The Way to Santiago

[maxrael]

whilst rummaging around on the net for welles stuff i came across this old news article from i think 1998:

"Welles script set for production

An Orson Welles script written in 1941 is to be finally made into a movie by RKO pictures.

The Way to Santiago, in which Welles was to have starred as well as direct and produce, was discovered in a crate with 800 other rejected RKO projects.

The script is an action thriller about a man who wakes up with amnesia in a foreign country where many people want him dead.

Daily Variety reports that a producer for the project is already on board. "

(taken from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/191689.stm )

just wondered if anyone knew any more details on what became of this project!

atb,
max!

[maxrael]

more information can be found here:

http://www.s-t.com/daily/12-98/12-12-98/b03ae082.htm

includes:

"His first movie for RKO was "Citizen Kane." It is now widely considered the greatest American film of all time. But in early 1941, it was a picture in trouble. RKO was going to release it in February, but faced immense opposition from powerful publisher William Randolph Hearst, on whom the film was partly based, and his allies in Hollywood. "Kane" would be released several months later.
Against this backdrop, Welles was trying to get RKO to produce "The Way to Santiago."
"Santiago" tells the story of a man who wakes up in Mexico with no idea of who he is or how he got there. The twist is that he has an uncanny resemblance to a notorious figure. The story follows the man's search for his own identity while evil forces try to kill him.
Welles intended to direct and star in the film, as he had done in "Kane," so the name of the main character is simply "Me" in the script.
In a letter on file in RKO's archives, Welles writes from New York to studio production head George Schaeffer on Feb. 2, 1941, that he's eager to get started, assuring Schaeffer "we are going to successfully avoid a lot of the things that cost us time and money in the making of 'Kane."'
"The only way to achieve the results we all urgently want is for those in responsibility to understand, finally, that even if they don't like my way of doing things, they must do it my way just the same ... (and most important) without making an effort to prove in the process that my way is wrong," Welles wrote. "

and worryingly,

But "The Way to Santiago" never got made because of a corporate shakeup that cost Welles his main supporter, Rockefeller; problems with Welles' second film, "The Magnificent Ambersons"; and Welles' own self-destructive behavior.
The script was filed away until the new RKO found it and gave it a second look. And while Hartley hails the script, he says it isn't without flaws. The search is on for a script doctor unafraid to take on a Welles screenplay.
"It needs some work," Hartley said. "Among other things, it kind of drifted off near the end."

[Jeff Wilson]

RKO is right about the script needing work; it has its moments, but I don't see how they'll make it work without doing a total makeover. The script is a World War II light thriller. There is a marvelous comedy scene set on a tour bus that would have been a killer had it been filmed, but I don't think it would have been a successful film, as major plot points are left unexplained at the end. I don't think anything will ever come of it; that news is ancient about RKO "finding" the script. As if it weren't already sitting around at the Lilly for the last 25 years or so...

[Wellesnet]

The original script for "The Way To Santiago" can now be read online here:

http://cinearchive.org/post/69483969686 ... scripts-in

Plus the first 20-minutes or so are enacted in this video, with a cast that includes Howard Hessman from WKRP in Cincinnatti:
https://vimeo.com/29554175

[maxrael]

Pretty scathing review of Orson's screenplay by Carson Reeves from Script Shadow

http://scriptshadow.net/screenplay-revi ... -santiago/

Note that he hated the bus scene that Jeff enjoyed. A comment by Illimani Ferreira down the page has a different opinion to Carson and also speaks favourably of the bus scene!

Illimani Ferreira:

Okay, I've read 60% of the script now. And I'm liking it. I can't understand why you didn't like the bus scene: it's an amazing scene that cushions two tense moments and conveys lots of information embedded in comic relief.

This is a great script. The dialogue brings on tiny subtle pieces of information that give hints about who the characters are in the ocean of confusion that the protagonist is. That's Welles at his best, and I think this review is among the 5% where I strongly disagree with your opinions.

My speculative take on why this scripts wasn't made: Welles was betting on the kind of sensibility that was guiding the entertainment industry at his time: bring Latin-America to the Allies. It was a soft power government strategy but also the initiative of individuals like Rockefeller who never missed a good chance to use his own fortune without expecting a profit to fund artists and projects that could influence Latin-Americans to believe that the US and democracy were the right side to stand for. Now, if I was Rockefeller, patriotically looking for projects, if this script landed on my desk I wouldn't go past the first page. Because "ME". Welles wrote this project first for himself, and in a context of voluntarism people were not eager to waste their time and money funding a project that, despite its quality and the fact that it would actually work for their purposes, has such an egocentric signature.