Again, we didn't have any of this so-called B negative, which you could kind of finesse things. I just had the print to work with. And I went on and did other things later in the film. But then, when we screened the whole film, I suddenly saw the reason, I thought, why he had wanted me to do this. Which was that it was the moment at which in the screenplay this Menzies character virtually admits to the Charlton Heston character that his boss is wrong. And then, he realises he had made an admission. Then he kind of stands up again, against it. But the damage has been done, in a sense. And now, the Charlton Heston character knows that he's got this guy. And I think Welles realised that that admission so early in the film did not serve the scenes later. And that it would be better to delay that moment until closer to the end of the film. So by cutting this close-up out that problem was averted. So that in this scene, which happens in the hall of records at the police station, the character of Menzies stands up for his boss all the way through. He doesn't... He quivers a little bit. But he doesn't break down.
And the question is, 'Why didn't Orson just say that in the memo?' Well, the reason is that he was writing this memo to people who were his enemies. And if he... First of all, would they understand all of that? And secondly, if they did understand that, they would say something uncomplimentary to Welles, maybe. So he simply said, 'I made a mistake. I used the wrong lens. Please cut it out.' So he simplified it for their purposes, which is a way of dealing with people who have power over you, like, the heads of the studio. And so it gave me an insight into the film, obviously, that this worked. Even though I didn't understand why I was doing it at the time. When I saw the final result, I think I understood why.
