more Filming Othello questions

[Jaime N. Christley]

I'm planning to do a brief write-up of Filming 'Othello' for my online film journal, and I have a few quick questions:

1) Does anyone have any decent pics from the film they can post here or e-mail my way? Either they're scarce on the 'net or I'm not looking hard enough. (Prob. the latter.) Preferably something that's easily identifiable as being from Filming 'Othello'.

2) Where can I get solid information regarding the legal difficulties with the film? I realize a few of you may already know the story, but I'm afraid I require a primary or a secondary source. Even an interview with a key player would be adequate (but barely). Either online or hard-copy is fine with me, although if it's printed somewhere that's rather obscure, I'd appreciate a little help.

Thanks - I'm grateful for any help at all. You guys/gals are the best.

[jaime marzol]

.............

decent pictures of the film othello, or them filming othello, or of the documentary filming othello. i have the video Filming Othello, the transpscript (by lawrence french i think), i have the laser disc that has a great supplement with interviews, i can capture any stills from the movie you need. but the filming othello tape is not in great shape.

[Jeff Wilson]

Short of talking to either Gary Graver or Beatrice Welles-Smith's attorney, I don't know that you'll find any solid info about the legal problems of the film, which relate mainly to screening it, it would seem. What Graver told a group of us at the screening I attended was that every time she got wind of a screening he'd set up, Welles-Smith would have her shark send an injunction trying to halt it, as she has ownership of the film Othello, and could claim portions were being shown without her consent. Consequently, that's why you'll see things like listings for a "secret film" at the Seattle Film Festival or some such event a few years ago. The Germans who own Filming Othello haven't had any legal challenge I can imagine, as they are clearly the owners of it. If they ever tried to release it here in any video format, I'd imagine they'd run into problems then, as presumably Welles-Smith would have to be compensated for the use of her material. But I'm not a lawyer, so who knows. The documentary has had high profile screenings in the USA, so I don't know how those came off without problems.

I have some screen caps from my videotape copy I did for the site a while back, but they aren't of great quality, as the tape is not super-sharp, but I can post them here if you want.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Re pics: Thanks to both you guys, I found a nice one of Orson smoking a fat cigar, looks from the time-frame of FO, if not from the movie itself. But thanks for responding.

Re legal stuff: Thanks Jeff. The whole affair sounds a lot like what happened with Florence Stoker and Murnau's Nosferatu.

Has Beatrice ever actually won a court action or a settlement over an exhibition? Or has she just frightened folks with lawyers and such? How does an injunction work if you wanted to show the movie and told Beatrice to stick it?

[Jeff Wilson]

From what Graver said, that's exactly what he did; he seemed rather amused that she'd go to the trouble of getting this legal paperwork together, and then he'd just screen the film anyway. Frankly, these screenings weren't exactly raking it cash, so I'm not sure why she'd be pissy about it, other than simply to be pissy about it.

I have no idea if she's ever won any such injunction; I know she sued the Museum of TV and Radio over their Welles radio show for some reason, but I don't know the particulars.

[jaime marzol]

...........

the whole thing is so ridiculous. you'd think that these parties would get together for their comon cause. and it's not like they are fighting for untold riches like in the sinatra estate.

years ago i read that graver has orson's oscar. it's not clear how he got it. he can't prove orson gave it to him but he says orson did. beatrice says that orson all his life left stuff all over the world and now she's just trying to collect what's hers. she wants the oscar, graver won't part with it.

that is the begining of the bone of contention.

personally, i think an oscar belongs on the family mantle, and it should be purchased, not taken away from graver, at 50% of it's market value. i slam my gavel, "court adjourned, break for lunch."

if we seperate ourselve from the situation, and lets say errol flynn had won an oscar, and it was in flynn's cameraman's house, if i was in the jury, i would put it on the family's mantle.

[Jaime N. Christley]

I'd have to side with whatever the inheritance/estate laws have to say about it - those laws can burn you sometimes, but they're there for a reason.

Barring that, a few alternatives:

1) going by what Orson said in the Bogdanovich book, maybe it should go to the Mankiewicz estate.
2) it should be stuck halfway into Pauline Kael's grave site, head-first.
3) sell it at Sotheby's
4) let Graver keep the darn thing

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

my biggest question on the movie filming othello is where can i find it.

pictures from it. sorry. haven't been that lucky yet.

as for an oscar that belongs to him, that someone claims to have, maybe it's just an attention getter.

kind of like when mr. speilberg, i think it was, said he had bought the original sled from "citizen kane" then orson telling him it wasn't.

then he got mad at orson. i would've got mad at the man who sold it to me. i saw the thing burned at the end of the movie.

what will be next. the gun used to kill harry lime in "the third man"

i don't know.

bye now!

[Fredric]

That's hilarious! As Bugs would say: what a gulla-bull! Of course the sled was destroyed. They didn't have CGI effects back then. They had to actually destroy the sled. Come on Spielberg. It's like trying to sell the trojan rabbit from the Holy Grail to someone. Sorry, bud, it's in splinters!

That'll be 9.95, please. By the way, I own the actual Hindenburg zeppelin.

Okay, I'll stop being silly.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

fredric, the sillier the better

to me, anyway

bye now!

[Harvey Chartrand]

Do you think a guy who goes out and makes billions of dollars while transforming the global film industry would be a gullible sucker?
Three Rosebud sleds were made. One was burned. The fate of the second one is not known. Spielberg made a perfectly wise investment buying #3. Orson blew his last chance at directing a film when he made his catty remark about Spielberg buying a fake Rosebud, enraging the younger director. It was a bafflingly self-defeating move, as Welles was trying to obtain financing from Spielberg for The Cradle Will Rock, going so far as to cast Spielberg's wife Amy Irving in the lead as a 'convincer.'
So who is being silly now?

[Jeff Wilson]

Welles shouldn't have needled Spielberg if he wanted little Stevie's bucks, but he had an obvious love of tweaking the money men. Maybe Welles found it silly that Spielberg could drop a large amount of cash on a prop, yet wouldn't pony up for a whole new Welles film, a far more valuable item in my own estimation. I have no sympathy for Spielberg, because here was/is a guy who could do whatever he wanted, buy whatever he wanted, and instead of financing a new Orson Welles film for something like the cost of the catering on one of his own films, he childishly took his money home. George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola helped bankroll Kurosawa's Kagemusha when Kurosawa couldn't get a film deal, yet Spielberg blew off Welles. Instead, Spielberg spent that period making crap like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies, and Gremlins.

[Harvey Chartrand]

Welles may have had a little fun at Spielberg's expense, but I remember reading a newspaper story in the summer of '85 about how devastated Welles was when his plans for Cradle and King Lear fell though simultaneously. At that time, he was certainly America's greatest living film director, yet his chances of directing were worse than they'd ever been, mainly because of concerns about his age and obesity and health. So it was back to chat shows and voiceover work. And of course, Welles died shortly after that article appeared.

[ChristopherBanks]

I'm sorry, but I can't think of an action more childish and mean than Spielberg's reaction.

This was a man who had supposedly idolized Welles, to the extent where the ending of "Raiders" is a blatant rip off from the ending of "Kane".

Anyway, I was on the understanding that the comment about the sled came AFTER Spielberg had turned down financing the Welles film.

[Fredric]

Ah, three sleds makes much more sense. I was incredulous as to Spielberg being that dumb. Sadly, the bottom line is that he won the sled but lost the opportunity to add another brilliant Welles film into the canon. That just might be pretty dumb.

Then he keeps blowing off Kubrick's request for him to direct A.I. until it is too late for Kubrick to supervise the work done. That film was good, IMO, but think of how much better if he had had an actual genius standing over his shoulder....