7. Orson Welles: “That doesn’t make any sense!”
The acclaimed actor and filmmaker of the arguably one of the most important movies ever, Citizen Kane, blossomed into a full Rosebud of craziness while recording a voiceover for Findus frozen foods in 1970. The director clearly thought those on set needed a masterclass, or he just wanted to hijack the airwaves and re-enact the stunt that made him (in)famous, a live on-air reading of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds that the panicked masses mistook for an actual news report in 1938. One of the pitfalls of matching a great mind with the glitzy lure of advertising is that the mind might point out the vacuousness. This is what Welles does. He berates the director about the usage of language and grammar, how the prose is jumbled and rushed. Apparently, such merciless, plain and unabashed advertising and the legendary wit were not ‘two peas in a pod!’
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