Chimes at Midnight, a.k.a. Falstaff (1965)

You can tell it was pretty late in the directing career of Orson Welles. Not having enough friends left in Hollywood, he turned to European production companies I'd never heard of before. His use of black and white at this point probably had more to do with budget than artistry. Oh, other famous people still got involved -- Harry Saltzman, John Gielgud, and Jeanne Moreau come to mind -- but a sizable portion of the (rather few) credited names reflect Switzerland, France, or especially Spain for a reason. Thanks to contested distribution rights, you'll be lucky to find the film in the U.S. My luck took the form of a Welles festival at the AFI Silver Theater.

As you might have guessed from the second title, Welles plays Sir John Falstaff, a popular minor character from several Shakespeare plays. His moderate-length screenplay combines mostly relevant portions of the tetralogy consisting of Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V, plus some dialog from Merry Wives of Windsor and details from a 16th-century history text. Believe it or not, Welles saw fit to lose weight for a role consistently described as obese.

The Scarlet and the Black (1983)

I had to think a bit about whether to review a TV movie on this blog. After all, I leave off the TV series I watch. But apart from the occasional fade to black, presumably for commercial breaks, it feels much like a film that debuted on the silver screen. Why make the distinction on DVD? Netflix doesn't.

Be careful not to mix this up with other works by the same or similar titles; they have completely different stories and origins. This TSatB, based on J.P. Gallagher's book The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, concerns the real-life Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty (Gregory Peck post-The Omen), who not so secretly defied the Vatican's official neutrality during World War II to help people hide where they could in the vicinity of Rome. Colonel Herbert Kappler (Christopher Plummer post-The Sound of Music), who all but runs occupied Rome, finds O'Flaherty a thorn in his side.