Experience an exclusive evening of intrigue and artistry with Wednesday With Welles, the Fine Arts Theatre's monthly celebration of Orson Welles, cinema's most enigmatic genius. Beneath the velvet glow of Beverly Hills' historic movie palace, you'll witness a classic Welles masterpiece on the big screen, accompanied by untold stories, rare revelations, and a live conversation with filmmaker Stanley Sheff–editor, collaborator, and uncredited co-director who stood beside Welles on his final completed production. A gathering as unforgettable–and as unique–as the man himself.
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Wednesday With Welles I
February 25
Citizen Kane (1941)
GET TICKETSCitizen Kane rewrote the rulebook with bold storytelling, dazzling visual invention, and a gleeful sense of cinematic mischief no one had seen before. When Orson Welles burst onto the screen in 1941 with this audacious debut, he set a standard so high that cinema has been racing to catch up ever since, and now you can see it the way it was meant to be seen, on the big screen.
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Wednesday With Welles II
March 18
GET TICKETSThe Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Filmed while Welles was in Brazil on a government mission, the Ambersons' decline mirrors the mutilation of the movie itself, cut to pieces by RKO against his wishes. What survives on screen is a haunting portrait of vanished privilege and changing America, glowing with Bernard Herrmann's last score for Welles and begging to be rediscovered with an audience.
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Wednesday With Welles III
April 22
GET TICKETSThe Lady From Shanghai (1947)
Shot on Rita Hayworth's newly shorn platinum hair, an image that shocked Hollywood, the film drifts from Acapulco waters to that legendary funhouse of mirrors at Venice Pier. Its fractured finale reflects the off-screen marriage collapsing even as Welles crafted one of noir's most daring visual experiments.
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Wednesday With Welles IV
May 20
GET TICKETSThe Stranger (1946)
Welles stepped into this tale of a Nazi fugitive to prove he could work within the studio system, creating the first Hollywood film to use actual death-camp footage. Beneath the Connecticut clock tower, his villain meets a fate as sharp and precise as the gears that tick above him.
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Wednesday With Welles V
June 17
GET TICKETSTouch of Evil (1958)
Shot on the border streets of Venice, California, the film's bravura opening, one long swooping take, was nearly discarded by the studio until Welles fought to restore it decades later. Quinlan's downfall, recorded on a wire in an oil-field canal, marks one of cinema's great resurrections, a masterpiece reclaimed from chaos.
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Wednesday With Welles XI
July 15F for Fake (1973)
TICKETS ON SALE SOONFilmed partly in Ibiza and Paris, this freewheeling essay resurrects the notorious forger Elmyr de Hory and the hoax biographer Clifford Irving, who himself fooled the world with his fake Howard Hughes autobiography. Welles, ever the magician, ends his film with dazzling cinematic trickery of his own, proudly announcing it the moment the clock strikes midnight.
CITIZEN KANE
Doors Open 7:30 PM
Widely regarded as the greatest motion picture ever made, Citizen Kane tops the American Film Institute's list of the 100 Greatest American Films of All Time. Orson Welles' groundbreaking 1941 debut remains a towering achievement in cinema, innovative, daring, and endlessly influential.
This unique screening will be presented by filmmaker Stanley Sheff, who worked closely with Welles as a collaborator, editor, actor, and uncredited co-director on his unsold TV pilot The Orson Welles Show. Sheff will share stories from their professional collaboration and personal friendship, giving audiences a rare first-hand glimpse into the private world of Orson Welles.
- Conversations about Citizen Kane and its lasting impact
- Inside stories from the unsold TV pilot The Orson Welles Show
- Personal memories that reveal Welles' humor, charm, and presence
