''The Hearts of Age'' is an early film made by
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
. The film is an eight-minute short that he co-directed with friend William Vance in 1934. The film stars Welles's first wife, Virginia Nicolson, and Welles himself. He made the film while still attending the
Todd School for Boys in
Woodstock, Illinois
Woodstock is a city in (and the county seat of) McHenry County, Illinois, United States. It is located 45 miles northwest of Chicago, making it one of the city's outer-most suburbs. Per the 2020 census, the population was 25,630. The city's hist ...
, at the age of 19.
Plot
An elderly woman sits on a bell as it rocks back and forth, while a servant in
blackface pulls at a rope. A dandified gentleman appears at the top of a stairway and doffs his hat to the lady; he smiles and courts her attention. She does not respond, but the servant hangs himself. The scene changes to an darkened interior: the gentleman sits at a grand piano and plays, but something is wrong. He opens the piano's lid and finds the woman lying inside, dead. He leafs through a number of tombstone-shaped cards with different inscriptions - "Sleeping", "At Rest", "With The Lord" - and finally chooses one that says "The End".
Cast
*
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
as Death
*Virginia Nicolson as the Old Woman/Keystone Kop
*William Vance as the Indian in blanket
*Edgerton Paul as the Bell-ringer in blackface
*
Blackie O'Neal
Background
The film's action, such as it is, is intercut with random shots of bells, headstones, a church cross and other images, sometimes printed in negative. Many years later Welles acknowledged that the film was an imitation of the early surrealist films of
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and ...
and
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...
. He did not consider it a serious piece of work, and was amused at the idea of its being added to his creative canon.
Many point to ''The Hearts of Age'' as an important precursor to Welles's first Hollywood film, ''
Citizen Kane''. Welles and Vance were college friends. The latter's only other film on record is another student short – an adaptation of ''Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' in 1932.
Cast member
Charles "Blackie" O'Neal became a screenwriter (''
The Seventh Victim
''The Seventh Victim'' is a 1943 American horror film noir directed by Mark Robson and starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter, and Hugh Beaumont. Written by DeWitt Bodeen and Charles O'Neal, and produced by Val Lewton f ...
'') and the father of actor
Ryan O'Neal
Ryan O'Neal (born April 20, 1941) is an American actor and former boxer. He trained as an amateur boxer before beginning his career in acting in 1960. In 1964, he landed the role of Rodney Harrington on the ABC nighttime soap opera '' Peyton Pla ...
.
[ Brady, Frank, ''Citizen Welles: A Biography of Orson Welles''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989 ]
Rediscovery
Vance kept the original copy of ''The Hearts of Age'', and he eventually donated it to the Greenwich Public Library (Connecticut) as a part of the Vance Collection. Acting on a tip from University of Wisconsin film Professor Russell Merritt, film historian
Joseph McBride rediscovered the film in the late 1960s.
McBride announced his discovery in the Spring 1970 issue of ''
Film Quarterly
''Film Quarterly'', a journal devoted to the study of film, television, and visual media, is published by University of California Press. It publishes scholarly analyses of international and Hollywood cinema as well as independent film, including d ...
'' in an article, entitled “Welles Before Kane." In McBride’s later book, ''What Ever Happened to Orson Welles: A Portrait of an Independent Career,'' he stated that “Welles seemed bemused and somewhat irritated by the discovery" of ''The Hearts of Age,'' quoting Gary Graver, Welles’ longtime cinematographer: "Orson kept saying, "Why did Joe have to discover that film?"
The American Film Institute eventually preserved the 16mm copy and deposited a print in the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
.
Home media
''The Hearts of Age'' is a home movie and no copyright was ever filed. The film is in the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...
. The once-rare film is easily seen today thanks to DVD extras and sites such as YouTube.
The film was released by
Kino
Kino may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasters
* KINO, a radio station in Arizona, U.S.
* Kino FM (98.0 FM – Moscow), a Russian music radio station
* KinoTV, now Ruutu+ Leffat ja Sarjat, a Finnish TV channel
Fictional entiti ...
on the first DVD in its ''
Avant Garde'' series, ''Avant-Garde: Experimental Cinema of the 1920s and '30s'' (August 2, 2005, UPC 738329040222). The DVD was produced from the film holdings of the
Raymond Rohauer
Raymond Rohauer (1924, Buffalo, New York – November 10, 1987) was an American film collector and distributor.
Early life and career
Rohauer moved to California in 1942 and was educated at Los Angeles City College. Rohauer made a five-reel ...
Collection by
Bret Wood
Bret Wood is an Atlanta-based film director and author.
Film career
Wood was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and attended the University of Tennessee. After living in New York City, where he was hired by Kino International, he moved to Atlanta ...
.
References
External links
*
*
*
Mashup Recreation of ''The Hearts of Age''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hearts Of Age, The
1934 films
American silent short films
American avant-garde and experimental films
American black-and-white films
Short films directed by Orson Welles
Woodstock, Illinois
1930s American films