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The greatest of actor-director Orson Welles’s Shakespeare adaptations, Chimes at Midnight is also the most unconventional: rather than just one work, Welles’s masterpiece combines and reinterprets elements from both Henry IV plays, Richard II, Henry V, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Tying these texts together is a “betrayal of friendship” story featuring one of Shakespeare’s most memorable creations, the roguish, corpulent Sir John Falstaff (a perfectly cast Welles), and his young protégé, Prince Hal (Keith Baxter). Though the production was complicated by severe budgetary limitations, Welles somehow managed to shoot one of the medium’s best battle scenes—for a film that he came to regard as the most successful of his career.
Director Orson Welles 1965 Spain/Switzerland 115 minutes NR DCP
