Watching some Orson Welles movies. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), which he made after Citizen Kane, was changed a lot by the studio and even scenes were shot without him and added. I think you can tell. It's still quite good, but it feels kind of uneven.
It's basically about the youngest son of a wealthy family not accepting his mother always loved another man, which he finds out after his father dies. And the subsequent decline of the family fortune.
Also watched The Stranger (1946), with Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young and Welles himself. It seems Welles himself disliked it, but I can't see why cause it's quite good. It's a thriller/drama about a war criminal, Franz Kindler (played by Welles) hiding in a small American town, Harper in Connecticut. His former associate is set free from imprisonment to lead Robinson who's working for the War Crimes Commission to him. Welles' character is about to marry the daughter of the Supreme Court justice (Young), who has no idea about the past of her husband.
You can sort of tell the finale is gonna be set in the clocktower mentioned throughout, but apart from that predictability it's a nice film.
Netflix has also added Touch of Evil, Welles' 1958 film noir. Have only seen it once long ago, so it's due for a rewatch.
Another classic I watched: Wages of Fear/Le Salaire de la Peur (1953) from French director Henri-Georges Clouzot (also known for Les Diaboliques from 1955). It stars Yves Montand.
It's about four European men in a South American town in need of money, who get hired by an oil company to transport two trucks filled with nitroglycerine over treacherous mountain roads. It's a great idea for a story and the film is considered a classic. But it takes a long time before the journey starts with the men just hanging out in the poor village and not much happening - I suppose this was done to give them some background. The film has also a surprising amount of nudity for its time - not sex scenes, but nudity.
Finally the transport of the highly explosive content starts, but despite a warning on the trucks (as if you needed one) not to smoke in its approximation, the men smoke cigarettes constantly. It's hard to care for their lives, if they're so careless themselves. Even after being covered completely in oil Montand still lights a cigarette.
There are some moments of suspense, but overall the film is kind of slow. It was remade (or rather the novel filmed anew) by Willian Friedkin as Sorcerer in 1977, but I've never seen that unfortunately - it's one of his films that unlike The Exorcist or French Connection, is never on tv. I would like to see how it compares.