Too Much Johnson

Too Much Johnson is a 1938 American silent comedy film written and directed by Orson Welles. The film was made three years before Welles directed Citizen Kane, but it was never publicly screened. The film was shot to be integrated into Welles's Mercury Theatre stage presentation of William Gillette's 1894 comedy, but the motion picture sequences could not be shown due to the absence of projection facilities at the venue, the Stony Creek Theatre in Connecticut. The resulting plot confusion contributed to the stage production's failure. The film was believed to be lost, but in 2008 a print was discovered in a warehouse in Pordenone, Italy. The film premiered Wednesday, October 9, 2013, at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. In 2014 the film was made available online by the National Film Preservation Foundation. Two previous films had been made of this play, a short film in 1900 and a feature length Paramount film in 1919 starring Lois Wilson and Bryant Washburn. Both of these films are now lost. This was the second film to be directed by Welles, but his first as a professional.