In October we’re screening three late Orson Welles films - F for Fake, The Immortal Story and Chimes at Midnight - and in November, the very first Welles film, the silent comedy Too Much Johnson. 

“Too Much Johnson offers breathlessly enjoyable viewing.”

—Pamela Hutchinson, The Guardian

Orson Welles’ very first feature film is a madcap spoof of silent film conventions, and a dazzling display of the cinematic virtuosity that lay ahead for the 23-year-old kid from Kenosha. 

The only print of Too Much Johnson was long thought to have been lost in a fire at Welles’ home, but in 2008, a print was discovered in a warehouse in Italy. When the film premiered five years later, audiences happily learned that Too Much Johnson isn’t just a film history curio - it’s a wildly entertaining movie in its own right.

Although Welles had only directed theatre to this point, Too Much Johnson is not at all stagey, with tonnes of visual gags, expressionist-inspired steep angles, and a furiously rhythmic editing style. Made ten years after the first talkie had been released, the film is an affectionate parody of silent comedy, the antic style of which had started to look very dated by the late 1930s. 

Featuring Joseph Cotten as a cad on the run from the husband of his lover over the rooftops of thirties New York, amid much hat-based silliness.

“Too Much Johnson is an unanticipated delight, showing the director nimbly playing with silent film forms without stooping to high-horse parody or ridicule.”

—Jay Weissberg, Variety