FOR OVER A YEAR, between January 1949 and March 1950, the Irish actor and director Micheal Mac Liammoir worked with Orson Welles, having been cast by Welles to play Iago to Welles’s Othello. Put Money in Thy Purse (a quote from Othello) is a brilliant account (in the form of a diary) of the difficulties of making the film. By the end of the book one is left in no doubt as to why the studio system ultimately failed this maverick, Orson Welles. In fact, one is left wondering how Welles ever got his madcap career off the ground in the first place.
The tale begins with Orson Welles sending a telegram to an ailing Mac Liammoir, demanding that he immediately leave his sickbed in Dublin and fly to Paris for a screen test. Welles is sure that a mere sighting of “Orson Welles” will undoubtedly cure the Irish actor of his various ailments. Mac Liammoir remains unconvinced. Although some fifteen years have passed since the two last met in New York City, Mac Liammoir clearly has some inkling of the chaos to which he might be exposing his life. He and his partner, Hilton Edwards, the director of the Gate Theatre in Dublin, enjoy a well-ordered domestic and professional life that is centred around the Irish theatre. However, curiosity eventually gets the better of Mac Liammoir and, having convinced himself that he will be finished with Othello by the summer and thus able to return to the theatre, he answers the maestro’s call.
During the course of a week of “testing” in Paris, Mac Liammoir learns that there has already been some filming with another actor playing the part of Iago. In fact, filming has been going on for quite some time, the interruptions occurring only when the money ran out. A confused Mac Liammoir returns to Dublin, and silence. “No word from Orson, and wonder if my film career at an end. Cannot make up mind if joy or sorrow would ensue if it were.” Welles eventually rescues Mac Liammoir from this state of ambiguity and summons him back to Paris and then to Rome, where he subjects the poor Irishman to a month of chaotic “rehearsals.” Mac Liammoir has difficulty fathoming just what is going on, for disaffected actors are constantly being replaced by a director who, somewhat disconcertedly, keeps disappearing. It becomes clear to Mac Liammoir that Welles has assembled the cast and crew of an international production without having secured proper financial backing, and without having even the most rudimentary sense of schedule. In short, Welles is simply making it all up as he goes along.
Having endured a week of frustrated isolation in Rome, word eventually reaches Mac Liammoir that Welles is now in London, and that he’ll soon be flying to Morocco to make an entirely different film. Mac Liammoir is offered the choice of waiting for Welles in Rome or in Paris, of going back to Dublin, or flying to the Moroccan desert to join him. An exasperated Mac Liammoir flies back to Dublin, but six weeks later finds himself on a plane bound for Casablanca and more “rehearsals.” Once there he learns that Welles has now abandoned plans to shoot Othello in Rome and Paris, and that once Welles is finished with his current project they will apparently be making Othello in Mogador, a small town on the west coast of Morocco that contains no hotel. Welles’s personal assistant informs an astonished Mac Liammoir that, “Orson will probably take a villa where you will all be one happy family.” Having only just arrived in Morocco, Mac Liammoir is then instructed to return to Paris and “wait there.”
Filming eventually begins in Morocco. As fate would have it, the very first scene that Welles shoots with Mac Liammoir is illustrative of the chaos that has dogged the whole production. Unsurprisingly, none of the costumes have arrived in Morocco from Rome. The scene that Welles wishes to shoot is one in which an attempt is made on Cassio’s life by his friend Roderigo, who is subsequently murdered by Iago. The scene traditionally takes place in the street, but after a sleepless night “the winged gorilla” (as Mac Liammoir now calls him) decides to film the murder in a steam bath, with the participants stripped and draped in towels. This “inspired” decision not only solves the costume problem, it suggests an intimacy between the characters which makes the treachery all the more disturbing. Welles’s technique often calls for similarly bold improvisation, but not always with the same degree of success. For instance, his decision to shoot, and then dispense with, two different actresses in the role of Desdemona, before shooting with yet a third actress, inevitably creates much frustration among both cast and crew.
During the course of filming there continue to be a startling number of unscheduled “breaks” in order that the director might fly off in search of more money. At such moments, the crew and cast, at enormous expense, are abandoned in various locations, often for weeks on end, idling, reading, sightseeing, sniping at each other, and wondering about the many contractual obligations that they are now jeopardizing. But somehow, through sheer force of personality, Welles manages to hold the ship steady. Over a year after receiving the original telegram, Welles turns to the author and says, “Mr. Mac Liammoir, I am happy to tell you you are now an out-of-work actor. You have finished Iago.” One can almost feel Micheal Mac Liammoir’s huge sigh of relief rise up from the pages of his book.
Put Money in Thy Purse reminds the reader that there was a time when cinema was an art form in which the director was the supreme artist, and the actors—however famous—were merely strolling players. Throughout the length of this book there is barely a mention of agents, managers, publicists, lawyers or accountants. Welles not only manages to convince his “team” of the supreme importance of this production of Othello, he even has them planning future productions, including a world tour of various theatrical classics, and a film of Julius Caesar. For all his eloquently expressed ambivalence about the current project, even Mac Liammoir spends a couple of days of yet another unplanned “break” cutting the text of The Importance of Being Earnest in the hope that the play might be included in the world tour of theatrical classics.
Orson Welles—actor, director, producer—a man of immense charisma and supreme stubbornness, illuminates the book. But ultimately, Put Money in Thy Purse is Micheal Mac Liammoir’s book and, through the eyes of this civilized and intelligent actor, we are able to see how an artist learns to trust that which he does not always understand, how he grows to tolerate that which he initially disliked, and how he comes to recognize strength of character where he first espied only weakness and folly. And what of the final film? Well, although Micheal Mac Liammoir’s text ends with his own “ ‘wrap,” and quite some time before the shoot was over, we now have the evidence of the complete and edited film to set beside the book. As it turns out, Orson Welles’s Othello is one of the truly great transpositions of Shakespeare to film. It is full of shadowy suggestion, unusual camera angles, big close-ups, and dazzling montage; it is Shakespeare as film noir. Welles knew what he was doing—artistically, that is. But then again, so did Mac Liammoir; his outstanding performance is a key part of this remarkable film. He chose to rise from his sickbed and answer the call of Orson Welles; but luckily for us, he chose also to write about the improbable, and often hilarious, obstacles that daily confronted this troupe of believers as they made their masterpiece under the guidance of “the winged gorilla.”