Beatrice Welles, the youngest daughter of filmmaker Orson Welles, has shared a clip from the previously lost American Heritage Vol. 1 – Selections from George Ade, Thomas Wolfe, Mark Twain, which was filmed by her father in 1970 and briefly available in 1972 on a now defunct home video format.
The Cartrivision videotape of American Heritage Vol. 1 was recently gifted to her by William Lonergan, a Welles fan and archivist from Pittsburgh. She said she has been trying to find a distributor interested in this short and other Wellesian TV efforts. Until then, she said she felt Wellesnet readers would appreciate seeing a 2-minute excerpt.
Licensing for the Estate of Orson Welles is handled by David Reeder of Reeder Brand Management. The Welles estate hopes to package American Heritage Vol. 1 along with another Cartrivision title, Two Wise Old Men; the Peabody Award winning The Fountain of Youth from 1956;, and The Orson Welles Show, an unsold late 1970s talk show pilot.
Welles directed and starred in six shorts for Avco Broadcasting’s Cartrivision line in 1970. The half-inch video cartridges predated Sony Betamax and VHS, but dismal retail sales prompted Avco to pull the plug just a year after its introduction in 1972.
The excerpt of Welles talking about Twain can be seen below or here.
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