OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND - John Huston on making the film

[ToddBaesen]

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Great news about Showtime picking up OSOTW, Harvey. Thanks for posting the interview with Curtis Harrington. Now, if only some magician friend of Orson's could make Beatrice Welles and Thomas White disappear - or better yet, turn them into rabbits.

In the meantime, here's a script excerpt from the OSOTW - of the scene they showed at the AFI tribute.


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CUT TO:


INTERIOR - PROJECTION ROOM. (REVISED)


(In Welles original script, the head of the studio was Darryl Zanuck. In later drafts Welles changed the character to a younger studio chief, patterned after Robert Evans).

Max, the head of the studio is seated in the projection room. Billy, one of Hannaford's many assistants arrives, takes off his jacket and takes a seat behind Max.

BILLY
Hi Max, remember me? Billy Boyle.

MAX
I've seen you in some Hannaford films,
haven't I?

BILLY
In some early ones - on very late TV.
He had me play a few friends of the
heroes for a while.
(Pause)
We're both child actors, aren't we?

MAX
(impatient, interrupting)
Where is he?


BILLY
Jake? Well, I don't think we ought
to wait for him.


Billy signals to the projectionist to start the rushes from Hannaford's Antonioni-like film in progress, called THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. Scenes from the film, featuring Hannaford's newest male discovery, John Dale and a young actress are intercut between shots of Billy and Max as they react and comment to what they are seeing on the screen.


BILLY
No editing really. It's just the slates
cut off. Gumdrop?

MAX
(recognizing the leading man)
...Dale something?

BILLY
John Dale, Max. ...You sure you
wouldn't like a gumdrop? According
to Jake, the box likes him.

MAX
Box?


(On the screen there are several close-up's of John Dale's face).


BILLY
The old magic box. If the camera
doesn't like an actor, it just stares
at him.
(pause).
Well, that's what Jake says.

MAX
And if the actor doesn't like the
old magic director?

BILLY:
(sighs)
Yeah.

(On screen John Dale and the actress appear reflected in the mirror like surfaces of an office building).


MAX
What happens here?

BILLY
I'm not really sure, Max. Maybe
it's here she leaves... (hesitating)
the... the (whispers) Bomb.

MAX
What's the bomb for?

BILLY
I don't know. Maybe he's changing
his mind, and there won't be any.


(On screen John Dale is looking through a glass window at a series up wind-up toys).


MAX
So what are the toys about?

BILLY
Well, before this she'll be pretending
to look in the window at them. That
is, when we get around to shooting it.
Anyway the boy thinks she's been looking
at these dolls.

MAX
Which Doll?

BILLY
The one she... He thinks she was looking
at. So, well, he goes in and buys it
for her.


(On screen John Dale runs out of an office doorway carrying a package wrapped in brown paper).


MAX
What's in the package?


(On screen the girl walks down the office plaza steps carrying her bag over her shoulder).

BILLY
The package? You mean what's she got
in her bag?

MAX
Well, It's either a bomb or her lunch.

BILLY
The kid's package? That's the doll.

MAX
And the bomb?

BILLY
The bomb is...

MAX
When does it blow up?

BILLY
(frustrated)
Oh, well... we don't actually know.


(Max turns around and looks at Billy for the first time).


MAX
What do we know?

BILLY
(giving up)
You better ask Jake.

MAX
I better read the script.


(Billy's face registers a defeated look).


MAX
(realizing the truth)
Oh, there isn't one. Jake is just making
it up as he goes along.

BILLY
(shrugs his shoulders)
He's done it before.


CUT TO:


INTERIOR OF THE BUS AGAIN


Some of the following plays under HANNAFORD'S FILM.


ZIMMER
All my life I've been sticking my nose
into other people's wrinkles. I know the
little signs...

ZIMMER
(after a beat)
It's something you could
almost SMELL. That's what the gypsies say.

MAGGIE
(dismissing foolishness)
Gypsies...

ZIMMER
Nine months we practically lived with them...Jake's first picture in Spain.


Back among the GIRLS and the MIDGETS, a flamenco guitar is strumming...But gloom hangs heavy over the group of HANNAFORD stooges, chums and executives seated among the dummies...



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[ToddBaesen]

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The following comments are taken from a 1973 Welles interview with Charles Champlin, after Welles had begun shooting on OSOTW.

Welles alludes to his daughter buying some books for him on movie subjects. It was probably either Rebecca or Christopher, since Beatrice seems to know so little about her own father's work in films.


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WELLES: In the story, there's a film within the film, which I made two years ago (1971) with my own money. It's the old man's attempt to do a kind of counterculture film, in a surrealist, dreamlike style. We see some of it in the projection room, and some of it at a drive-in when that breaks down. It's about 50% of the whole movie. Not the kind of film I'd want to make; I've invented a style for him. Had to invent two styles, in fact. I've assumed that the party is being covered by a documentary crew from the BBC and another from West Germany and by a whole lot of amateurs with cameras. You'll see only what they've recorded of this evening. It's a device that would only work once, I suppose, but, God it's fun, using three and four cameras at once. I would love to have Bobby Evans play the part of a studio boss. He would be perfect, but I fear it might inhibit the sale (of the picture).

I've always pretended I love Hollywood, in spite of everything. I never feel sour grapes; it's not an emotion I have time for or one that does you any good. But last year my daughter bought a stack of books about the movies and on nights when I couldn't sleep I began to read them, read what the executives had done to the directors, the writers. And I'm afraid the balance of evidence is against this town, not for it. I say this fearlessly, not forgetting all the smarmy statements I've made about Hollywood before this. I'm tired of hearing about what a great man Irving Thalberg was. (It was Thalberg who ordered the massive cutting of Erich Von Strohiem's GREED). The whole thing gets pretty sickening. The ones who succeed are the lucky ones. On balance, the system has been against the individual artist. It's not even directly related to money. I suppose it goes back to the beginning of time, when an animal instinctively had to put a foot atop its prey. The brass had to put their feet on the director if they could.

[ToddBaesen]

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Just saw an article in MOVIE MAKER where Peter Bogdanovich says the three feuding factions (Oja Kodar, Beatrice and the Iranian co-owner) are close to agreeing on a settlement which would allow THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND to be finally shown. If the agreenment happens, it will still take about a year for the film to be restored and edited properly.

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Excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle article from 1975:




Orson Welles shuffles his 300 plus pounds onto the set, scuffed shoes unbuckled, looking like an unmade bed, moving slowly now. He drags a typing chair across the stage and spreads his presence over it, turning his gaze towards the scene before him. Half a dozen cars at a drive-in theater. There are lights everywhere, but the scene is dark -- spots reflect off the hoods and roofs of the vehicles and silhouette those inside-- young excited film buffs who've volunteered their Sunday for a chance to be next to the master filmmaker. Orson Welles is at work on his long awaited picture, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND Some of the onlookers whisper it's autobiographical. The film has been in production off and on for five years.



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[R Kadin]

Don't toy with us, Todd. The very thought of a "new" Welles release in our future is probably enough get even the most hardened among us on here to believe in miracles again.

If the rumour IS true, to what can we attribute such a terrific tunrnabout? I mean, did Roma Downey join the board recently, or something? Or maybe our man needs to tap his estate to pay down the huge tab he's run up by now in the Afterlife Cafe. Aw, who cares... just let it be true, that's all I ask.

[jbrooks]

I spoke to Peter Bogdanovich at an advance screening of his new film "The Cat's Meow" on February 22 at the DGA in New York City.. He repeated his assertion that he thought there was a good chance that the 3 parties involved (Oja, Beatrice, and the Iranian producer) would soon reach an agreement regarding the film. He said that a company (presumably Showtime) was interesting in putting up the necessary completion funds. He also said that about 1 hour of the film was edited by Welles and that he would finish putting together the rest himself. He said that he had promised Welles back in 1974 that he would complete the film if Welles were unable to do so. He also said that John Huston gave a remarkable performance in the film and he generally described the quality of the film in laudatory terms. (In contrast to the comments attributed to Rick Schmidlin on this and the other board, Bogdanovich didn't say anything that led me to believe that he had any reservations about whether "The Other Side of the Wind" should ever see the light of day or anything to suggest that it would be disapointing in any way.)

He also said that the rights issues holding up his re-edit of "One Man Band" had been resolved and that it would air on Showtime soon.

[Fredric]

This is great news, jbrooks!

Were you in a lucky position on the 22nd or are you someone who can bring further inside info into this forum?

I'm watching the number of quality contributions from members grow. This message board is becoming a valuable little piece of internet real estate. Thanks also to Todd for his postings and mteal for his thoughtful interpretations.

Welcome jbrooks.

[jbrooks]

I was lucky to get tickets to the event, but nothing more than that.

I just hope the news on "Wind" pans out. I've heard encouraging news before that hasn't. In 1987, I met Henry Jaglom at the Boston Film Festival and he believed then that "Wind" would be finished and released in the immediate future. That was 15 years ago now! I spoke to Simon Callow in 1995 in Washington D.C., and he believed that Oja was close to making arrangements for the completion of the film at that time. That was 7 years ago. Moreover, Callow predicted it would take him 2 years to complete Volume 2 of his Welles bio, and that obviously was a bit off.

Nevertheless, I remain cautiously optomistic.

[mteal]

I heard Gary Graver say a WIND completion was imminent about 4-5 years ago, so I'm a little skeptical of this latest news. Cautiously optimistic is the right thing to be, but that's about all that's warranted. I've learned not to hold my breath waiting for new Welles stuff anymore. It'll come when it comes.

Jbrooks, how did you like THE CAT'S MEOW? Was Peter B. able to do anything with Jennifer Tilley? Alfonso Arau sure couldn't.

[Jeff Wilson]

This is from an article in the 2/23/02 Daily Telegraph, about a UK festival dedicated to lost/butchered films:

It is thought that Orson Welles, too, suffered from the frights about projects being too ambitious - some say he left films unfinished by choice rather than circumstance. "He was a perfectionist, sure," says Gary Graver, cinematographer and co-founder of The Orson Welles Film Archives, who will also be taking part in the festival. "But he was no dilettante. He was so full of creative energy that at any one time he had several projects on the go."

Graver is currently bringing together the footage of Welles's The Other Side of the Wind, which he worked on with Welles between 1971 and 1975. It is a movie within a movie, about the end of the studio system and the coming of a new generation of directors. It's a satire soaked in sex and violence, starring John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich and Dennis Hopper, which director Oliver Stone, of all people, has described as "too experimental". Graver hopes it will be ready for release later this year.

I'd provide the URL, but I can't find the article on their site.

[ToddBaesen]

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Here's another reason to dislike Charles Higham's work as a writer - Orson Welles anguished letter to Peter Bogdanovich in 1970, where Welles comments about the the Higham book, THE FILMS OF ORSON WELLES. (which, at least did have some great pictures from Welles' films).

However, the Higham book was filled with errors, omissions and outright lies. Higham's account of Jacare's death in Rio harbor, for example, is a far-fetched canard, told as follows: "an octopus and a shark suddenly burst out of the water, locked in a death struggle" causing Jacare's raft to overturn, and "as the great creatures sank in a bloody foam, reports ran, Jacare was sucked into the vortex and vanished. Six days later, the shark was caught. Inside it, half digested, were portions of octopus and the head and arms of Jacare." This fictitious story was completely discredited by associate producer Richard Wilson, (who was with Welles in Rio at the time) in a stinging reply he wrote after Higham's chapter on IT'S ALL TRUE was excerpted in the Spring, 1970 issue of SIGHT and SOUND. Rather amazingly, Higham's absurd story was actually believed by Newsweek magazine's book critic, Raymond Sokolov, who repeated it as if it were verified fact in his August 3, 1970 review of the book. Both Higham's book and the Newsweek review of it caused Welles the loss of some initial financing on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, as he makes clear in this letter he wrote to Peter Bogdanovich. Welles eloquently refutes many of Higham's false statement's, and urged Bogdanovich to probe Richard Wilson's files on IT'S ALL TRUE to get the real facts on record for their interview book, THIS IS ORSON WELLES.


Dear Peter:

I think you've already met Dick Wilson. If you spend time with him, as I hope you will, you're going to find that he's invaluable. He was not only my right hand during those years but in South America deserves the title of executive producer. You'll find him very fair minded, the very opposite of a yes-man. Trust him. I'll Tell you in a minute why this matters.

I'm coming back to screenland… Why? To look for some acting jobs, that's why. And what, you'll ask, has happened to my picture? Well, let's say (as I've had to say so often before all through the years) that there has been a temporary delay due to lack of funds.

I'm writing this to beseech your thoroughness in the matter of research. Certainly, I've nothing to reproach you for in this department, but regarding South America there are new and pressing reasons for the most exhaustive fact finding on your part.

You will be talking to the witnesses in the case—bear down on them, get all the testimony you can.

I haven't bough the Higham book (THE FILMS OF ORSON WELLES) but managed to sneak a few pages of free reading in Brentano's (bookstore) the other day. That's as far as I'm going: no use eating up what's left of my liver… He thinks I hate to finish my movies because I equate completion with death. I should think he'd realize that not finishing a job is not really to do it at all—which isn't suicide but murder. If he had his facts straight he'd see who's been guilty of that. I guess that's why he refused to take me up on my offer to check his material for purely factual inaccuracies; it would have robbed him of the source of some pretty ripe theorizing. On the other hand, it might have helped to get me off a hook which—after 25 years or so—is really starting to hurt. As for Dick, there's something stubborn—almost mulish—in his regard for the facts. And he has the facts—all of them—on paper. It’s going to be a bore for you, but do please cast a long, cool, non-partisan eye on all that documentation. Get the truth about IT'S ALL TRUE, and then put it down, just as you find it.

The South America episode is the one key disaster in my story, so of course, you'll want to get it straight. For my part, I need to get it straight—as a simple matter of survival. This is newly urgent for me, because, once again, the legend that grew up out of that affair has lost me the chance to make a picture.

As I've mentioned, that lovely money out in the middle-west suddenly dried up. Mr. Higham seems to have spooked them. A quote from it in tagging the review in Newsweek sent them scampering. Once again I am the man who "irresponsibly" dropped everything to whoop it up in the carnival in Rio, and, having started a picture down there, capriciously refused to finish it. No use trying to explain that I didn't flit down to South American for the fun of it…

I don't know of any more fun than making a movie, and the most fun of all comes in the cutting room when the shooting is over. How can it be thought that I'd deny myself so much of that joy with AMBERSONS? I felt than as I do now that it could have been a far better film than KANE. How can anyone seriously believe that I would jeopardize something I loved so much for the dubious project of shooting a documentary on the carnival in Rio? Jesus, I didn't like carnivals anyway—I associated them with fancy dress, which bores me silly, and the touristic banalities of the New Orleans Mardi Gras. You know why I went? I went because it was put to me in the very strongest terms by Jock (John Hay Whitney) and Nelson (Rockefeller) that this would represent a sorely needed contribution to inter-American affairs. This sounds today quite unbelievably silly, but in the first year of our entering the war the defense of this hemisphere seemed crucially important. I was told that the value of this project would lie not in the film itself but in the fact of making it. It was put to me that my contribution as a kind of Ambassador extraordinary would be truly meaningful. Normally, I had doubts about this, but (President) Roosevelt himself helped to persuade me that I really had no choice.

Why else would I have agreed to make a film for no salary at all? Any appetite I may have felt for high-life could have been satisfied with a few fly8ing weekends to New York. By preference I would have heard the chimes at midnight in Billingsley's Club Room and in Dickie Wells up in Harlem. But I was getting all the kicks I needed at the moviola. Dick's file will show you that I only agreed to the Brazilian junket on the firm guarantee that the moviolas and all the film (of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS) would immediately follow me. What happened instead? The film never came. A takeover in RKO brought in new bosses committed, by the simple logic of their position, to enmity. I quickly lost the last vestiges of control over AMBERSONS, and friends at home collapsed in panic. Who can blame them? Even if I'd stayed I would have had to make compromises on the editing, but these would have been mine and not the fruit of confused and often semi-hysterical committees. If I had been there myself I would have found my own solutions and saved the picture in a form which would have carried the stamp of my own effort.

The point is that the tragedy of South America didn't end with the mangling of AMBERSONS by RKO. No, it cost me a hell of a lot more that the two years I spent making the picture. It cost me many, many other pictures which I never made; and many years in which I couldn't work at all.

For the new men who came to power in RKO it was all too easy to make this giant, this scriptless documentary in South American look like a crazy waste of money. And to justify their positions, it was very much in their interest to do so. A truly merciless campaign was launched, and by the time I came back to America my image as a capricious and unstable wastrel was permanently fixed in the industry's mind. You know all this, of course, but the documentation may surprise you. The extent of that campaign and its virulence is hard to exaggerate.

When I'd left, the worst that can be said for me was that I was some kind of artist. When I came back I was some kind of lunatic. No story was too wild—the silliest inventions were believed. The friendliest opinion was this: "Sure, he's talented, but you can't trust him. He throws money around like a madman; when he gets bored he walks away. He's irresponsible."

The legend was established, founded on the firm rock of popular conviction. Soon it was so large and life-like people couldn't see the reality which it obscured. Nobody cared about the facts; the fiction was so vastly more amusing.

I have carried that legend on my shoulders for more than a quarter of a century. Just lately, for the first time—and for no very obvious reason—it did seem to have expired finally of old age. Not quite old myself (Welles was 55 when he wrote this), I have been looking forward to as much use as the years will leave me to rather eagerly function as a movie-maker.

Then came that book (Charles Higham's THE FILMS OF ORSON WELLES)… The very well-intentioned review of it in Newsweek would seem to be what's cost me the financing for this new picture, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND. When the money people read that in the world's first news magazine, they can scarcely be reproached for second thoughts in the matter of gambling on a Welles movie.

So now the legend walks again, Peter, and I've no choice but to go back to hustling those cameo jobs in other people's films...

You have on-the-spot witnesses to consult and Dick has the documents. When you get to this chapter I'm hoping that you'll find the hard facts in this matter and will make it honestly possible to do a little job of disinfecting…

This time, it's not just that I'd like to have the record straight—I'd like to go to work again…


All the best,
Orson

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

pictures are the only things that come out good in a book written by mr. igham.

[ToddBaesen]

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Here's another brief excerpt from the OSOTW script. Interesting that in this projection room scene, the studio head would have been played by Welles old friend (who frequently employed Welles as an actor), Darryl Zanuck.
In the later version of this scene, which Welles showed at his AFI tribute, Zanuck has now become a younger studio head, based on Robert Evans - who Welles was also friendly with. Evans, while he was the head of Paramount, supposedly offered Welles his pick of directing jobs, but Welles turned him down, saying he couldn't get up that early in the morning...


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INTERIOR OF PROJECTION ROOM.


One of Jake's many associates, Billy Boyle has come to show Darryl Zanuck footage from Jake's film in progress.


BILLY
(quickly as DARRYL ZANUCK
glances at his watch)
We can see the rest at the party...

DARRYL ZANUCK
I'm here now.

BILLY
Jake's birthday, you know. Jeanne Moreau's
giving it for him out at his ranch...
You're coming, aren't you?

DARRYL ZANUCK
Let's get started.

BILLY
Okay, Darryl...right away...


He turns to signal the projectionist to roll the film.


CUT TO:


INTERIOR, THE WAITING BUS.


Some of the following plays under HANNAFORD'S FILM.


ZIMMER
All my life I've been sticking my nose
into other people's wrinkles. I know the
little signs...

ZIMMER
(after a beat)
It's something you could
almost SMELL. That's what the gypsies say.

MAGGIE
(dismissing foolishness)
Gypsies...

ZIMMER
Nine months we practically lived with them...
Jake's first picture in Spain.


Back among the GIRLS and the MIDGETS, a flamenco guitar is strumming...But gloom hangs heavy over the group of HANNAFORD stooges, chums and executives seated among the dummies...






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[ToddBaesen]

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Just saw this quote by Welles from the theatrical press material Turner put out for the re-issue of CITIZEN KANE. Unfortunately, Welles didn't see that many of his projects which might get posthumous financing, would end up being blocked by his own daughter.

OW: When I die they'll be picking over my creative bones… The films will suddenly get financing. The films will get restored. Old scripts that I couldn't get financed, they’ll find the financing for some kid to direct. There will be biographies of me and documentaries. It's just inevitable.


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[Fat Annie]

L. French review of TOSOTW from recent screening:

http://www.bradfordfilmfestival.org.uk/2003....lm=1891

[ToddBaesen]

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Thanks for the link to the Bradford film festival site, Annie. Their short synopsis is interesting, in that it says there is a missing explosion that occurs at the sequence set at a drive-in, which I had never heard before. Does anyway else have any info about the Drive-in sequence?

It's interesting, in that Welles also never finished THE DEEP, because he needed shots of the yacht exploding.



BFF Synopsis: Sadistic film director Jake Hannaford returns from exile in Europe to resurrect his career in Hollywood by making a movie soaked in sex and violence. Welles managed to finish this movie despite the collapse of his financing. Gary Graver is now attempting to resurrect it using all available footage. The only missing sequence is an explosion at a drive-in.


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