Interesting tidbits

[colwood]

I came across two tidbits that are Welles-related. Don't recall hearing about them anywhere before and was wondering if anyone else happened to hear them.

The first is about a "lost" version of Moonraker directed by Orson Welles. OK, in the article it says that much, that it isn't real, but then again, I don't remember hearing about this at all when it broke in the spring of 04. Did I miss it?
http://commanderbond.net/Public/Stories/2323-1.shtml

The second is some info about a real project that fell through. On the recent release of Kagemusha by Criterion, Francis Ford Coppolla talks about how he and George Lucas raised the money with an agreement with Paramount(?) to make the Kurosawa film. He says that the original idea for funding a movie like this was done around 1970, when as part of his American Zoetrope, he tried to raise funds for an Orson Welles project that eventually fell through. Has anybody heard this before? Does anybody know what the project was?

[Wilson]

The Moonraker thing is a very well put together gag.

[R Kadin]

Back on June 29th in the "Spielberg" General Discussion thread, Wellesnetter andrej brought the Coppola story to light, as follows:

During the nineties Francis Ford Coppola was in Rome, to present his Dracula, and I had an interview with him for Rai television. We talk half an hour about his inspiration by Welles' version ,that he confirmed. At the very end of the interview I asked him, with a bashful disappointment, if he ever considered, during the Zoetrepe period in which he worked with Kurosawa and Michael Powell, to contact Welles for producing his unfinished or even for new projects. many years before - he replied - he was in the kitchen, working at the financial balance after Apocalypse Now. In the same time, he told, the tap water was turned on and someone entered in announcing that Orson Welles was at the phone for him.
Coppola lefts his papers on the table and went to the telephone. They had a one-hour-conversation in which spoked of a possible collaboration between them. The result was that Welles should have been contacted by FFC in the very next days with a positive reply. But he never did. And the tap faucet wasn't turned off during their long conversation. After some years - Coppola added - he built his private projection room where he had the kitchen. And a large blot on the wall is still there to remember his sense of fault.

From the above, I would think it likely that more than just one possible project was discussed; but perhaps andrej might have more precise information to offer..?