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Article: Reviving Orson: or Rosebud, Dead or Alive.
- Article from:
- Cineaste
- Article date:
- June 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 Cineaste Publishers, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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At the end of Casanova's Big Night (1954), a lame burlesque of romantic swashbucklers, a freeze frame halts an executioner's ax as it swings toward the hero's lowered head. A voice-over narrator intervenes informing the audience of a disagreement between the studio and the film's star over how to end the story: "You've seen our ending. Now we show you one written, produced, and directed by Bob 'Orson Welles' Hope." The crux of the joke is clear, if painfully stale: rather than a simple exit, Hope's overweening ego and spendthrift ways demand something more extravagant, in the manner of Hollywood's disinherited 'boy genius' (in retrospect, the joke was on Hope since ...