Orson Welles, director Carol Reed (right), and Joseph Cotten (seated, left) have tea on the set of The Third Man before recording the cuckoo clock speech (1949, via)
Q. What was Welles like to work with?
Carol Reed: Wonderful! Marvelous!
Q. He didn’t try to direct himself?
Reed: He was difficult only about the starting date, telling me how busy he was with this & that. So I said, “Look, we’re going on location five weeks. Any week - give us two days notice, we’ll be ready for you. And give me one week out of seven in the studio.” He kept to it. He came straight off the train in Vienna one morning, and we did his first shot by nine o’clock. “Jeez,” he said, “this is the way to make pictures!” He walked across the Prater, said two lines to [co-star Joseph] Cotten, and then I said, “Go back to the hotel, have breakfast; we’re going into the sewers, and we’ll send for you.” “Great! Wonderful!”
He comes down into the sewers and says, “Carol, I can’t play this part!” “What’s the matter?” “I can’t do it. I can’t work in a sewer. I come from California! My throat! I’m so cold!” I said, “Look. Orson, in the time it’s taking us to talk about this, you can do the shot. All you do is stand there, look off and see some police after you, turn, and run away.” “Carol,” he said, “Look, get someone else to play this. I cannot work under such conditions. “Orson, Orson, we’re lit for you. Just stand there.” “All right, but do it quick!” Then he looks off, turns away, and runs off into the sewers. Then all of a sudden I hear a voice shouting. “Don’t cut the cameras! Don’t cut the cameras! I’m coming back!”
He runs back, through the whole river, stands underneath a cascade over his head - this out of camera range, mind you! - and does all sorts of things, so that he came away absolutely dripping. “How was that?” he asks. “Wonderful Marvelous!” I said. “Okay. I’ll be back at the hotel. Call me when you need me.”
With Orson you know, everything has to be a drama. But there were no arguments of any sort at all.
-1972, excerpted from Charles Thomas Samuel’s Encountering Directors
![Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz (1939, dir. Victor Fleming)
Q. The spectre of The Wizard of Oz has haunted aspects of your previous films [e.g. Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart]. How do you explain the appearance of The Wizard of Oz in a number of contemporary films, from Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore to Zardoz?
David Lynch: The Wizard of Oz is a film with very great power, and I suppose that Martin Scorsese and John Boorman saw it, like me, during their childhoods and that it made a very strong impression on them. And it’s to be expected that it has stayed with us for the past several years and that we find its echoes in our films for such a long time after. The Wizard of Oz is like a dream and it has immense emotional power.
Q. What exactly is it that you love about The Wizard of Oz?
Lynch: There’s a certain amount of fear in that picture, as well as things to dream about. So it seems truthful in some way.
Q. For many it must have been something to do with the comforting conclusion that “There’s No Place like Home”. Home is seen as the ultimate refuge from all worry and fear -exactly the reverse of the homes in your movies!
Lynch: [Laughs] Right. But the family in The Wizard of Oz weren’t Dorothy’s real parents. So it’s all very strange. It makes you crazy! [Laughs]
-excerpted from David Lynch: Interviews](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lctjw860Eh1qzdvhio1_r1_500.png)
![Margaret Hamilton & Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz (1939, dir. Victor Fleming)
“I suppose I’ve turned down a fortune [by refusing countless offers to re-create the role], but I just don’t want to spoil the magic. Little children’s minds can’t cope with seeing a mean witch alive again. Many times, I see mothers and little children and the mothers always recognize me as the witch. Often, they say to the kids, ‘Don’t you know who she is? She’s the witch in The Wizard of Oz! Then the kids look worried and say, ‘But I thought she melted.’ It’s as though they think maybe I’m going to go back and cause trouble for Dorothy again.”
-Margaret Hamilton, The Washington Post (1973)](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lctgok11qv1qzdvhio1_r1_500.png)
![Orson Welles, director Carol Reed (right), and Joseph Cotten (seated, left) have tea on the set of The Third Man before recording the cuckoo clock speech (1949, via)
Q. What was Welles like to work with?
Carol Reed: Wonderful! Marvelous!
Q. He didn’t try to direct himself?
Reed: He was difficult only about the starting date, telling me how busy he was with this & that. So I said, “Look, we’re going on location five weeks. Any week - give us two days notice, we’ll be ready for you. And give me one week out of seven in the studio.” He kept to it. He came straight off the train in Vienna one morning, and we did his first shot by nine o’clock. “Jeez,” he said, “this is the way to make pictures!” He walked across the Prater, said two lines to [co-star Joseph] Cotten, and then I said, “Go back to the hotel, have breakfast; we’re going into the sewers, and we’ll send for you.” “Great! Wonderful!”
He comes down into the sewers and says, “Carol, I can’t play this part!” “What’s the matter?” “I can’t do it. I can’t work in a sewer. I come from California! My throat! I’m so cold!” I said, “Look. Orson, in the time it’s taking us to talk about this, you can do the shot. All you do is stand there, look off and see some police after you, turn, and run away.” “Carol,” he said, “Look, get someone else to play this. I cannot work under such conditions. “Orson, Orson, we’re lit for you. Just stand there.” “All right, but do it quick!” Then he looks off, turns away, and runs off into the sewers. Then all of a sudden I hear a voice shouting. “Don’t cut the cameras! Don’t cut the cameras! I’m coming back!”
He runs back, through the whole river, stands underneath a cascade over his head - this out of camera range, mind you! - and does all sorts of things, so that he came away absolutely dripping. “How was that?” he asks. “Wonderful Marvelous!” I said. “Okay. I’ll be back at the hotel. Call me when you need me.”
With Orson you know, everything has to be a drama. But there were no arguments of any sort at all.
-1972, excerpted from Charles Thomas Samuel’s Encountering Directors](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lcq7iel7h51qzdvhio1_r6_500.jpg)
