Orson Welles began making his film version of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello in 1948—literally began filming in that year—and the film would not be seen by the public until 1952. The story behind the financial and artistic struggle to get the film made is complex that an entire book was written about it by one of the film’s co-stars. Put Money in Thy Purse offers a fascinating glimpse into the travails of trying to create an independent film even when you are the guy that directed Citizen Kane. Written by the actor who plays Iago, Micheál MacLiammóir (and Gate Theater of Dublin founder who helped to kickstart the career of Orson Welles), the book reveals in great detail how Othello became a labor of love that saw the great director hire and then fire a host of different actors and actresses engaged to play the roles of Desdemona, Cassio, Ludovico and—surprisingly—Iago. MacLiammóir was actually the fourth in line to play the film’s memorable villain.
Despite working up such chaotic conditions—or perhaps because of those conditions—Welles put together a film that is remarkably cohesive and which contains various parts that unconditionally reveal him to be one of cinema’s towering directorial talents. The opening sequence which sets the stage for the familiar story to be told in flashback is itself one of the most memorable in the canon of Welles. The concept of consequence for the villains in a Shakespearean tragedy is never really given much thought so it comes as something of a shock to see Iago literally in enclosed in a mobile jail being paraded through the streets like a hysterical bird in a cage.
The film exists in several different versions. An early version which Welles hastily conceived was submitted for entry in the 1951 Venice Film Festival before being just as hastily removed from consideration. A year later Welles presented a modified version at the Cannes Film Festival where Othello won the Grand Prix prize. An English version for release in America dubbed the entire dialogue of the French actress playing Desdemona. The film which is most often available today is based on that version which many critics who have compared both suggest is inferior to the European version screened at Cannes.
