h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I remember "The Third man." I think it was part of the film course I took at Boston University in 1997.

Orson Welles seems to be everybody's favorite bad guy, not just because he was, literally, "heavy" (Gluttony is not a secret vice,"
he is quoted as saying). He even played Potter in the Marlo Thomas TV adaptation of "It's a wonderful life."

What a lot of frustration Welles had to endure. His projects often suffered form money shortages, so he would have to hire himself out as the villain in another movie, collect his paycheck, and then plow the money into the project he really wanted to do. There's a turkish bath scene in his "Othello" which you won't find in Shakespeare's version, but when you can't afford period costumes, why not forego clothing?

I used to walk past the Orson Welles Cinema when I was walking through Cambridge. I think I only went in there once, but I was still sort to see it close.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles_Cinema

I think the Transformers movie was the last one he did in his lifetime. He played a megalomaniac planet that devoured everything in his path. I present this information without comment.

There's an interview he did late in his life which always haunted me, when he talked about doing all these lousy little TV movies and voice jobs and adverts to raise money for the films he cared about - 'every time you do this it's like carving another piece off yourself, and in the end, of course, there's nothing left any more.'