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Orson Welles' French TV show with Jeanne Moreau is a near-masterpiece, directed with assurance and style. It's the filmmaker's first color feature, and his last completed fictional feature. The Immortal Story Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 831 1968 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 58 min. / Histoire immortelle / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 30, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Jeanne Moreau, Orson Welles, Roger Coggio, Norman Eshley, Fernando Rey. Cinematography Willy Kurant Film Editors Yolande Maurette, Marcelle Pluet, Françoise Garnault, Claude Farny Music selections Eric Satie Based on a novel by Isak Dinesen Produced by Micheline Rozan Written and Directed by Orson Welles

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Criterion Collection's Blu-ray of The Immortal Story took me completely by surprise. I bailed out of a viewing long ago on Los Angeles' 'Z' Channel cable station, mainly because it looked terrible -- grainy and washed out. I thought I was watching a faded print that had been blown up from 16mm.

★★★★☆ Made for French television in 1968, Orson Welles' The Immortal Story is a beguiling and hypnotic meditation, on art and artifice, and the trickery and magic of storytelling. Adapted from a short story by Danish writer Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen), it tells the tale of an elderly and wealthy merchant Mr. Clay (Welles), who gets his meagre amusement from having his accountant (Roger Coggio) read over the account books of his many interests and companies as he slowly trundles towards a somnambulant death in a dusty corner of Macao.

Orson Welles, Ruth Warrick, Citizen Kane Orson Welles on TCM: The Third Man, The Lady From Shanghai Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am The Tartars (1961) A barbarian army attacks Viking settlements along the Russian steppes. Dir: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Victor Mature, Orson Welles, Folco Lulli. C-83 mins, Letterbox Format 7:30 Am Tomorrow Is Forever (1946) A scarred veteran presumed dead returns home to find his wife remarried. Dir: Irving Pichel. Cast: Claudette Colbert, Orson Welles, George Brent. Bw-104 mins. 9:30 Am Moby Dick (1956) Epic adaptation of Herman Melville's classic about a vengeful sea captain out to catch the whale that maimed him. Dir: John Huston. Cast: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn. C-115 mins, Letterbox Format 11:30 Am The V.I.P.S (1963) Wealthy passengers fogged in at London's Heathrow Airport fight to survive a variety of personal trials. Dir: Anthony Asquith. Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Louis Jourdan.