Around the World with Orson Welles

Around the World with Orson Welles is a series of six short travelogues originally written and directed by Orson Welles for Associated-Rediffusion in 1955, for Britain's then-new ITV channel. Despite its title emphasizing the world, it was entirely filmed in Europe. Among other incidents in the episodes, Welles visited Jean Cocteau and Juliette Gréco in Paris, attended a bullfight in Madrid (with co-hosts Kenneth Tynan and Elaine Dundy) and visited the Basque Country. Production In March 1955, Associated-Rediffusion had originally commissioned a series of 26 half-hour programmes, but in the end, only 6 were broadcast, and even then, in rather troubled circumstances. Before a contract had even been signed, Welles had rapidly shot a pilot episode himself (the third episode broadcast, "Revisiting Vienna") using loaned money and on the basis of an informal agreement. As Welles had made an agreement with producer Louis Dolivet in 1953 to work exclusively for him (beginning with their troubled film production Mr. Arkadin), Dolivet was brought on board as the series producer. The filming schedule was ambitious. Once the contract was signed, Welles was expected to make a further 25 episodes in 25 weeks spread out over nine months, with the first broadcast scheduled for September 1955. However, Welles's other commitments interfered with his ability to meet deadlines, and much of the series was left incomplete. Welles spent much of 1955 working on writing, directing and acting in his London stage production Moby Dick—Rehearsed, and after that flopped on the West End, he switched to shooting an (aborted) film adaptation of the play, first in London, and then in Rome – filming Moby Dick—Rehearsed in Rome was under the pretext of working on the Around the World with Orson Welles TV series. Although Associated-Rediffusion retained a number of rights, including approval of episode synopses, script approval, music approval, and viewing rights for the rushes and final cut, film scholars Jean-Pierre Berthomé and Francois Thomas argue that Welles remained in control much of the time, due to the fragmentary, piecemeal way in which much of the footage was shot, with the writer/director/presenter being the only person who could piece it all together. For instance, Welles shot most of his interviews with only one camera, focussed on the interviewee, and all of the reverse shots of him asking questions had to be shot later in a studio.