Interesting Facts About Chimes at Midnight

• Orson Welles called Falstaff “the most difficult part I ever played in my life.”

• Welles first played Falstaff onstage as a teenager in school, and was obsessed with the character thereafter.

• Welles only got funding for Chimes at Midnight because he promised a producer that he would also direct a film of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island—which he never really planned on doing.

• Welles said he edited Chimes at Midnight so that nearly every cut during the kinetic, violent Battle of Shrewsbury sequence would be set to a blow between soldiers.

• Some of the shots of soldiers sinking into the mud during the battle sequence were filmed in a warehouse.

• Other than Welles, none of the actors in Chimes at Midnight wear any makeup. Welles wanted everyone to have a natural look to match the gritty atmosphere.

• The American press had long since turned against Welles by the time Chimes at Midnight was released. In its initial negative review of the film, Time magazine said Welles was “probably the first actor in the history of the theater to appear too fat for the role” of Falstaff.

• John Gielgud, cast as King Henry IV, had to film all of his scenes in two weeks, so the actor’s double appears in many shots.