Chimes at Midnight

Saw Chimes at Midnight. It was marred by the faults common to all Shakespeare adaptations: an audience of onlookers whose only purpose is to laugh whenever an obscure joke is uttered, women who are beautiful in an anachronistically modern way, persistent dryness. All this aside, in its focus on Falstaff it contains Orson Welles' recurring theme of the nature of lies that are more interesting than the truth. I suspect Orson sees a part of himself in the habitual liar Falstaff, whose only source of livelihood is a golden tongue. Orson's acting is superb as a disgusting, foul, loveable old man.