Apropos of nothing…
I was watching some of the extras on my recently-acquired Criterion Collection DVD of Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight (and let me tell you I have waited so many years to see this in decent shape at last – while I lived in Boston, a print played at my beloved, much-missed Brattle Theatre, but the sound went out about two minutes in; then a couple of years later while I was in Chicago for a few days visiting my then-girlfriend, a VHS copy was acquired from a video store, but I fell sound asleep because we weren’t able to start it until about midnight, then I left town, and it was gone (broken? Stolen?) the next time I returned; I got a decent foreign DVD a couple of years ago which at least allowed me to see it, but this Criterion thing, let me tell you. A beaut’.) – and it occurred to me that the end of Henry IV Part 2 (or Welles’s interpretation, anyway) is in many ways the end of Stella Dallas.
I feel like too much explanation ruins this observation. Go watch them both again. You haven’t seen them?! It’s okay. I’ll wait. You’ll be glad you did.
Yellowstocking Tales 