Othello (1952 Film)

Othello (1952 Film)

Othello is a 1952 drama film based on the Shakespearean play, made by Mercury Productions Inc. and Les Films Marceau and distributed by United Artists (1955). It was directed and produced by Orson Welles, who also played the title role. The screenplay was adapted by Welles and an uncredited Jean Sacha. The film was shot on location in Morocco, Venice, Tuscany and Rome and at the Scalera Studios in Rome. Welles trimmed the three-hour Shakespeare play to 91 minutes for the film.

In addition to Orson Welles, the cast consisted of Micheál MacLiammóir as Iago, Robert Coote as Roderigo, Suzanne Cloutier as Desdemona, Michael Laurence as Cassio, Fay Compton as Emilia and Doris Dowling as Bianca.

One of Welles's more complicated shoots, Othello was filmed erratically over three years. Shooting began in 1949, but was forced to shut down when finance dried up. The film's completion was hampered by its Italian backer entering bankruptcy early in the film's production. The problems led to some imaginative solutions; the scene in which Roderigo is murdered in a Turkish bath was shot in that form because the costumes were not finished. One of the fight scenes starts in Morocco, but the ending was shot in Rome several months later. Welles used the money from his acting roles, such as in The Third Man (1949), to help finance the film. This lengthy shoot is detailed in Micheál MacLiammóir's book Put Money in Thy Purse.