Welles Missing at Opening of "Tesla"

By LONNIE HUDKINS
News Staff Reporter

NIAGARA FALLS – Orson Welles failed to make an expected appearance Saturday night at the Western premiere of the film "The Secret of Nikola Tesla" in which he plays financier J.P. Morgan.

The famous actor's appearance here had been expected right up until the Yugoslavian-made movie was shown in the Greek Theater of the Niagara Falls Convention Center.

Many of the film's 300 viewers seemed disappointed that Welles failed to show and that the movie had poor lighting and harsh sound.

The film details the life of the inventor Nikola Tesla, who made the use of alternating current possible.

Petar Bozovic, who played the leading role of Tesla, did an outstanding job, but the plot had too many flashbacks. Strother Martin, often seen on television as a comic or a villain, was not terribly convincing as George Westinghouse.

History shows that it was Westinghouse who had enough faith in alternating current and Tesla's genius to get the first power plant built in Niagara Falls.

Because alternating current could be transmitted for great distances, it enabled industries to develop much faster than through the use of direct current transmissions.

In the audience was Budimir Loncar, Yugoslavia's U.S. ambassador, who earlier in the day placed a wreath at Tesla's monument on Goat Island to commemorate the inventor's birth on July 10, 1856 in Smiljan, Yugoslavia.
Another wreath was placed on the monument by costumed pupils from the Nikola Tesla Institute in Toronto. The pupils later danced in Goat Island's park.

Andrew Michrowski, director of planning in Ottawa, Ont., said he liked the movie.

"Although it starts in very low form," Mr. Michrowski said, "it gets better and stronger as the picture progresses."

The event was sponsored by the Nikola Tesla Memorial Society of the United States and Canada. The program also featured a brunch at which Tesla's nephew, William Terbo, presided and a dinner and dance after the premiere.

Several viewers said they were disappointed in Mr. Welles' performance as Mr. Morgan. They said he treated the role the same way he treats his wine commercials, and that a story about one of the world's greatest inventors deserved better treatment.