Don Quixote (1992) User Reviews

Flawed and fascinating, and with a debt to Doré

[triffids4us · 7/10 · 4 September 2006]

Orson Welles legendary project is nigh on impossible to find here, but I did have the good fortune to attend a free screening. Including myself and my wife there must have been all of eight people in the theater.

Welles interpretation of Quixote is peculiarly reminiscent of some of the illustrations of Gustave Doré (and to a lesser extent Salvador Dali) of Cervantes' masterpiece. I thought this an attractive approach, as it indicated a degree of recognition for others who had explored this fascinating work.

Given the wild fluctuations in film stock and equipment, the film is at times somewhat difficult to watch: but these sudden transitions are only a little more extreme than in F for Fake. The travelogue like sequences toward the end of the film are also a little jarring, but do give some indication of Welles fascination with Spain.

As a student of film, or as a student of Welles you should try to see this flawed film. It's great moments far outshine the weaknesses. I am not an Orson Welles fan, but I certainly prefer this to The Lady from Shanghai. If you are not interested in Welles or film history you will probably be disappointed. As with F for Fake, there is little of the slickness we associate with Welles films.

The definitive Quixote & Sancho Panza

[brice-18 · 6/10 · 26 February 2008]

I didn't know this film existed till I was intrigued to find it available on DVD. Mine is the Spanish version, with even Orson dubbed into Spanish. Under-edited it is far too long (almost 3 hours!) and, thrilling though the bull run in Pamplona undoubtedly is, Sancho P's quest for the 'box' (TV) is wearisomely protracted - likewise his dance on his return to his home town. However,Tamiroff plays him to perfection as does Reiguera as an 'El Greco' Quixote, and the essence of Cervantes' picaresque saga is there. The print is variable, but the Spanish exteriors, especially in the countryside, are ravishing. Bravo, Orson!

Unfinished Orson Welles film with a lot of documentary scenes and finally edited by Jesus Franco

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 27 April 2019]

Based on the classic novel , considered to be the best literary work ever written that stands in an unique position between the modern novel and medieval chivalric romance . And deemed to be one of the most influencial works of literature from the Golden Age . This work was made by Orson Welles just over fifteen years for lack of finances , though it turns out to be a combination of fictitious and documentary scenes . In fact , Welles began shooting in 1955 and worked on it off and on over the years . This is a blending of the unfinished film Don Quijote by Orson Welles , adding documentary scenes from Italian TV series shot by Welles , some scenes filmed by Jesus Franco himself and images of Spanish documentary NODO , all of them under supervision of Oja Kodar , Welles' wife . It was produced by Patxi Irigoyen and mounted , reshaped , cut and finished by Jesus Franco, including Daniel White score , Franco's regular , being premiered in Sevilla Exposición 1992 . Here Don Quijote is well played by Francisco Reíguera and AkimTamiroff gives a fabulous Sancho Panza . There also appears Paola Mori while is attacked by Don Quijote , as woman on motorscooter, she was Orson Welles wife who died early , and Fernando Rey as a narrator in the closing scene . In addition , the picture lacks footage from original Don Quijote , being held in other private collections in Europe .

It follows the classy plot , but introducing modern elements and a lot of anachronisms. As Don Quijote is a brave hidalgo , fanatic for chivalry novels , he decides to undertake imaginary adventures along with his friend , the simple farmer Sancho Panza , along the way he battles windmills , countrymen , warriors and he is finally locked . This enduring romantic adventure deals the enthusiast , passionate knight Don Quixote and it is paced in enjoyable as well as deliberate rhythm . There are several documentary scenes including Holy Week and Pamplona parties : San Fermin . However , the film tires , being paced in fits and starts and feels overlong . And relying heavily on the documentary , and certain confusion and mayhem . Furthermore , the images are faded and tarnished. being really necessary a perfect remastering .

There are a lot of versions abut this classic novel , such as : ¨Don Quijote¨ 1933 by G.W. Pabst . ¨Don Quijote de la Mancha¨ 1945 by Rafael Gil with Rafael Rivelles , Juan Calvo , Sara Montiel , Fernando Rey . ¨Don Kikhot¨1957 by the Russian Grigori Kozintev . ¨Don Quijote cabalga de nuevo¨ by Roberto Gabaldon with Cantinflas , Fernando Fernández Gómez , Maria Fernando D'ocon. And a musical version 1972 by Arthur Hiller titled ¨Man of La Mancha¨ with Peter O'Toole , James Coco , Sofia Loren , John Castle , Brian Blessed . ¨Don Quijote¨ by Peter Yates with John Lightow , Bob Hoskins. Besides , Spanish series , 1991/1992 titled ¨El Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes¨ with Fernando Rey , Alfredo Landa , Manuel Alexandre , Aitana Sánchez Gijon , Francisco Merino , Esperanza Roy . ¨Don Quijote¨ by Manuel Gutierrez Aragon with Juan Luis Galiardo and Carlos Iglesias . Don QuiXote 2015 with Carmen Argentino, Horatio Sanz , ¨Don Quixote: The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha¨ (2015) by Dave Dorsey . Finally , ¨The Man Who Killed Don Quixote¨(2018) by Terry Gillian with Jonathan Price , Adam Driver , Stellan Skarsgård , Olga Kurylenko , Paloma Bloyd , Óscar Jaenada . And in cartoon movies as Don Quijote de la Mancha by Cruz Delgado and Donkey Xote 2007 by José Pozo .

A Scene, not in this version apparently, that is on YOU TUBE

[theowinthrop · 23 February 2007]

I really cannot judge the film that was finished by Mr. Jesus Franco, but I did have some luck tonight in finding the missing "movie house" sequence that Welles shot with Patty McCormick, Francisco Reguiera, and Akim Tamiroff on "You Tube". It is easily worth watching, although it leaves one wondering about the actual final film had Welles finished it.

He was modernizing the novel by Cervantes. In that novel Quixote and Sancho see a puppet show and Quixote thinks he is being threatened by an enchanter, so he smashes the puppets. Here, Sancho has gotten separated from his master and enters a movie house. He is unaware of where the Don is, but finally sees him in a corner watching the film on screen. Sancho is obviously not at home in a movie house, and he is annoying the patrons by interfering with their views of the screen. Finally Patty McCormick (playing "Dulcie" - short for Dulcinea) gives Sancho the seat next to her to sit in. She is sucking a lollipop, and gives him one. He starts eating it without removing it's paper cover. She explains he is doing it wrong, and shows him how to take it off. Sancho now starts sucking his lollipop carefully and watching the "epic" movie on screen.

It is, unfortunately, a "sand and sandal" epic involving a scene with the Crucifixion of Christ. We cut frequently to the same intent stare in Riguiera's face as he looks at the screen - a curious stare as it is both childlike in it's wonder at watching the film, but determined. Soon he rises and advances to the screen (where an armed battle is occurring. We watch him start parrying with his sword, and slicing into the screen. The audience is furious but they don't attack him - they are frightened at the old man, and flee (except for Sancho and Dulcie...and the children on the top tier of the theater who are applauding the Don's destruction of the enemies. The scene ends with him having apparently won - the screen is in tatters, but his final thrusts seemed to be at the enemy who is vanquished.

The entire sequence ran about eight minutes. It lacks any sound track, which is unfortunate as we can't tell what is being said. Yet for a pantomime production (in this scene) it was a worthy piece of work after all, and I am glad it is available to see on a small screen.

A glimpse at what could have been

[Rory2000 · 7/10 · 27 January 2003]

This is really cool. Any fan of Welles needs to check this out. The quality of the video is really bad, but you can still get an idea of what Welles was trying to do. Welles was a genius and this film shows that, incomplete and all.

A mistake

[Michael_Cronin · 2/10 · 1 August 2006]

(This review is based on the English language version)

Orson Welles' legendary unfinished epic was just that - unfinished. It should have been left as such, not thrown together in this clumsy, boring compilation of whatever material was available.

While I'm sure it was done with the best of intentions, the filmmakers have not only failed to do justice to Welles' vision, they've also managed to discredit it by inflicting this version upon audiences.

The first thing that strikes the viewer is the amateurish quality of the audio. Not only are the newly dubbed voices rather poor performances, they're also inconsistent - Welles' original recordings (using his own voice, as he often did) have been retained in a handful of scenes, & they don't match at all. There hasn't been the slightest attempt at consistency. Add to that an extremely empty sound mix which has only a bare minimum of sound effects & atmos - a long sequence during a huge festival (including the running of the bulls) sounds like it was recorded in a deserted suburban street with about three people making the sound of a crowd that's meant to be in the thousands.

However, the real problem is the unavoidable fact that 'Don Quixote' was incomplete, & it's glaringly obvious from watching this. The film consists of a handful of scenes strung together & dragged out to ridiculous lengths just to make up the running time. Case in point - the sequence where Sancho searches for Don Quixote in the city goes on forever. It's just Sancho approaching people in the crowd, asking them the same questions over & over again - there is no way that Welles could ever have intended using every single take in its entirety, but that's what appears here. It lasts over twelve minutes, when, in fact, it would most likely have lasted about two minutes absolute maximum in a proper finished version of the film.

While the start of the film is relatively complete & rather well done, the rest has massive holes which simply can't be filled with endless overlay of Spanish countryside & still more shots of Don Quixote & Sancho going back & forth. There's also no ending. No resolution, no conclusion, no punchline, no point.

Although there is material in private collections that was unavailable to the filmmakers, that couldn't possibly account for what would be required to make this into a complete, coherent work. Welles simply didn't complete shooting, largely due to the fact that his lead actor died before they could finish.

However, putting aside the fact that it wasn't complete, & never could be, one would think that just seeing a collection of footage from this masterpiece that might have been would be enough. Unfortunately, by putting it all together in such a slipshod manner, one is left with a very negative impression of the film overall. In particular, what was clearly a terrific performance from Akim Tamiroff as Sancho is utterly ruined with the new voice & with long, drawn out scenes that eventually cause him to be simply irritating.

Orson Welles' vision for this film was something far more ambitious & complex than a simple retelling of the story of Don Quixote, but that's what has been attempted here, & as such, the point is lost. The only person who could have assembled all the material into anything worthwhile would have been Welles himself, & he didn't.

The footage could have been put to far better use in a documentary chronicling the whole saga of Welles trying to make the film. Welles himself even came up with the perfect title for such a doco: "When Are You Going To Finish Don Quixote?"

Run Of The Mill

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 15 January 2009]

What we have here is essentially a debatable point: Is it better to see ANYTHING by Welles, even a travesty or should we resist the temptation to tamper and merely speculate on what might have been. There are, of course, precedents for offering uncompleted works by acknowledged masters - Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon springs to mind - and this, no doubt, influenced the decision in this case. I write as one who admires Welles enormously and with sadness because of what has been done to a project so dear to his heart and upon which he lavished so much care and attention. The only pluses on view are what amounts to little more than a handful of shots bearing the maestro's unmistakable signature, the sound is an atrocious hybrid and the whole has been strung out with extraneous footage of the running of the bulls and Panza's repititious soliciting of the crowd. In appearance the two leads could not be bettered and if only someone had spent five minutes matching sound to picture we WOULD be talking of a very near miss. As it is we are left with the impression that the footage was turned over to a devoted fan of Welles who had zero knowledge/experience of film-making, someone like Jean Luc Godard for example.

No matter how you put it together, this is awful

[dbborroughs · 4/10 · 13 November 2004]

This film is terrible, and don't blame Jesus Franco, because its not his fault.

This film was shot silent over many years by Welles as he got the money to bring a crew and the actors together to do some shooting. How much film Welles actually shot is not clear, although not all of the film or all of the sequences are here since several "key" sequences, such as Quixote in a movie theater, are in the hands of collectors or backers who wouldn't give them up. The film here is just under two hours and I would be hard pressed to imagine it ever really working at any length. I'm of the opinion, based on several comments that Welles made before his death, that he never really intended to release the film, but was putting it together as a personal toy.

What exists here is for the most part is beautifully shot, but dramatically dead. Very little happens for the first hour other than Quixote and Sancho wandering around the country side. Dull would be a kind description of the material. In the second hour Quixote ends up in modern Spain and in a series of not very good sequences deals with everyday life. This isn't to say that there isn't a few nice moments, the windmill and the chicken sequences are quite good, but mostly this is a vast waste of film and time.

"Completed" by Jesus Franco, who was Welles' assistant director on the vastly superior Chimes at Midnight, we have a bunch of film fragments that have been put together as best as possible. Many people have crucified Franco as having been the reason the film stinks, but frankly one can not make a good movie from crap material. One critic has gone on record as having seen a different cut of the film in the 1970's, which meant that Franco made this version up on his own and ruined it. While that maybe true, I've run across stories of Welles cutting and re-cutting the film many many times over the years since he could never get it right.

This film is terrible no matter how you slice it.

Ultimately I'm left wondering just how good a film maker Welles was. Aside from Citizen Kane almost all of his films have been plagued by lack of budget or interfered with so we are left with the excuse that many of his films "would have been better if only...". How do we know? How can we know? Perhaps Welles was a man of less talent than we thought and many of his borderline films just aren't that good, and never would have been. While this is no place to argue the place of Welles in film history, the surviving material of Don Quixote, assuming it approximates what Welles intended (I think it does), is a good case for rethinking how we view the man and his work.

4 out of 10 for the good sequences (though 2 out of 10 is probably closer to reality)

A Delightful Treat For Any True Welles Fan- (and more complete than you may think...)

[paybaragon · 10/10 · 5 May 2005]

Those who dismiss this reconstructed film out-of-hand cannot possibly have any appreciation of Welles' genius. The reviewer who calls it a "dog's dinner" is obviously reacting to the unusual and non-linear qualities of Welles' later films. I doubt that he can know very much about either Welles or Quijote. In any case, he fails to see the forest from the trees. Of course there are some scenes and shots in this incomplete film that go nowhere-- BUT this is still the most beautiful, exhilariting, and cinematic version of Cervantes yet put to film. I don't doubt that the film would be better if Welles had been able to finish editing it himself. But even as it is, the great director left his mark on each and every surviving scene. Visually speaking, the film is simply too similar to 'The Trial' and other late Welles classics to be ignored.

The film centers around the idea of Don Quixote (and Sancho) trying to stick to their guns in the midst of the great confusion of modern-day Spain. Such a conceit is absolutely typical of Welles, as are all the other major departures from the novel. Welles was not known for faithfulness. But there are also scenes of pure character drama, and they play so well as to make us believe that Cervantes had written them; Welles was, after all, among the greatest of screenwriters.

Not the least of his triumphs here is in the casting: Akim Tamiroff, one of the screen's greatest and most unsung actors, was born to play Sancho and he does not disappoint. Francisco Reiguera looks and acts more like Cervantes' Knight than any other. Again, the other reviewers fail to appreciate this.

If the film has any really major flaw (apart from the awful English dubbing), it is the additional dialog written by Jess Franco, who was Welles' A.D. on this film. Of course it is difficult to identify, but I take it that most of the dialog is Welles'. The film also goes on too long concerning bull-fighting, but of course this was one of Welles' fascinations and it is probably at least partly his fault.

The real reason this film has been ignored is because a lot of people crave conventional narrative cinema so badly that they deride cinematic art unless it has a "artist's brand name" attached to it. Since Welles' is not entirely responsible for the final cut as we have it, a lot of people feel that its 'fair game' in a way that his other films are not. Well, if you can't stand genius, then stay away from it-- you'll only embarrass yourself trying to deride it.

BEWARE THE English-LANGUAGE DUBBING. Welles obviously never did an English dub of this footage, and the one that is supplied by Welles' reconstructors is a total injustice to the film. It is far better to stick it out with the Spanish track and French sub-titles, even if you don't know a word of French. At least you'll have an idea of the quality of some of the scenes. HOPEFULLY we will see a DVD of this in the US with English subtitles.

Perhaps some further reconstruction is also still possible? BUT it will only happen if Welles fans are supportive of the footage the Welles did indeed achieve.

People don't know what they're talking about

[ghostofmrpalmer · 5/10 · 1 October 2007]

dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York does not know what he is talking about. The fact is, he has only seen the Franco version and has nothing to compare it to. The work print floats around occasionally, and it's a million times better that the Franco version. How can anyone call a film crap, when they have never even seen it. Don't ever listen to people that stupid. The fact is that you should even write a review if you have only seen one version of the film, and have no knowledge of the production history, the comment about Wells never intending to release it, is the most ridiculous, ignorant conjecture I have ever heard. No film make spends nearly 10 years of his life making a film, for it to just be a personal toy. He had plenty of projects that never saw release, The Deep, The Other Side of The Wind, etc. The main reason the film was never completed is that one of the principle actors died.

Generations in the future will remember this day...

[lastliberal · 8/10 · 30 August 2009]

With Jesus Franco providing additional dialog, we might expect some gore, and blood and nudity in this version of Don Quixote. No, he just provided needed dialog to complete this film that was 10 years work of Orson Welles, and not completed before he died.

As far as I know there is no English subtitled version of this film, so you either see it in Spanish and French, or suffer through the dubbed version, as this is. No matter, to see any work of Orson Welles is to see real art. Despite the dubbing and the fact that Welles himself was not able to finish this, it is still worth seeing.

Francisco Reiguera acted in well over 100 films before he died, and there is no doubt that he is Don Quixote. He is a joy to watch as a knight seeking his dream in a semi-modern Spain. When he comes upon a Holy Week celebration (not a Klan rally to the uninitiated), the action is nothing short of hilarious.

Akim Tamiroff, who plays Sancho Panzo has two Oscar nominations (The General Died at Dawn, For Whom the Bell Tolls) among his 150 films, and a Golden Globe for For Whom the Bell Tools. He is magnificent in this role.

Needless to say, for Welles addicts, this is a religious experience and should be viewed with the reverence it deserves.

Disappointing, but not without merit

[danduda1 · 3/10 · 12 June 2013]

This Orson Welles' version of "Don Quixote" may be interesting to fans of Welles or the novel. But I don't think it will convert anyone not already so into being either.

Things start out promising - exposition is handled quickly, and soon Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are off on their quest, Sancho grumbling all the way. Quixote declares his love for Dulcinea, despite Sancho's insistence she's an unattractive farm girl whose breath reeks of onions. Quixote battles a couple of his legendary adversaries, including the "monster" windmills. It's all realized well; the characters, portrayed with believability, come to life. We're willing to suspend disbelief for a few technical issues, like speech not matching lips, because Welles' unique style is working, using wide lenses, low angles and quirky editing rhythms to establish characters and setting in a way that lets us believe we're there.

That's the first 30 or 40 minutes.

The fun dwindles away rapidly when Welles inserts himself as a character, a famous (and "fat") filmmaker making a movie of Don Quixote.

For one thing, it undercuts the fictional world the earlier parts made endearing to us. For another, Don Quixote's story is pretty much abandoned from here on out, and the other story line - perhaps meant to be artistic, modern, self-reflective - goes absolutely nowhere, taking forever to do so. Welles never even encounters Quixote; the 'filmmaker' narrative line lacks any emotional or dramatic impact. It felt like wandering through a weekend art fair with no intention to buy a painting, and seeing nothing you liked anyway.

It sort of brings home how much is missing in terms of story to realize that any children's book-adaptation running even 10 pages long does a more complete job of telling the tale than what we get here - for instance, Dulcinea is never seen. Not that we should demand literal translations of favorite books - especially one over 1,000 pages long like "Don Quixote" - but there is too much missing, I feel, for things to succeed; we're left feeling uninvolved.

I deliberately didn't read about the troubled history of the production, although I'd heard some, because I don't think watching a movie should be like being a teacher flipping through notes before deciding if absences are excused or not. As playwrights say, if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage; I prefer to evaluate movies in and of themselves.

The themes Cervantes explored in his book are barely touched on, if at all, no doubt from most of the story not being told.

I prefer to forget the second half and stay out on the Spanish countrysides with Don Quixote, Sancho, and Welles, still hopeful of saving the world from evil, still wanting to get this story in the can. I didn't regret watching it, but did wonder how such an incomplete story could stretch to 115 minutes.

A sad but treasured insight into what could have been

[arichards · 4 September 2003]

As a quite a fan of many the works of Welles (but not unconditional, as I am bored by 'The Stranger' and puzzled by 'Confidential Report', relatively lukewarm about the Scottish one) I find it quite emotional watching Franco's piecing together of this much loved project of Orson Welles; a film he spent fourteen years making.

He made enough masterpieces of course (Touch of Evil, The Trial, Othello and of course that ever so famous one), but to see here the mixed footage and voices (three for at least one character) is both spooky and strangely exhilarating: like looking into some Egyptian tomb somewhere.

While others have questioned this project's right to be (that is the project available on Spanish DVD not of the original plan) I for one am very happy to have it available to view on my DVD machine. Some of the scenes obviously look a little amateurish/lo-fi (e.g. the poor expanding windmills out of a brief moment in effects prior to the advent of CGI) others are beautifully realised (in the aforementioned mixed footage), like the scenes of Akim Tamirof running around modern day Italian streets searching for Quixote and seeing rockets going to the moon as reported on the television screens in disinterested bars. I also love the scene where he finds (SPOILER) Quixote in a cage in an alleyway, where the shot reverse-shots mirrors those famous disjunctures of Othello. These spatial elisions seem to work beautifully.

Finally there is something charming about the mixture of footage in and of itself; something I imagine Welles was turning around within the act of creation, not only in the poor quality of the footage now remaining. He famously turned negatives into positives so making production nightmares like costume (Othello) and location (The Trial) into real, abiding and innevitable textual strengths. This I believe he would have done beautifully given the chance of 'completion'.

I suppose however the death of your main actor through age related illness proved insurmountable obstacle for him. At least all was not lost, and of what remains, all fans of Welles should cherish.

Atrocious Offense

[ilprofessore-1 · 4/10 · 17 May 2009]

An atrocious offense to the memory and genius of Welles, this senseless assemblage of self-indulgent improvisation on a grand theme should have been locked up in storage along with a number of other unfinished Welles' projects no one has ever seen. Now we know why! To add additional insult to prior injury, the appalling English language dubbing by amateur America dubbing actors and even the great man himself only heightens all the sloppy mistakes in story-telling and construction. It's as if every weekend some good hearted Spanish soul gave Orson a few pesos, a 35mm camera and some short-ends of negative film left over from some other production and told Welles to drive out to the Spanish countryside and just keeping shooting anything and everything until the film stock ran out. It's true that if Orson had really shaped this film himself instead the notorious Jesus Franco, he might have thrown out 85% of what he shot, but we will never know. As Welles never took the time to edit his own work here, and somewhere along the way he or his heirs sanctioned someone else to do so, he is not entirely blameless for the debacle. Those who wish to prove that in his early days Welles was the luckiest of young men because he surrounded himself with the likes of John Houseman, Herman Mankewiecz, Greg Toland, Bernard Hermann and Robert Wise need no better proof of his adult inadequacies than this mess of a film. In his sad old age Welles was capable of doing anything when he needed a few bucks or pesos, including selling his artistic soul. The devil certainly got his due with this one!

Best movie

[fxjuan · 10/10 · 19 February 1999]

The greatness movie I've ever worked with or will ever have the pleasure of working with. Orson Welles is the greatest gift to the Independent film Industry and it all comes to a head with this his most personal and treasured project.

The difficult task of making a good film on a bad story

[clanciai · 9/10 · 9 October 2019]

The film suffers from having been left unfinished, which is all too evident from the faulty technical quality, which screams out loud about the insufficient funds - Orson Welles always had problems with this, and he worked on this film for seven years to never see it completed, which project had to be fulfilled long after his death, like his last film. Still, the genius shines through everywhere, in the panoramic scenes of Spanish life, with bull fights and processions, fiestas and rural life, so in spite of the faulty quality, the film is a feast to behold. You regret that it was shot in black and white, because of the lovely landscapes that you pass through in almost every scene, and the costumes ought to have been colourful as well. Don Quijote himself and Akim Tamiroff as Sancho Panza are also perfect, and when Terry Gilliam later made another "Don Quijote" he borrowed very much material and ideas from here, as if he had the ambition to realize Orson Welles' dreams. What the film suffers from, like all "Don Quijote" films, is the awkward story. You can't ignore that Don Quijote actually is nothing short of a hopelessly deluded maniac, and that Sancho Panza is hopelessly stupid. You can't read the novel with any delight because of its macabre absurdity with no sense at all, and all films on the subject have to suffer from the same shortcmings, with two exceptions: "The Man from La Mancha" with Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren, a musical set in both reality and fantasy with Cervantes himself as the main character, and Graham Greene's "Monsignore Quijote" with Alec Guinness, a modern paraphrase with as much wit as the original lacks. Orson Welles succeeds in putting some ingeniousnes into the havoc by his excellent direction and cinematography, so the film is worth enjoying after all.

A curiosity at best

[insomnia · 28 December 2002]

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'.

An Experiment That Doesn't Always Work

[Michael_Elliott · 5 May 2015]

Don Quixote (1992)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

After reading about exciting lives involving knights and other creations, a man takes on the name of Don Quixote (Francisco Reiguera) and gets a sidekick in Sancho Panza (Akim Tamiroff) and the two head off to fight the evils but Quixote soon finds out that's not so easy in an ever changing world.

If you know anything about Orson Welles then you know that DON QUIXOTE was one of his dream projects. If you know anything about the history of this film then you already know what a production nightmare it was. If you happen to be reading this without knowing the film's history then it's best that you actually go out and read about it. There are many great, very detailed articles and books out there but the short version is that this began life as a TV project but Welles decided to turn it into a feature but there were countless production problems and what began shooting in 1957 wasn't even complete in 1969 when the lead actor died. After countless legal battle, Jess Franco was able to get the job as editor and put together the current version that is out there now but the debate goes on from this as his version features footage that Welles didn't shoot and there's still a lot of missing footage that couldn't be used due to legal issues.

A lot of the hatred for this "film" went in the direction of Franco, which just wasn't fair. If you read about the production and legal issues with this film then it's really hard to blame anyone except for Welles and especially when you considered that he just kept shooting new stuff for nearly a decade and he kept running into more and more problems. It certainly wasn't Franco's fault that Welles didn't really have a narrative for the film and it's not Franco's fault that there were legal issues that prevented all of Welles' footage from being included. However, with that said, what's here is mildly entertaining in its own surreal way.

I say that because there's all sorts of footage here that more times than not doesn't make sense. The film was shot silent with the plan of adding narration and dialogue at a later time. Some of the narration was done by Welles himself but some of it he didn't record so another person had to pretend to be Welles and add it rather obviously. The two main performances were rather interesting to say the least and throughout the various formats that the film is shot, there's something here that remains entertaining and it's just so surreal that you can't help but be drawn into it. At 115-minutes the film does run on a bit too much but perhaps Franco just wanted to get as much footage in as possible.

Having said that, you could have given this footage to twenty different directors and they probably would have turned in completely different versions. The bottom line is that there's some interesting and weird footage here but it's impossible to know what Welles would have done with it. His brilliant mind might have been able to take ten-years worth of footage and make better sense out of it. We'll just sadly never know because Welles was unable to edit his film and this is all we go. So, do we just let the film remain unreleased or do we try and edit something together to honor the filmmaker? I personally don't have a problem with this edit. If some day we get a new edit I will watch that too but it still won't be Welles' version, which is just never going to happen.

What could have been...

[JonBowerbank · 12 August 2003]

Both Welles and Terry Gilliam have this dream of bringing this film to the screen. Both have had tragic endings in their productions. But at least we have this footage to show what might have been. Unless Terry Gilliam gets another shot, I would recommend to any film maker who will pull it off to research this film as well as "Lost in La Mancha" to see what should be done visually.

Franco y Welles

[BandSAboutMovies · 1 March 2023]

Don Quixote is one of those never finished films that fascinates me. At one point, it was just a half hour show that Orson Welles was making for CBS called Don Quixote Passes By and it would have Quixote (originally Mischa Auer, to be replaced by Francisco Reiguera, Simon of the Desert) and Sancho Panza (Akim Tamiroff, who Welles called "the greatest of all screen actors") being trapped in 1955. Welles would tell Peter Bogdanovich in a conversation printed in This is Orson Welles, "What interests me is the idea of these dated old virtues. And why they still seem to speak to us when, by all logic, they're so hopelessly irrelevant? That's why I've been obsessed for so long with Don Quixote, who can't ever be contemporary - that's really the idea. He never was. But he's alive somehow, and he's riding through Spain even now ." Welles saw Quixote and Panza as eternal ever wandering characters.

CBS disliked what they saw and ended the project, but thanks to money from acting and $25,000 from Frank Sinatra, Welles kept working. After he was removed from Touch of Evil, Welles began working on this story in earnest, even bringing Bad Seed Patty McCormack to Mexico to play a girl who would meet Welles - playing himself - and hear of Quixote and Panza before meeting them in person. By the time the film came back together in Spain - Welles ran out of money and did many projects as a mercenary to raise the funds needed to make the movies he cared about - McCormack was too old and that part of the story was cut.

Shot over the next decade - and more! - in Spain and Italy, the production took so long that a chronically sick Reiguera begged Welles to finish shooting his scenes before he died, which he was able to do before the actor passed in 1969. This ended the principal photography, but Welles never saw a need to finish the movie, saying that the film was "My own personal project, to be completed in my own time, as one might with a novel." Then he changed gears and claimed it was going to be an essay like F for Fake, as well ideas of the heroes surviving a nuclear war or going to the Moon. Every time he went to Spain, he got new ideas and at one point had a thousand pages of script piled up. Even up until his death, he would discuss the film publically.

The year after Welles' death - 1986 - 45 minutes of scenes and outtakes, assembled by the archivists from the Cinémathèque Française and supervised by the director Costa-Gavras, played Cannes. And it seemed like that's all that would ever be seen of this.

Except that life is strange.

What was left of the film was split into several places. Oja Kodar (Welles's companion and co-writer of F for Fake where she is presented as the daughter of an art forger; never forget "art is a lie that makes us see the truth") had given some footage to the Munich Film Museum as well as also selling that footage to the Filmoteca Española in Madrid. Welles' editor Mauro Bonanni had a negative and the two battled for decades until Italy's Supreme Court forced Bonanni to give his negative to Kodar.

So where does Jess Franco come in?

Well, in 1992, Kodar had already spent years touring Europe in a camper van with the footage, trying to convince several notable directors to complete Don Quixote. All of them said no. Jess Franco said yes and maybe he was a better pick than it seems, seeing as how he was Welles's second unit director on Chimes at Midnight.

Bonnani had all of the McCormack footage, including a windmill-fighting-style scene where Quixote would fight knights on a movie screen and cut it down, not understanding our modern life. Spanish producer Patxi Irigoyen and Franco had so much footage in so many aspect ratios and formats that the idea of combining all of it and making it not just work but feel like an Orson Welles film seems, well, quixotic.

So Franco wrote new script, hired voiceover actors to do impressions of Welles's narration and the actor's voices which don't match up and then added Welles to the film - using footage from 1964's Nella terra di Don Chisciotte - as well as windmill images, zooms and jump cuts. Those last two elements are totally Franco and point to his involvement. I wouldn't be more sure if the film didn't suddenly zoom into Lina Romay's spread thighs.

Don Quixote de Orson Welles premiered at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival and everyone hated it. Welles had purposefully mislabeled reels and had no intention of anyone finishing this except for, well, Orson Welles finishing it.

It's absolutely amazing to me that a movie by perhaps the greatest director of all time was finished by Franco, but that's why I'm obsessed by his work.

No star rating as it feels strange to assign those to a movie that is not complete.