Chimes at Midnight

Writer-director Orson Welles as Falstaff and Alan Webb as Shallow open, Ralph Richardson narrates and John Gielgud as Henry IV assumes control, in Welles’ under-financed project, shot over two years in Spain, sampling Falstaff’s story from five Shakespeare plays, Chimes At Midnight, 1965.

Writer-director Orson Welles (as Falstaff, in his film based on Shakespeare’s recurring character) introduces Keith Baxter as Prince Hal and Paddy Bedford as cohort Bardolph, Margaret Rutherford the befuddled Hostess Quickly, drawing from Henry IV, Part 1, in Chimes At Midnight, 1965.

This from Henry IV, Part 1, with the king (John Gielgud) ruminating about plots against him when his wayward son Prince Hal (Keith Baxter) arrives to argue for his cause as a worthy heir, in writer-director Orson Welles’ mashup of Shakespeare’s character Falstaff, Chimes At Midnight, 1965.