Orson Welles Great Mysteries: Volume One [DVD]

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Ambitious reporter Harry Langley pretends to be the murderer of unidentified woman, to boost sales with a special report from prison. But once arrested, the authorities seem to be convinced that he is indeed the killer - because the victim has been identified as his fiancee!

The home media rights are held by ITV Studios. In 2019 Network released half of the series on Region 2 DVD as Volume 1 in the UK. [3] The whole story of Welles’ visit was itself dramatized for the Sky Arts series Urban Myths (tru…ish stories) in 2020. In the episode titled Orson Welles in Norwich, Welles is portrayed by Robbie Coltrane.

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This 26-part anthology series of half-hour tales of mystery and suspense from Anglia Television included stories by such well-known authors as O Henry, Wilkie Collins and WW Jacobs, with a specially written excursion into the supernatural by the author of Quatermass, Nigel Kneale. Orson Welles Great Mysteries is a British television series originally transmitted between 1973 and 1974, produced by Anglia Television for the ITV network. [1] The Leather Funnel starring Christopher Lee, Simon Ward and Jane Seymour; story by Arthur Conan Doyle The Inspiration of Mr. Budd starring Hugh Griffith; story by Dorothy L. Sayers; directed by Peter Sasdy

In the 19th century, Charles Stubbs is a perfectly ordinary citizen, until one day, he sees a terrifying spirit of a murdered old man appear to him. Shortly thereafter, he is summoned to be head of the jury on a murder trial, where a man called Higgins is accused of murdering an old man after he was caught cheating with his wife. Stubbs does not want to attend, but when the ghost appears to him again, he decides to accept the task. At the trial, Higgins complains about Stubbs being on the jury, despite the two never having met - since it is revealed that the apparition of Stubbs holding a noose appeared to him in jail every night. During the trial, both Stubbs and the defense lawyer, as well as a prostitute trying to provide an alibi for Higgins, keep seeing glimpses of the ghost, and eventually even the last opposing jury member is convinced of Higgins' guilt, and he is found guilty. Later, when Stubbs reads in the papers about Higgins' execution, the ghost appears to him a final time, nodding thanks, then fading away, having been put to rest. While Welles’ sequences have been shot on film and (not altogether successfully) processed onto video, the Mysteries themselves – and they’re really more cautionary tales than mysteries – were all recorded on video in an electronic studio with little or no location filming. Because this method of producing TV drama has been virtually abandoned, the finished result looks more like a stage play than the frenetic, location-heavy drama of television today. But this only adds to the atmosphere, with brilliantly detailed, vintage performances from the actors that could only be accomplished after a week or so’s intensive rehearsal. His visit to Norwich was very, very brief. The show was all footage that had been filmed elsewhere which we bought and just filmed Orson’s parts to introduce them.A young man talks with the uncle of the girl he wants to marry, and is told a strange story about a curious funnel made of leather. While falling asleep next to the device, he has a presentiment that it was once used as an instrument of torture. (Based on a story by Arthur Conan Doyle) For retired film editor Steve Peart news "Awesome Orson" was coming to the Anglia Studios was a momentous event. This is the kind of show that the Talking Pictures TV channel has been resurrecting lately, but with no sign of it popping up on there yet, buying the series would make a good investment for anybody interested in offbeat 1970s series. Fans of British horror should enjoy it too – some of the stories have a supernatural or creepy element to them and both star and are directed by stalwarts of the genre. He may have been one of the world’s greatest and most innovative film-makers, but Orson Welles wasn’t appreciated by Hollywood during his lifetime, so spent much of his career struggling to get the money needed to finance his own projects.