Address:
Mercury Theatre/Mercury Productions
- Scope and Content:
The materials in the Mercury series document some of the earliest and best-known work of both Richard Wilson and Orson Welles. The papers are broken up into subseries that include Theater, where Welles and the Mercury first won critical acclaim, Radio, where they gained national attention via the War of the Worlds " broadcast, then Film, where Welles and the Mercury created movies such as Citizen Kane . The Multi-project and administrative subseries contains records not primarily linked to one project or medium but that are general administrative or business documents.
Within each subseries, material is arranged by project. For example, materials relating to Citizen Kane are kept together, physically and intellectually. Projects are organized chronologically. To enable search and discovery of relevant materials, it may be helpful to think of the arrangement as not only project-based, but as a chronological file as well.
Important note: Notable exceptions to the project-based organizational scheme were necessitated by the fact that Welles frequently worked on several projects simultaneously. Therefore, a single letter or memo may address multiple projects. Sets of memos and correspondence are filed with the project to which they are most closely related.
Two examples of overlapping projects and sets of memoranda are Macbeth and Othello (much of the information related to Othello is actually in correspondence in the Macbeth files), and The Magnificent Ambersons and It’s All True (much of the information related to The Magnificent Ambersons is contained within the It’s All True files).To take full advantage of the collection, a researcher interested in a particular film or theatrical project should also consult materials from projects Welles was working on during the same time period.
As general rule, photocopies of Mercury materials have not been included in this series. For example, a photocopy made in the 1980s of a playbill for the Mercury Theatre’s production of Horse Eats Hat (1937), is not included in this series with the original materials, but is with Richard Wilson’s research materials. The two exceptions to this rule are correspondence between Orson Welles and Richard Wilson and some drafts of scripts.
The Theater subseries (0.6 linear ft + oversize) consists of both W.P.A. Federal Theater Project and Mercury Theater materials. Scripts, photographs, playbills, programs, and some production documents make up the bulk of the theater material. The scripts in the collection include several original copies as well as later editions, some of which contain notes about Welles’s staging of the plays.
The Radio subseries (2.5 linear ft) contains a large number of scripts from the Orson Welles Show (presented by Lady Esther Cosmetics from September, 1941 to January, 1942), including un-aired material and multiple drafts of some titles. However, the collection contains only a few scripts from the original Mercury Theater On the Air and its successor the Campbell Playhouse . Shows (e.g. Campbell Playhouse and Orson Welles Almanac ) are ordered chronologically and individual broadcasts arranged alphabetically within each show. The original author of the story and the Mercury staffer who adapted it are indicated when shown on the script, though in many cases there was no writer listed, even for well-known stories by Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre), Edgar Allan Poe (The Cask of Amontillado), Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca) and Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms).
Hundreds of and telegrams and letters written to Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater after the War of the Worlds broadcast make up a large part of the Radio subseries. Most of the letters in the collection come out in strong support of the broadcast and praise Welles and the Mercury Theatre for their production. However, though designated "fan mail," the letters contain a mixture of positive and negative comments. This War of the Worlds fan mail is organized geographically by state and city. The box originally containing War of the Worlds fan mail also contained a few letters regarding other Mercury Theatre on the Air broadcasts, as well as one unexplained photo of damage from a 1938 hurricane in Long Island, NY.
Most episodes Hello Americans (November, 1942 to January, 1943) are present as well, some in annotated mimeograph copies marked "as broadcast." The return of the Mercury Theater as a summer half-hour program in 1946 is also represented by a number of examples, including some stories that were reprised from previous Welles shows.
The Film subseries (7 linear ft. + oversize) spans from Welles’s earliest film ideas upon arriving in Hollywood in 1939 to the production of Othello in 1952.
The collection's earliest Mercury film script is for Welles’s unproduced version of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness , a typewritten original which includes numerous storyboard drawings, likely in Welles’s own hand. Citizen Kane is represented by two original scripts and a "breakdown" of shots without dialogue. There are also several different scripts for his follow-up The Magnificent Ambersons , including an original mimeograph copy of the estimating script, which contains scenes cut from the final release version. Welles’s 1947 Columbia picture The Lady From Shanghai is represented by a script for the film "as shot," while for his Republic version of Macbeth there is a shooting script along with two scripts used in post-production that were filed by Wilson with a series of detailed memos and notes on the editing process. The scripts for Mercury films also include an unproduced script called "Two on an Island" by John Twist and famed radio writer Norman Corwin, who worked with Welles in the broadcast medium, and for Jane Eyre , which Welles acted in.
In addition to scripts, the Film subseries also contains photographs of most Mercury film productions, including informal shots of the cast and crew as well as official publicity stills and headshots. Production documents, which range from memoranda between Orson Welles, Richard Wilson, RKO, and other key players, to notes, sketches and casts lists also comprise an important part of this series.
Mercury Productions’ never-completed film It’s All True (1942) is particularly well represented in the Richard Wilson -- Orson Welles Papers. The bulk of the It’s All True is comprised of a uniquely rich and comprehensive body of photographs and negatives from the filming in South America. Also included are 5 folders of original production memos, reports, and correspondence regarding It’s All True project from its earliest stages, when Welles intended to make a film based on the story of jazz, to detailed reports of filming activities in South America, to unsuccessful post-production efforts to salvage at least parts of the project. The primary correspondents in this production file include Richard Wilson, Orson Welles, Jack Moss, and Robert Meltzer. Correspondence from and/or materials related to Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Brazilian performer Grande Othello are also included in the production documents. Besides correspondence and memos, the production file also contains contractual, travel, and insurance documents and notes. The It’s All True materials also include Orson Welles’s personal travel documents, (originally stuffed into a large envelope) which are made up of visas, plane tickets, bills for hotels, restaurants, and other services, a limited amount of ephemera, as well as snapshots of Welles and others in South America (the majority of the photographs of Welles in South America are located with It’s All True . Photographs and Negatives).
Though it is unclear if it is associated with a particular project, a version of Othello (consisting of pages ripped out of a book and stapled together) with extensive annotations by Welles, mostly dialogue cuts, has been included with the Othello film materials.
The Multi-project and administrative subseries (0.5 linear ft) includes several index card files of stories received, stories broadcast, and quotations. Other multi-project and administrative material includes an alphabetical file of story reviews written by Mercury Productions staff in the 1940s with assigned grades of appropriateness for screen, stage, radio that also includes some later reviews of possible television stories. Photographs of Mercury cast and crew are also part of this subseries.
Contents
Using These Materials
- RESTRICTIONS:
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The collection is open for research.
- USE & PERMISSIONS:
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Copyright has not been transferred to the Regents of the University of Michigan. Permission to publish must be obtained from the copyright holder(s).