Orson Welles’s The Immortal Story (1968) is one of the films from his second bargain basement period as an outcast Hollywood director living in Europe. The first period occurred after the domestic box office and critical failures of his plagued production of The Lady from Shanghai (1948) and the low budget Macbeth (1948 as well). During the first period, he appeared in Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) and other films and directed Othello (1952) and the ultra-low budget Mr. Arkadin (1955). Arkadin, for me, shares a primary quality with The Immortal Story, filmed for French television after Welles was once again unable to work in Hollywood after Touch of Evil (1958). Essentially, both are about rich men, both played by Welles, who have grown obsessed with narrative, perception, and historical legacy.
