Welles: the lost stuff

[Jaime N. Christley]

I want to avoid doing a long and tedious search through forum history, so I was wondering: very briefly, what are Welles' "lost" works and what is their current status? (Or are they all being blocked by Bea?) Is TOSOTW the only completed feature-length movie, or would THE DEEP basically finished - what's the story with the soundtrack?

SWINGING LONDON? THE TAILORS? MERCHANT OF VENICE? Etc.?

[Jaime N. Christley]

Sorry if this is redundant, by the way - I should get off my tush and do a little research, I spose.

[jaime marzol]

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welles left behind probably 200 cans of film that we know of, and stuff is turning up all the time. he left cans of film scattered all over the world. the museum in germany that has the unseen welles convention has those 200 cans and they are doing their best to preserve the stuff, and piece it together. there are like 5 very well known unfinished films, and the rest is any one's guess.

merchant of venice
don q
the deep
other side of the wind
the dreamers

[fantomas]

i never heard of 200 cans in total. as far as i understood there are alone about 180 cans of THE DEEP at the munich film museum.

you can add to list of the lost films
THE MAGIC SHOW
FILMING THE TRIAL
MOBY DICK
THE GOLDEN HONEYMOON
KING LEAR
ORSON'S BAG (containing MERCHANT OF VENICE, VIENNA and LONDON with the segments CHURCHILL, SWINGING LONDON, CLUBMEN, STATELY HOMES and TAILORS)

and the rarely seen TV movies and series
THE ORSON WELLES SKETCH BOOK
MOBY DICK REHEARSED
FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
PORTRAIT OF GINA (aka VIVA ITALIA)
IN THE LAND OF DON QUIXOTE
THE ORSON WELLES SHOW

plus readings and recitations like
JEREMIAH
UNSUNG HEROES
THE SPIRIT OF CHARLES LINDBERGH

these are the titles of which some material exists.

[Jaime N. Christley]

What's the deal with LONDON? Is it a series that contains TAILORS, ONE-MAN BAND, and the others? When you mention MERCHANT OF VENICE as part of ORSON'S BAG, do you mean the one-shot of Welles, sans makeup, or the entire feature?

More to the point, what's the story with ORSON'S BAG?

[fantomas]

orson made a tv special for CBS named ORSON'S BAG. obviously he was free choose the episodes he wanted to include. MERCHANT OF VENICE was one episode. only a 9 minute fragment of a workprint survived. so far nobody has found more material which orson claimed to be stolen. in the 70s welles filmed in alsace and in malaga the shylock monologue - this time in his trenchcoat without a mask and in 16mm. nobody knows if he wanted to combine these shots with the fragment from the 60s and how he wanted to do it.
LONDON was another episode for ORSON'S BAG. in it orson as a host introduces sequences like SWINGING LONDON or TAILORS. when the financing was stopped orson tried to complete the film with his money and changed the title to THE ONE MAN BAND. this is referring to one of his parts in the SWINGING LONDON sequence.
the munich film museum has restored the MERCHANT OF VENICE material in the 30 minutes compilation film ORSON WELLES' SHYLOCK as well as the LONDON material in the 29 minutes film ORSON WELLES' LONDON. parts of the material can also be seen in the documentary ORSON WELLES: THE ONE-MAN BAND and in Oja Kodar's JADED.

[jaime marzol]

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the unseen welles convention has a poster, and on that poster there is a picture of a set of shelves with those 200 cans of film (i didn't count the cans, 200 is an estimate). i know this because i have the poster. i beleive it's the cans of film that kodar had in storage and that made a breif appearance in ONE MAN BAND.

i found the picture of all those cans of film incredibly exciting. with welles i don't need a completed film to enjoy his work. any time he had a movie camera in his hands he created magic. scraps of film pieced together in no particular order is fine for me.

some corrections:
FILMING THE TRIAL is finished

MOBY DICK is not a film but 9 minutes of film from a stage play, and as far as i've read, no one knows where it is.

THE GOLDEN HONEYMOON don't know this one

KING LEAR the tv version with peter brooks directing is finished, orson's version never got passed a screenplay that i've read, but with welles you just never know.

THE ORSON WELLES SKETCH BOOK is finished

MOBY DICK REHEARSED again, it's just 9 minutes of film, and some talking-head type narration, not really a film.

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH is finished, and it's temendous for a welles fan, a boring piece of junk to the average schmoe.

PORTRAIT OF GINA (aka VIVA ITALIA) is finished, welles could not sell it and left it behind in some hotel where it sat in their lost and found for like 15(?) years before some one realized what it was. then lollabrigida would not give her consent for it to be screened, then i think she did, or she died and some one else did. and it's not a film, it's a lot of posters and photographs that welles filmed. should be interesting. look what he did with a few photos and some venitian blinds in F-For-Fake.

IN THE LAND OF DON QUIXOTE is finished, it's the documentary of spain, but i might be wrong here.

THE ORSON WELLES SHOW is finished, welles could not sell it. it's more like an infomercial than a johnny carson type thing.

THE SPIRIT OF CHARLES LINDBERGH have heard of this one, sounds interesting.

will dig up the poster see if it lists the stuff in those cans. i also have an article by rosenbaum that lists a lot of this stuff. will look for that as well.

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[jaime marzol]

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it's a shame that he was not able to do something with MOBY DICK. he was so passionate about it. with a bit of funding he could have assembled something off the wall like F-For-FAKE, and totally fun to watch.

178 cans for THE DEEP? that's tremendous. they will have plenty off footage to work from, and since they can get 8-hrs on a dvd, maybe we'll get lucky and they will put in lots of alternate takes.

as far as i know, the list for unfinished films, feature lenght films, stands at Merchant Of Venice, Don Q, The Deep, Other Side Of The Wind, The Dreamers. and The Dreamers never got passed some closeups that he filmed while trying to get funds.

what was stolen from Merchant Of Venice was the sound track. in the frank brady book it said welles was courting dissaster storing it in the back seat of his car. that is where it was stolen from. all i've seen of Merchant are the shots that are in One Man Band, and they look incredibly interesting. a friend caught a documentary about shakespeare that aired on Bravo, and he said there were more shots in that documentary than in One Man Band. i have not seen it. have looked for it but is has not been on that i know of.

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[Jeff Wilson]

Moby Dick Rehearsed was Welles' film of his stage play of the same name, which was produced in London in the 50s. Welles was unhappy with what he had shot, and never finished it. The other Moby Dick project was Welles reading from the novel on camera.

In the Land of Don Quixote was a Spanish TV series from the early 60s, footage from which was used in Franco's Quixote cut, apparently. Not much has been written about it, but Rosenbaum described it as hackwork.
The only footage I've heard that Welles filmed of the Filming The Trial project was interview footage at a college.



Edited By Jeff Wilson on Dec. 08 2002 at 04:07

[Jaime N. Christley]

RE Filming 'The Trial' - As far as I've read, it's only "finished" in the sense that the Filmmuseum Munich (the place where the cans of film are, I assume) did some non-intrusive shaping of the USC lecture footage to make it presentable, and added the trailer for the movie.

[fantomas]

jaime marzol:

sorry to correct you, but you should have seen the stuff you're commenting and you shouldn't believe the books which are written by authors who obviously haven't seen the material, too. i admit that it's easier to get access to the material in germany than in the u.s.

the photo you are referring to shows only a section of the welles collection shelves as you easily could find out by checking out precisely.

FILMING THE TRIAL has not been finished by welles but the material has been restored and put together in a 82 minutes film which is presentable.

MOBY DICK has also not been finished by welles but the material was put together in a 22 minutes short film which is presentable. it shows orson in different light reciting the lines of his stage play. he is doing all the parts and it's really great to see him in shot and counter shot talking with himself. it's an incredible piece of very reduced but very effective filmmaking - a real one-man show.

MOBY DICK REHEARSED was shot in 1955 when welles had stopped the stage stage performances. it is reported that he filmed all the parts except his own part in london. nobody knows if he ever filmed the missing parts with himself in rome. the film material has never surfaced but the screenplay survived. for welles it was meant to be a tv movie in the same style like FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH and PORTRAIT OF GINA do exist (both were shown at the welles conference in germany). in my opinion these tv movies are real inventive masterpieces, years ahead of its time, foreshadowing the style of F FOR FAKE.

THE GOLDEN HONEYMOON was shown for the very first time in the welles conference. it's a fragment, the end is missing. as far as i understood they want to complete it by using the end of the radio play by welles.

the only existing material of welles' KING LEAR are the screenplay and a video tape in which he explains his vision to the producer.

IN THE LAND OF DON QUIXOTE was an italian(!) tv series which was filmed and edited by welles but left without a soundtrack. in the mid 60s italian tv aired five or six episodes with an added soundtrack and commentary which was not done by welles. parts of the tv series were used by jess franco for his version of DON QUIXOTE (and that's one of the problems of this "reconstruction"). you can recognize it because of the bad picture quality (it had to be blown up to 35mm) and the appearance of paola mori. in the welles conference they showed one never aired episode (with no sound) showing welles with his wife and his daughter travelling through spain.

THE ORSON WELLES SHOW has been finished by welles. it's about 75 minutes and includes some material which was done for THE MAGIC SHOW.

welles shot three times between 1980 and 1982 material for THE DREAMERS. there are some test shootings of oja kodar, a garden and a fountain but also two main sequences showing himself as marcus who is telling the story of pellegrina and showing oja kodar as pellegrina who is leaving marcus. the last sequence was edited by welles himself. in the welles conference you could see a 25 minute film which includes all material which was filmed and edited by welles.

in general it makes no sense to repeat all the legends and wrong information written somewhere about the lost films. you should try to refer to the welles conferences and to the restored fragments which are shown in the conferences or retrospectives. there is also a booklet published in connection with the welles conference which contains all these information plus a long interview with oja kodar.

[jaime marzol]

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sorry, FILMING THE TRIAL is a mistake. you are right to correct me. i meant FILMING OTHELLO. where was my head at. i never even heard of FILMING THE TRIAL till about a year ago here, and yes, that is what i read, some question and answer things is how far it got. i don't know for sure but i think it's one of those little segments of footage in ONE MAN BAND, where a student asks if his poverty helped his creativity.

>MOBY DICK REHEARSED was shot in 1955 when welles had. stopped the stage stage performances. it is reported that he filmed all the parts except his own part in london.

frank brady quoted one of the participants that said only 9 minutes (one reel) was shot, not a big production, just a non-moving camera on a tripod, then abandoned because welles was not happy with the results, i never really thought of it as a film.

>MOBY DICK has also not been finished

i didn't say it was. as far as i knew it was some narration that never went any where. i also said it's a shame. would have been nice if he's had some funds to put together something off the wall, but entertaining.

>MOBY DICK put together in a 22 minutes short film which is presentable. it shows orson in different light reciting the lines of his stage play. he is doing all the parts and it's really great to see him in shot and counter shot talking with himself. it's an incredible piece of very reduced but very effective filmmaking - a real one-man show.

i was right. it's just some talking head type narration. no argument here.

>FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH and PORTRAIT OF GINA do exist (both were shown at the welles conference in germany).

yes, i said that. i have FOUNTAIN, would love to see the GINA thing.

>THE GOLDEN HONEYMOON was shown for the very first time in the welles conference. it's a fragment, the end is missing. as far as i understood they want to complete it by using the end of the radio play by welles.

i said i never heard of this one.

>the only existing material of welles' KING LEAR are the screenplay and a video tape in which he explains his vision to the producer.

like i said, it never got passed a screenplay, you listed it as a lost film.

>IN THE LAND OF DON QUIXOTE was an italian(!) tv series which was filmed and edited by welles but left without a soundtrack.

i read this was this was a 30-minute tv thing done for spain. you listed it as a lost film.

>THE ORSON WELLES SHOW has been finished by welles.

yes, i said that. it's not very good.

>THE DREAMERS. there are some test shootings of oja kodar, a garden and a fountain .............could see a 25 minute film which includes all material which was filmed and edited by welles.

i said that. all there is are some closeups, and a sceeenplay. if you look at my first post i included this in my list of 5 well known unfinished films, because it was intended to be a feature lenght film, and some filming was actually done, so i considered it an unfinished film..

[jaime marzol]

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>in general it makes no sense to repeat all the legends and wrong information

i start all the legends and wrong information. it's like a hobby of mine, and i love discussing welles with knowledgable people. this is the only place i know of to do that. keep'em coming.

it seems we agree on everything except MOBY DICK, so my information is not so far off base even if i am in the US.

i enjoyed the posts, and will look into your MOBY DICK info. i didn't like the printed welles play much. i got it through the library, and didn't bother to pirate myself a copy.

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[jaime marzol]

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from what i've read about MOBY DICK REHEARSED, it was staged with what welles learned from macliammoir at The Gate Theater, macliammoir called it, Anti-Naturalist Theater. nothing but the actors in their street clothes, on a bare stage. brooms for oars, a stick for a telescope. the actors provide the action, the audience's imagination provides the ocean, costumes, and the whale.

it must have been hell for the actors, knowing how maniacal welles was on insisting everything be a certain way, getting the actors to provide the motion of the ocean, etc.

i also read that with the unions in broadway when the play came here there was no way of getting it right with a bunch of union minded actors and stage hands watching the clock. would be incredible if what fantomas heard at the welles convention is right, and welles filmed the whole play except for his part, and this stuff turned up. i've heard of others staging this play, but without welles directing it would just be another dismal project with IMITATION welles flavoring, like BIG BRASS RING.

however, i don't foster much hope that it will turn up, i tend to beleive the actors brady interviwed more so than whatever was said at the welles convention. but that is only an opinion.

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[jaime marzol]

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this is funny, jaime c. asked, " very briefly, what are Welles' "lost" works." in 2 or 3 days, look at the lenght of this thread!