Don Quixote (1992)
"Don Quijote de Orson Welles" (original title)

After reading too many novels about knights and heroic stories, Don Quijote and his servant Sancho Panza decide to wander the roads of Spain to protect the weak and to accomplish good deeds... See full summary »

Director:

Orson Welles

Writers:

Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (novel), Jesús Franco (additional dialogue in new edition),

Stars:

Francisco Reiguera, Akim Tamiroff, Orson Welles

Cast

Cast overview:
Francisco Reiguera	...	Don Quijote (archive footage)
Akim Tamiroff	...	Sancho Panza
Orson Welles	...	Himself (in new version) (archive footage)
José Mediavilla	...	Don Quixote (in new version) (voice)
Juan Carlos Ordóñez	...	Sancho Panza (in new version) (voice)
Constantino Romero	...	Narrator (in new version) (voice)
Fernando Rey	...	Closing Scene Narrator (in new version) (voice)
Paola Mori
Beatrice Welles
Oja Kodar

Storyline

After reading too many novels about knights and heroic stories, Don Quijote and his servant Sancho Panza decide to wander the roads of Spain to protect the weak and to accomplish good deeds. But the real world is not as magical and fairy as Don Quijote imagines it to be. Following the plot of Cervantes classical book, Don Quijote fights with windmills thinking they are giants but unluckily, he manages to be defeated by them.

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Plot Keywords:

servant | windmill | spain | knight | immortality | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Spain Italy USA

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

10 November 2005 (Portugal)

Also Known As:

Orson Welles' Don Quixote

Box Office

Gross:

ESP 807,150 (Spain)

Company Credits

Production Co:

El Silencio Producciones

Technical Specs

Runtime:

116 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Trivia

Orson Welles began filming this picture in 1955 and worked on it off and on over the years.

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Connections

Version of Don Quijote de la Mancha (1947)

User Reviews

A curiosity at best

Only when one hear Welles narration on the soundtrack of this dog's dinner of a film, does one get a tiny glimpse of what Welles might have been able to achieve in bringing "Don Quixote" to the screen. From what I saw last night on DVD (purchased by a friend recently in Spain!), my guess is that "Don Quixote" is unfilmable, even by a genius like Welles. The 'director', Jess Franco', is no Welles, to be sure. Where and how Franco got his hands on this footage, is as mysterious as Welles himself. Apparently shot over a number of years, the assembled footage, is a mish mash of stills, unrelated footage, an out-of-sync sound track (scenes of Welles in a car shooting footage like an enthusiastic tourist), and ludicrously dubbed American voices, makes this just a slice of arcane interest. In summary, it was 'interesting' to see, but at the end of the day, it manages to tarnish Welle's reputation, rather than enhance it. Still, with 'Citizen Kane', the truncated "Magnificent Ambersons", & "Chimes At Midnight", to his credit, Welles really doesn't need this kind of 'tribute'.