suburban existential angst—Shrinking Man is much better than The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (and actually less heavy handed, if you ask me).


“A strange calm possessed me. I thought more clearly than I had ever thought before - as if my mind were bathed in a brilliant light. I recognized that part of my illness was rooted in hunger, and I remembered the food on the shelf, the cake thredded with spider web. I no longer felt hatred for the spider. Like myself it struggled blindly for the means to live.”

Shrinking Man works and remains fresh because it’s made in a matter-of-fact, straightforward style. It was a smart move letting Richard Matheson adapt his own novel—because with the exception of the main character’s shrinking, there are no other fantastic elements.

(And make sure to watch Shrinking Man’s trailer—there’s an endorsement from Orson Welles! I’d like to think that Welles genuinely liked the film, and not that he was shilling for producer Albert Zugsmith, who was also producing Welles’ Touch of Evil…)

Fun fact: The special effects technicians were having trouble un-miniaturizing water drops for when our hero is living in an empty matchbox on the basement floor. Director Jack Arnold remembered that as a kid, he and his pals would use condoms as water balloons, dropping them off roofs. Arnold recalled that as they fell, the condoms made a teardrop shape.
Pay attention next time you watch The Incredible Shrinking Man: you can see something is up with the water drops.

The Monolith Monsters is hardly perfect, but it is fun and smarter than average, like an episode of the original Outer Limits or one of the UK’s Quatermass films. It is a good flick to have as Shrinking Man’s double feature.

Like Shrinking Man, this movie was also a staple on TV when I was growing up, so maybe it has a higher nostalgia quotient for me. But I think the image of those rocks growing and growing and then crashing down is one of those indelible 1950s sci-fi images, like the monster from the id from Forbidden Planet, or Harryhausen’s flying saucers over Washington D.C.



“I was continuing to shrink, to become... what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close - the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet - like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God's silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends in man's conception, not nature's. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!”