What this film needs is more hats being thrown to the ground!

April 21, 2022 5:57 AM

In 1938, Orson Welles filmed an homage/parody of early silent films to accompany the stage production Too Much Johnson. It stars a familiar cast of Welles' actors and a young Arlene Francis. It never screened and was believed lost until a copy was found in 2008. The restored 70 minute film is rather like a Buster Keaton picture if one were to remove all the scenes featuring Buster Keaton. It is wonderfully strange.
posted by eotvos (11 comments total)

Cool! That was one Checkov gun of stacked stuff.
posted by jeribus at 6:47 AM on April 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Even within the first few minutes this film displays camera work, shots from strange angles and the like, of a kind that I have never seen in any authentic 1900-1920 film, but which is fully characteristic of Wells.
posted by Seaweed Shark at 7:18 AM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

It has the feel of chuckling into your wine glass at an inside joke.
posted by Catblack at 7:42 AM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

Even within the first few minutes this film displays camera work, shots from strange angles and the like, of a kind that I have never seen in any authentic 1900-1920 film, but which is fully characteristic of Wells.

Really? The odd angles and whatnot seem very reminiscent of a lot of European silent cinema. It’s practically a mashup of that and the usual stuff people think of when they hear “silent films”.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:35 AM on April 21, 2022

Never Enough Cotten
posted by Don Pepino at 8:38 AM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

I helped Arlene Francis into a freight elevator when the buildings regular elevator was out of service. She must have been in her 80's, but she was delightful and smiled and thanked me.
posted by Czjewel at 9:53 AM on April 21, 2022 [5 favorites]

Can we make "Too Much Johnson" the new Rick Roll?
posted by Nerd of the North at 2:08 PM on April 21, 2022 [4 favorites]

Cool! That was one Checkov gun of stacked stuff.

While watching it the other day, we kept making jokes about the historic container district of New York and how gentrification has driven the coopers and the box-makers out to the suburbs.
posted by eotvos at 3:11 PM on April 21, 2022 [2 favorites]

Too Much Johnson is now my stage name. Or the name of my band. I can't quite decide.
posted by liminal_shadows at 6:25 AM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

I helped Arlene Francis into a freight elevator

I'm envious. My impression is that she's both smarter than most of her colleagues and unfailingly kind. She's definitely on my dead celebrity dinner party list. (Though, my childhood crush on Dorothy Kilgallen means it's going to look a lot like a gameshow.)
posted by eotvos at 10:07 AM on April 22, 2022 [1 favorite]

How much Johnson?
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:52 AM on April 23, 2022