Three versions of One Man Band 1995 Documentary

[atcolomb]

I started this topic under Kane on Blu-ray but maybe it should have it's own. I just received from Raredvds4sale.co.uk the disc titled "The Lost Films of Orson Welles." Both Wellesnet members Alan Brody and Glenn Anders have said that this is a different cut of One Man Band....and they are right. I have 2 dvd players and a receiver so i have the Criterion version in one and the one from England in the other. I then started both at the same time and toggled between both with my remote. First the title card from Criterion says "Orson Welles One Man Band", the British one says "The Lost Films of Orson Welles". Both movies start the same but the British version skips the scenes of Orson's early films and a couple of scenes here and there and also a shorter scene at the end of the movie where Oja Kodar is having sex in the car from the film The Other Side of The Wind. So the British version has nothing new and i would say about 5 minutes worth of scenes missing. Also for some reason the footage that shows clips from Orson's films are in worse shape in the British version but look clean in the Criterion one. The scenes shot with Oja when the documentary was made look the same on both..so did Criterion or someone do a restoration job on the Welles footage? There are no subtitles on the British version with a english speaking guy doing the narration just like Peter Bogdanovich did for Showtime. So my guess is that this British version is a official release just a diffrent cut of the original German documentary. Also this disc did include the 1982 BBC documentary The Orson Welles Story.

[Store Hadji]

When the BBC Arena "Orson Welles Story" was shortened and rebroadcast by TNT as "Orson Welles: Stories from a Life in Films," the Othello footage was swapped. Arena used the good print, which was available briefly on laserdisc. TNT used the unrestored US print, which suffered from the audio dropping to silence at every quiet point, thus marring the soundtrack. This is due to different people or entities holding distribution rights for different regions, and why Brazil is a Universal film in the US and a Fox film in the rest of the world.

[Alan Brody]

Interesting. Here's to the grey market...and region-free players.

Also this disc did include the 1982 BBC documentary The Orson Welles Story.

Is it the original full version? I've never seen that one, only the TNT version. But judging from the text of the full interview (in the book Orson Welles Interviews) there was quite a bit that was cut out.

[RayKelly]

How is the quality on the interview?

[atcolomb]

The film runs 165 minutes and i think this is the uncut BBC interview. IMDB has the TNT version Orson Welles Stories From A Life In Film at 150 minutes which i taped from TNT in 1992. When i first purchased the British version last year and saw it i do remember seeing scenes that were not in the TNT version. When i have time i will dig out the TNT disc and compare it to the British one and will post the results as soon as i can. The image is ok...VHS quality and the sound is clear.

[RayKelly]

Thanks atcolomb !
I thought there was no more "rare" Welles videos out there to buy until I checked out this site.
Footage from the Dublin stage 40 years ago and other rarities on one disc and another with the Q&A session for the unfinished Filming The Trial.
The two DVDs are going to cost me $13.50 INCLUDING shipping from the UK. The e-mails back were fast and friendly. They do make the titles available in the U.S. format -- NTSC. I was told they will be mailed out Monday.
I will post about the quality when they arrive.

[Store Hadji]

The Filming The Trial DVD he lists is 92 minutes long. That's 90 more minutes than I've ever seen.

[atcolomb]

The guys name is Neil and very friendly...and very fast shipping! So far i purchased Filming Othello, The RKO Story, The Orson Welles Story, and The Lost Films Of Orson Welles aka One Man Band. All very viewable and some of them very hard to get. I will get Filming The Trial myself and check it out.

[Harvey Chartrand]

This is what Gary Graver had to say about Filming the Trial in the Penny Blood Magazine interview:

Gary Graver: Filming The Trial (1981) is a 90-minute Q&A at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Orson intended to do it like Filming Othello (with scenes from The Trial and other interviews added later) but we never got around to it. The Munich Film Museum took all my reels and stitched them together to make a 90-minute movie – and it works! A lot of people were there in the audience that day who are successful filmmakers now. It was pretty basic camerawork. I filmed Orson quite a bit and then I’d swing around to the audience whenever they gave a big response.
_________________

There are a few clips from Filming The Trial in The One Man Band extra feature on Criterion's two-disc DVD edition of F for Fake. The camerawork does indeed appear to be quite basic.

[tonyw]

Please supply the link for obtaining FILMING THE TRIAL since I may have missed it by skimming through this thread and eyesight problems.

Thanks.

[RayKelly]

http://www.Raredvds4sale.co.uk

[RayKelly]

OK, the two discs arrived. However, they were NOT in the NTSC format as promised.
I am not sure if it was DVD RAM or PAL format. Either way, I was able to play them in a multi-region player. I will convert it in the days to come.

Filming The Trial was 91 minutes long with the first minute being sound over black and leader. It more than watchable quality.. Call it an 8 out of 10. Single camera interview that is quite enjoyable. It was a lot of fun.

Orson Welles Rarities was a mixed bag. There are four segments. A mid 1960s b/w Italian TV interview with Welles. The quality was quite nice, but the entire interview is in Italian. No subtitles. There is costume footage from Merchant of Venice in color that is nicer than the footage of the completed scenes in One Man Band. The third sement, Orson Welles in Dublin, is a delightful interview. Professionally filmed, Welles is quite charming as he talks about Othello. The final segment, Fountain of Youth, is bad copy of the Encore Home Video release. It contains a lot digital noise.
All of this, including shipping was $13.50, so it is a deal with Filming The Trial being a must-have.

[atcolomb]

All my discs i received were playable in all my dvd players. Some players might have trouble reading -R or +R recorded blank discs. I also have a multi region dvd player which comes in handy to watch the PAL Spanish release of Chimes At Midnight!

[tonyw]

Could somebody resupply the link to acquire FILMING THE TRIAL?

Thanks.

[RayKelly]

All my discs i received were playable in all my dvd players. Some players might have trouble reading -R or +R recorded blank discs.

Neil says he recorded it NTSC. Still, when I play it in my Sony standalone player/recorder, it will not play. The Sony never has a problem with Verbatim -R discs, which these are.
If I load into my Sampo PAL/NTSC multi-region player. It will play just fine, but the information bar reveals the disc to be a DVD-RAM VR
I am sure it was just a goof and it is NOT a big deal for me, I can watch it on Sampo, my computer or convert it, which I will get around to this weekend.
I was happy my purchase from http://www.Raredvds4sale.co.uk