Danny Huston is Orson Welles in "Fade to Black," a 2006 release, directed by Oliver Parker, and featuring Paz Vega, Diego Luna, Christopher Walken, Anna Galiena, and Nathaniel Parker.In this story, Welles goes to Italy after his divorce from Rita Hayworth to make a film, "Black Magic." He also wants to raise money for his film version of "Othello." While in Italy, one of the actors in the film is murdered, and as he's dying, he whispers the word "Nero" in Orson's ear. Welles intends to find out who killed him. But he finds himself not only involved with shady characters, but embroiled in the politics of the country. As time goes on, he begins to hear different stories about the actor, somewhat contradictory in nature. On top of which, Tyrone Power is a much bigger star in Italy and Welles keeps coming up short, except on a hit list!This is a nice blend of fact and fiction. Welles did go to Europe around this time, and he made several films, which he often did when he was trying to get money together. His marriage to Rita Hayworth was a complicated one. When his political ambitions led nowhere in the '40s, Rita, so desperate to get out of show business, turned to Aly Khan instead. Welles adored her, but her insecurities made her difficult to live with and was a bad combination with his egotism.It's doubtful that Welles would have gotten himself mixed up in anything that didn't somehow lead to his own self-aggrandizement, but I could have gone along with it if the script had been better. It tries to cram in too much plot.Italy after the war was a horrific mess. The production values for "Fade to Black" are wonderful and show the post-war ruination, as well as striking differences between rich and poor. Of course, Cinecitta the film studio is in Rome, and Tombolo, the place where deserters and collaborators escaped, is way up north, though it's not clear if they're speaking of a district or the city. In any event, it's a wooded area seemingly not far from Rome. The word tombolo has more to do with a mound or beach, so the woods would be the name for it.Danny Huston doesn't look or sound like Welles, except on the film that plays behind his magic act - there we see him in the typical Welles big overcoat and hat, in black and white. He does a good job, though I do believe Welles was a bit showier. As the mother and daughter who knew the murdered actor, Paz Vega and Anna Galiena are gorgeous and look just like mother and daughter. Both have a mysterious aura which adds to the film.The denouement is no surprise. Still, this is an enjoyable film about one of Hollywood's most electrifying people, a brilliant maverick with a flamboyant personality. Sadly, though he resented the discipline and structure dictated by a Hollywood studio, he needed it. Once he left, he was never the same.

Of course this is a fictional account, and as the narrator Welles says, "if you want history read a history book." First for people who will see this film, Black Magic, while having Italian help, was really an American film, and Welles is reputed to have directed his own scenes, and if you see that film, you will be able to see his trademark. The film Black Magic, is also not that bad a movie. I had heard about this film being possibly made in the late 90's, and was surprised to see that it actually had been. The man who directed this film also had ironically directed Othello in 95. the use of Orson Welles in a thriller is something unusual. I love Orson Welles movies, and wonder if we all were cheated that he was not able to do more. I suspect that I like others are part of an Orson Welles cult following, and that is why such a film is made, with Orson Welles as a lead character. It is ironic that seven years before this film was made, Leiv Shreibner, (I probably spelled his name wrong) played a very convincing Welles, and sometimes seemed to look like him,. especially when he moved across to an elevator. I couldn't help but feel that it would have been something of a great sequel if the same actor had played Welles in this film and not Danny Huston.I don't want to suggest that Danny Huston is a failure in this film, but I think that if the film does not really grab our intention and our future memories of film, his performance in the film may be one of the reasons for that. I first remember Danny Huston in the Austrailian film The Proposition, a film in which I feel he gave an excellent performance. In this film however, I think the idea of the filmmakers, and perhaps Huston, was to portray Welles as really an everyman, not a leading figure in a movie that we would like. When he is kissing a woman in a scene, we feel that woman is only kissing him because he is someone important, not someone they find attractive. Even his co-star in the film he is about to do shows scorn for him. Everyone else in the film seems to be more of an interesting person that he is. When he meets his friend from long ago, Pete, (played by Christopher Walken, in a good performance), Walken seems more magnetic than Huston as Welles. This Welles in a clumsy, and has to be pulled out of a few situations by his Chaufeuer, and I guess body guard played by Mexican actor Diego Luna. this Welles, as someone comments towards the end of the picture does not seem important at all. Only during a scene, where Huston portrays Welles doing his magic trick, does the character of Welles really shine through, and perhaps suggests, that Welles was just another guy in this world, but through magic was able to make him on screen and on stage more magnificent than the real person. If the filmmakers had this in mind, make everyone else perhaps more interesting, I think that this was a miscalculation, and perhaps not very flattering on the life of Orson Welles. Hustons portrayal of him, does not make Welles look either interesting or likable. The film which starts out as a murder mystery, leads more to a conspiracy than just a possible murder itself. The idea is interesting, and asks some questions itself, which I won't say because it might give away to much. Though, you can see things in this film a mile away.

This is one of those 'what if' conceits that sometimes come off spectacularly and more often than not bomb. This time around we are asked to surmise 'what if' Orson Welles couldn't get arrested in Hollywood in the late forties and in the wake of his separation and impending divorce from Rita Hayworth found himself playing the lead in a cheesy costume picture in Italy and on the side got involved in both murder and local politics. Like all 'what if's there's a modicum of truth here; Welles did exile himself in Europe in 1948 where he did appear in some fairly dire movies and, of course, he was divorced from Rita Hayworth around that time. The film has him lining up an investor for his version of Othello to be shot in Italy when the current film is in the can whereas although he did write, direct and star in Othello it was actually made in Morocco in 1952. Danny Huston really needs to do more than wield a cigar to come over as Welles and perhaps wisely he makes no attempt to reproduce that distinctive timbre though he might have had a stab at that impish twinkle in the eye that was so much a part of Welles. Pick of the rest is Anna Galieni, so great in The Hairdresser's Husband for Patrice Leconte. As a curio this is worth a look but that's about it.

I enjoyed this movie immensely. It captures the sense of Orson Welles as an adventurer, trying to raise money for movies which he understands better than those around him and instead making ones for other people which he knows are rubbish. On his travels in 1948 Italy, he stumbles into a murder mystery connected, perhaps too loosely, with a political conspiracy.It's cleverly made and very funny. I loved the playfulness which nodded at Welles's work without doing anything as crass as obvious references. It's an enjoyable story. Not a great thriller, the insights and revelations weren't surprising but that only made it more real and engrossing.Huston was encouraged to do part Orson and part his Father, John. He's a likable, believable hero matched by a good, mainly Serbian cast. Paz Vega is excellent as the heroine and Diego Luna gives a wonderful turn as the second hero to Welles, reminds me of James Macavoy, only likable.