CineGrand Conjures “Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles

Orson Welles in “Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles”.

The Grand announces “Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles” as the final title in its current CineGrand series of the best recent films, many of them Academy and Golden Globe Award-winners, screening on Tuesday, March 31^st at 7:30 pm.  For more information on how you or your business can sponsor Grand films with a $200 donation, contact The Grand for more information. Ticket prices for CineGrand films are for general admission seating and are $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and students, and $5 for Grand members.

The film looks at the remarkable genius of Orson Welles on the eve of his centenary –  the enigma of his career as a Hollywood star, a Hollywood director (for some a Hollywood failure), and a crucially important independent filmmaker. Orson Welles’s life was magical: a musical prodigy at age 10, a director of Shakespeare at 14, a painter at 16, a star of stage and radio at 20, romances with some of the most beautiful women in the world, including Rita Hayworth. His work was similarly extraordinary, most notably “Citizen Kane,” (considered by many to be the most important movie ever made), created by Welles when he was only 25. “Magician…” features scenes from almost every existing Welles film, from “Hearts of Age,” (which he made in a day when he was only 18 years old) to rarely-seen clips from his final unfinished works like “The Other Side of the Dream,” “The Deep,” and “Don Quixote,” as well as his television and commercial work. Directed by award-winning filmmaker Chuck Workman, and filmed in a dozen locations in the United States and Europe, “Magician…” covers the controversy of Welles’s fall from grace in Hollywood, and his constant attempts to continue exploring his art through making films and directing plays.  Welles’s infamous struggles– with money, with women (including his marriage to Rita Hayworth), with authority, and of course, with his weight are all part of his story, as are his charm, enormous talent, and astonishing work. With new and classic interviews featuring Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Anthony Perkins, Richard Linklater and, of course, Welles himself.

So come see “Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles” at The Grand on Tuesday March 31^st at 7:30 pm and see the film that Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter proclaims is “A lively and fresh retelling of the protean artist’s eventful life.”

For more information on this or other Grand events, including on April 12^th at 2 pm the last Hollywood Classic 2015 selection –  “Doctor Zhivago,” David (“Lawrence of Arabia”, “Bridge Over the River Kwai”) Lean’s classic epic adaptation of Boris Pasternak’s Nobel-Prize winning novel covering the years prior to, during, and after the Russian Revolution, as seen through the eyes of the romantic poet/physician Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif). With Julie Christie, Alec Guiness, Rod Steiger, Ralph Richardson and Geraldine Chaplin –  please call the box office at 207-667-9500 or visit The Grand website at www.grandonline.org or follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Grand-Auditorium/112755987339