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

[blunted by community]

i have a store copy of fountain of youth, the lucy show with orson, and king lear which is on the same tape with fountain. commercial free. what do you have to trade? i would take a dvd copy of chimes as trade. or a dvd copy of macbeth

if you have these, contact me by email so we don't clog up the board

cinema_vortex@yahoo.com

[blunted by community]

when welles came to make fountain he had been in europe and had not seen television. he locked himself in his room for 2 weeks watching television and eating sandwiches. he decided television should not try to imitate movies, it should have it's own language, and this is what he set out to do when he made fountaun. desilu was convinced fountain sucked. a desily studio-suit approached welles in a restaurant and told him the film was not commercial. welles stood up and ranted and raved at the guy, "you dare speak to me about crass commercialism," and a welles tirade followed while the restaurant diners looked on. desilu fired welles. welles left for europe, leaving desilu with a huge phone bill, and a huge grocery, and booze bill. desilu shelved fountain and forgot about it. 4 years later is was sold as part of an omnibus purchase to colgate theater. it aired at 4am, and that year it won the peabody award for television excellence. then desilu realized they had messed up, but it was too late to do welles any good, as always.

[blunted by community]

glenn is right about huston. he was in so many bad films. he was also in some horrible films, like CANDY, and CASINO ROYALE, TENTACLES, THE BRIDGE IN THE JUNGLE which was just awful. why would he use his last breaths to stop a film that was made by a pal?

[blunted by community]

does any one know what newspaper will be covering the welles screenings? would be great to be able to read the report on the web. if i was making the documentary of TOSOTW i would film all these events at the egyptian as part of the program, illustrating how much interest, and anticipation is still involved with seeing welles' work. i was temped to fly to LA, and stay with a friend there to watch the programs but mrs. blunted was not real thrilled with the idea. i don't like flying but for this program i would take a tranqualiser. but then maybe i would get in a fist fight with the stewardes, and then rush the cockpit while screaming, "I have a bomb in my shoe"

[Glenn Anders]

Always glad to have Blunted's agreement with my observations, even though I found Poncho Kohner's BRIDGE IN THE JUNGLE, based on another Traven novel, an interesting little indie. Huston is very good as a character who might have been Howard after the events of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Huston played the part (and probably helped around the set) as a favor to Poncho's father, Paul Kohner, his old friend and agent.

It is an example of the brotherhood and generosity, little seen in Hollywood then or now, which Huston shared with Welles.

God God, Blunted, were I chief of security at the Egyptian Theater, after reading your obesity-obsessed account of Welles' attempt to revolutionize Television in "Fountain of Youth," I would have the premises immediately cleared if it were even whispered that you were present.

Amb -- RED -- RED ALERT . . . RED ALERT!

Stay home, Blunted, fire up the barbie for Mrs. Blunted, and put something exciting on the DVD machine like THE LORD OF THE RINGS Trilogy.

Keep those frankfurters coming, Blunted.

You amuse us, old chap, in our boredom with Orson Welles!

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

-

Just found this statement from John Huston, taken from the old Touch of Welles site, and apparently made in 1985 after Orson Welles died. Certainly doesn't sound like Huston was trying to stop OSOTW in any way.

"With shame, I frankly say, that one of the greatest talents that the cinema ever had was put to the door. There were many years that no studio offered Orson Welles the possibility to make a film, and that is a loss for the entire world. While I did not see Orson for some months, I can recall that in our last encounter, during the resumption of shooting on "The Other Side of the Wind," his talent was in full bloom.

He had obtained the financing for the film thanks to several contributors - mainly Iranians - and he added to that all that he had in his own bank account. The film was four-fifths finished when it was seized by the Iranian backers, and that was the last possibility for him to demonstrate his filmmaking talents.

My relationship with Orson were quite the opposite of his reputation. I found him to be always receptive, full of good will, and absolutely professional. For me the memory of Orson is that of a princely King."

-John Huston, 1985

[blunted by community]

glenn said:
after reading your obesity-obsessed account of Welles' attempt to revolutionize Television in "Fountain of Youth,"

i reply:
"obesity-obsessed?" there you go assuming again. when you assume you make an ASS out of U and ME. i posted what i read in a film mag, and in a lucy book. i'm just the guy that read the welles section of the lucy book, not the researcher and writer.

i tried to like bridge in the jungle because i really enjoy huston's acting, but it was awful.

i can't sit through a lord of the rings movie. mrs blunted likes them. they repel me right out of the living room. i only like hobits when they are properly cooked.

i tend to lean more towards ford, hitch, hawks, welles, von sternberg, von stroheim, huston, eisenstein. any of those guys can get me to sit still.

i was watching the searchers last night on a new wide screen tv. it's the first positive experience i've had with it. BEWARE - i don't recomend any old movie fan buy one unless you get a dvd player that zooms back, and has x-y scale adjustment, then you can tinker with it till it looks right; you zoom back on the dvd image, turn on the tv's format lock, then set the projection to 16x9, only then does an old movie look great on it. without an adjustable dvd player and old movie looks cramped; john wayne has to stoop over through the entire film. if i didn't have an adjustable dvd player, that tv would have gone back the second day it was here.

.

[blunted by community]

good quote tod. that is more in step with the huston i've read about. there was nothing petty about the man.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

Yeah, that's a lovely quote from Huston.

Blunted - i too have a widescreen tele, and am constantly conflicted about image size. I prefer the image to stay in exact proportion and find that the "wide," "smart," and even "14:9" functions leave me with a bigger, but stretched image. I'm not sure i completely followed your recommendation, however. Unfortunately, my DVD player does not have a zoom out function. Only zoom in. Nor an x-y toggle. Oh well, c'est la guerre.

[Jeff Wilson]

BEWARE - i don't recomend any old movie fan buy one unless you get a dvd player that zooms back, and has x-y scale adjustment, then you can tinker with it till it looks right; you zoom back on the dvd image, turn on the tv's format lock, then set the projection to 16x9, only then does an old movie look great on it. without an adjustable dvd player and old movie looks cramped; john wayne has to stoop over through the entire film.

Are you saying that you're toggling the picture until it fills your widescreen set? Because aside from some possible zooming out to avoid overscan, you shouldn't have to do anything else. Academy ratio movies aren't transferred for anamorphic (16:9) presentation - you should have bars on the sides of the picture.

[blunted by community]

the sides of the screen are grey, which i hate. i hate seeing a b&w movie with grey sides. it's very distracting. so i zoom back with the dvd player about 5 stops and that gives the image a wide black border. then i set format lock so the tv can't stretch out the picture. then i set the projection to 16x9, which zooms the small image in, and most of the grey is gone. i then make the last few adjustments with the dvd player zoom till the grey sides are completely black. the image does not fill the sides of the screen, but by zooming back with the dvd player then zooming in with the tv i can get rid of the grey sides.

the tv has a feature called curtain, which might be to change the color of the sides but i haven't read the instructions, and can't figure out what the feature does. i click it and see no difference on anything. maybe i will read the instructions.

the tv is excellent with widescreen movies. a film shot in vista vision set to 16x9 then zoomed back till i get all the image in, fills the whole screen. looks huge. the screen is 51 inches. the tv before this one was square, and 35 inches, so a wide screen film looked rather small.

brown:
i also hate to see the image all stretched out. my brother has a wide screen and he watches everything stretched out. what does he know, he buys dvds like jurasic park 2, and always searches for the non letter box version. why buy a wide screen tv then search for the non letterbox version. makes no sense to me.

jeff:
have you watched the good the bad and the ugle zoomed back? it's incredible how much of leone's film is eaten up by overscan.

[Jeff Wilson]

Just a couple more points; making the sides grey is the safest way to prevent screen burn-in, from what I understand. Also, changing your picture to 16:9 and zooming in can compromise the resolution of the picture, ie making it slightly worse. But if you haven't noticed anything yet, I wouldn't worry about it. Haven't watched any Leone zoomed out, but I'm sure it's better that way, judging from the other films I've watched that way.

[blunted by community]

i did not notice a big enough difference in the resolution quality not to zoom around till i get black sides. the problem is those damn projection tvs are like a flashlight. you darken the room to watch a film and the grey sides light up th room and ruin the ambiance.

i always set it to lock the formating, otherwise the darn tv skews up the image till it covers the whole screen and the film looks awfull.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

I think i'll read the instructions on mine too, after this.

But i think i don't have the same problems you have, blunted. Mine is not a flatscreen TV. We've got a nice little corner we've always backed the TV into, and the huge back of the non-flatscreen just fits nicely in there. Plus, i never liked the way the image seems to disappear and change colour based on where you stand with flatscreen TVs. The main problem i have is making a widescreen image widen out to fill my TV. The sides of the images are not eaten up in regular setting - only if i zoom in.

The Good, The Bad is such a f**king excellent movie. One of my absolute faves. I couldn't believe what a great, fun screenplay they had. Just a great collection of comic situations. I think the Wallach-Eastwood interplay really makes that picture for me (not that there's any one element which needs to make that picture).

[blunted by community]

brown:
in mastering they zoom the image in so that it's not off center on any tv. the only time you don't lose image on the sides is when you have a tv with an overscan feature, or a dvd player with an overscan feature. even when you see the edges, it's overscanned because all tvs are aimed a bit different and the image would not be centered. they don't care about the film's framing. i never knew about this till i started editing in a computer and right away i noticed that there is more image that any tv has ever showed me.

when it's time to get another dvd player, get a malata. they have gone down in price. i got a malata 520 for $180. you will never buy another dvd player without an overscan feature again. it puts your favorite director's films in a whole new light.

the good the bad and the ugly is one of those wonderful films that you have to watch every now and then.

films that i will always have in my collection besides everything welles ever did - rio bravo, key largo, searchers, man who shot liberty valance, stagecoach, maltese falcon, treasure of the sierra madre, rear window, godfather 1 and 2, goodfellas, taxi driver, detour, sunset boulevard, dead end, great dictator, sons of kattie elder, gentleman jim, on the waterfront.

i can always get into bogart, john wayne, errol flynn, marlon brando.

and of course, white heat. "i'm on top of the world, ma!" BOOM! roaring 20s, public enemy. it's just total viewing enjoyment.