THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND Thread - 2002-2014 discussions

[Wellesnet]

Here's the link to the Gomez article:

http://www.lolafilms.com/en-us/who-we-a ... elles.aspx

[Jedediah Leland]

Some interesting points, mido505. I'm inclined to disagree with some of them - but then, none of us really knows, and a number of the principal figures in all of this have been keeping their cards close to their chests!

I don't doubt that OW and OK spent several hundred thousand dollars of their money on the production - although whether it was $400k, $700k, or something else is questionable. You make a very good point that the pre-1972 filming of TOSOTW was NOT expensive to film; mostly Bob Random and OK wandering around on motorcycles. But crucially, the Leaming account doesn't say that Welles spent over $700k on the film by c.1972, but that he'd invested it in the film. In 1970-2, he was still able to command hefty fees (if no longer "top dollar"), and as others have pointed out, his pre-1972 fimography shows he was working heavily, whereas as Larry French's great recent piece made clear, his earning power was massively cut by working almost full-time on TOSOTW from 1972-6, and the drop in the fees he could command after 1976. So the Welles of 1972 probably was in a position to put up something like $700k to pay for expensive filming in rented studios and rented ranch houses from 1973 onwards.

Nor do I doubt Bogdanovich when he says Welles asked him to complete that film - though his account of that one telephone conversation in '85 does feel so tired, that I can't help but think he might be over-emphasising something that was meant in a very different way by Welles, almost out of desperation - he was, after all, a very ill man by then, and he and PB had had a major falling-out over "Saint Jack" in '77, and were nowhere near as close as they'd been 15 years earlier. Then again, if that had happened to you, I don't doubt it's a conversation you'd remember - so I believe PB. But PB taking over certainly wasn't the plan in '76, '78, '81 or '82 - in each year Welles was still quoted as saying he wanted to finish the picture himself.

Welles could have invested 7 hundred thousand of a 2 million dollar budget and still only have retained 20% of the film. In essence, in order to entice the Iranians into investing more money, he would have sold them "discounted" shares in the film, lowering his percentage despite the higher initial amount of his own investment.

Very good point! That's consistent with the unsympathetic new management at the Iranian company in 1976 renegotiating with Welles, who was still trying to get more funds to finance an editing suite with 5 full-time editors.

Re. the Leaming narrative, she doesn't suggest the anonymous producer turned over any of his own money. Here's a relevant extract from my copy (pp.477-8):

The Iranians appeared not to be living up to their end of the deal. Orson heard from the Spaniard who had flown in from Paris, that the Iranians had not given him the money as promised...The Spaniard returned to Paris to try again. "In a minute they're going to have it," he told Orson later. "It looks all right." In lieu of the Iranian funds, he gave them very small sums of money, which he said were part of the investment he had agreed to make. Not until afterwards did Orson discover that the Iranians had indeed been giving the Spaniard the promised money, which had come from Iran in cash, and that, instead of bringing it to Spain, the sly fellow was pocketing it. Says Orson: "We just sat, month after month, while he went to Paris, received the money, and came back and told us that they wouldn't give him any money. He was very convincing to us, and very convincing with them in Paris. He kept flying back and forth extracting money from them. We didn't know them, you see. We knew him." The small sums of money he had been giving Orson as if from his own pocket actually came out of Iranian funds...It simply never occured to [Orson Welles] that the fellow was lying - and had never had any money of his own to invest in the first place.

Interesting that the Leaming accusation is that over several months, the Iranians gave a sum larger than $250k in several tranches - $250k is what is alleged to have been stolen from that larger sum. It certainly sounds a credible amount, based on what would have been spent during up to 5 months in Spain, plus some of the initial time in Arizona (a month or two?).

[mido505]

Thank you for the link, Wellesnet, and thank you for the response, Jedediah! The autobio by Gomez is fascinating.

The Gomez account of the financing of TOSOTW is actually the most sensible and logical that I have read. Welles probably spent a bit of cash on the initial shoot, or tests as it were, as he was wont to do, often ending up using the test footage in the film itself. Once he was committed to filming TOSOTW, he met with Gomez, with whom he had an exclusive contract, to raise the funds for a proper budget. Gomez proceeded to raise around $1,000,000.00, primarily from the Iranian Boucheri, but also from German financier Klaus Hellwig (producer of FILMING OTHELLO). Welles then went back to Arizona with the million in cash and began filming. When that money ran out, Welles used his own funds to plow on, probably spending most of that $700,000.00.

The Iranian funds, plus Welles's personal contribution, plus Bogdanovich's possible investment (I stress the word "possible") gets us to around $2,000,000.00, the accepted budget for the film.

Sometime around 1974-75, the money runs out, Gomez leaves for whatever reason, and Welles uses the AFI tribute to ask for end money to complete TOSOTW. What happened?

Interestingly, Bogdanovich writes that "another producer ran back to Europe with $250,000 of Orson's money and never was heard from again," which is very different from the story we are told in the Leaming account, where the money is given to the Spanish producer in Paris, who only gives dribs and drabs to Welles, who is in Spain (Did Welles ever intend to film any of TOSOTW in Spain? Leaming makes it sound as if that were the case. Perhaps during the SACRED BEASTS incarnation, but not later, IMHO). According to Gomez, he went to Arizona with Welles (where he met Dennis Hopper and set up a deal), stayed for six months, and then left.

Gomez writes that TOSOTW was "a film that could never be finished" and that "there was no way to finish that film." What does that mean? Why? That is very interesting, very telling.

Here is a speculation. The Leaming account states that the Spanish producer was to have invested $350,000.00. The amount supposedly embezzled by the Spanish producer was $250,000.00. Gomez states that his role was to produce, not to invest. Gomez also states that he left the production because he would have been ruined had he stayed.

Ruined?

Did someone perhaps advance the production some initial funds, perhaps around $250,000.00, most of his savings, with the proviso that he would be paid back out of the budget proper, then, viewing the production as a financial black hole, back out, asking for his money back in the process?

Is part of the Leaming story then actually true, but not in the way we imagine? Perhaps the Spanish producer did loan Welles money out of his own pocket while the Iranian financing was being put together and Welles was living in Europe, and just maybe that advance amounted to around $250,000.00.

Perhaps the $250,000.00 was returned willingly; perhaps not. According to Gomez, he and Welles ended their relationship amicably, and were in contact after the split, with Welles assuring Gomez that he was not the source of the slanderous rumors of theft. Perhaps Welles didn't pass on certain information to others, who were left to speculate.

Gomez didn't just fade into the woodwork post Welles; he has had an excellent career, one without a hint of scandal, and of fairly substantial achievement. I find it hard to believe that this would be the case had he done what some allege him to have done.

Perhaps I will do some research on the funding history of TOSOTW and post.

[Jedediah Leland]

A very thoughtful post, mido505 - thanks!

Regarding Bogdanovich's investment, I've often wondered if that was included within the $700,000 figure put in by Welles? Frustratingly, I can't remember where I read this, but I seem to recall PB once describing his input as a "loan" to Welles. Could he have loaned Welles c.$200,000 around 1970-2, when the two were really close (and meeting regularly for the interview book), and could that have then been part of Welles's "$700,000" investment? (We don't know Welles's investment was $700,000, all we know is it was more than double $350,000. The larger Welles's investment, the greater the chance that some of it could have been borrowed money.)

Here is a speculation...Did someone perhaps advance the production some initial funds, with the proviso that he would be paid back out of the budget proper, then, viewing the production as a financial black hole, back out, asking for his money back in the process?

Peter Bogdanovich, loaning Welles $200,000, circa 1970-2? That might actually give a perfect answer to your question! But it's pure speculation from me. We don't know the date PB claims to have lent money. Having said that, PB was really flush with cash circa 1971-4, having three huge box office hits in a row & buying a big Hollywood mansion then. Already by the mid-70s, as he's made clear from interviews, having invested heavily in the flop Daisy Miller, he was already in financial trouble, so I find it hard to imagine PB in 1975/6 being in a position to loan Welles $200,000. Whereas in 1972, "Sure Orson, just say how much!"

Interestingly, Bogdanovich writes that "another producer ran back to Europe with $250,000 of Orson's money and never was heard from again," which is very different from the story we are told in the Leaming account, where the money is given to the Spanish producer in Paris, who only gives dribs and drabs to Welles, who is in Spain (Did Welles ever intend to film any of TOSOTW in Spain? Leaming makes it sound as if that were the case.

They're not necessarily incompatible accounts. Bogdanovich's next sentence is about that same producer later winning the Best Foreign Picture Oscar for a co-produced film in the 1990s - which fairly heavily hints at Gómez, who fits the bill perfectly. I can't think of any other TOSOTW producer who fits that bill, since Dominique Antoine never produced anything after the 70s, no-one (AFAIK) has pointed the finger at her, and she kept working on the film up to the end. The reference to "Orson's money" might just be a figure of speech, as in "money intended for Orson's film".

Re. Spain, yes, Leaming suggests OW wanted to film part of TOSOTW in Spain (and Gómez intriguingly suggests Iran was on the cards - it sounds like filming in a desert was the main priority!).

on account of the foul weather, Orson had decided to abandon Spain for Arizona, where John Huston and a host of other faithfuls joined him and crack cameraman Gary Graver to shoot in the desert.

Also, Lili Palmer's scenes in the final film were all shot in Spain and spliced in to the party - I wonder if they were filmed during this period?

Talking of this period, I was looking at Rosenbaum's Welles chronology:

June-mid-September 1973: Filming TOSOTW in Orvilliers and Paris.
January-April 1974: Filming TOSOTW in Carefree, Arizona.

I suggest that the five months in Spain were c.February-June 1973, consistent with then moving to Paris in June-mid-September 1973, a break in filming (to negotiate more funds?), then the Carefree shoot, during which Gómez withdrew, under whatever circumstances.

Gomez keeps writing that TOSOTW was "a film that could never be finished" and that "there was no way to finish that film." Why? That is very interesting.

In a 2011 article at http://cms.rttnews.com/Story.aspx?type= ... tegory=ETS , Gómez has been quoted as saying Welles's "physical condition was very delicate. He didn't have the energy to cut it." Given that what cutting Welles did was mostly from 1975 onwards, one might ask how Gómez could have formed an opinion about this before leaving the project in 1974. Of course, he could have see Welles at work cutting F for Fake, but any way you look at it, that was an editing triumph, so it doesn't seem likely he'd have walked away from the editing of that in 1973-4 thinking "This man can no longer edit."

Why didn't Gómez think the film could be finished, and why does he occasionally pop up saying it shouldn't be finished? I'm going to speculate here, so I'll try to be even-handed. If we 100% trust Gómez's account, Welles was a terminally ill director clearly losing his powers, who was just not up to carrying out the ludicrously ambitious plans he had, and since no-one can replace Welles, we should leave this project dead. If we 100% trust the Welles/Leaming/Bogdanovich/Antoine accounts, and for argument's sake accept Gómez was an embezzler, then it wouldn't be surprising to find him arguing that the project shouldn't reach wider attention. It really comes down to which of these conflicting accounts one buys.

Gomez didn't just fade into the woodwork post Welles; he has had an excellent career, one without a hint of scandal, and of fairly substantial achievement. I find it hard to believe that this would be the case had he done what some allege him to have done.

True, but not conclusive either way. In the 10 years after TOSOTW, Gómez didn't go back to producing, he had a very modest career as a film distributor in Spain. It's only from 1985 that his career really took off when he went back to producing - and by then, awareness of TOSOTW was so low, and so bound up with the idea of "That crazy Welles", that even if anyone heard these rumours, they could have been easily dismissed as the self-justifying ramblings of an old has-been who kept failing to complete films, giving one lame excuse after another.

Perhaps I will do some research on the funding history of TOSOTW and post.

Yes! Please do!

By the way, well-spotted on Hellwig's involvement in Filming Othello. Evidently, that's one TOSOTW investor who didn't get so badly burned that they weren't willing to finance another Welles film.

[mido505]

I am going to go out on a limb and play devil's advocate for Gomez here.

Frank Brady states in his book CITIZEN WELLES that Astrophore questioned "certain monies given to (Welles)...for direct production costs (that) were used for his legitimate expenses, but not for the type that his producers had agreed upon."

If Gomez had in fact advanced Welles a substantial sum of money during their early association, when he was setting up the Iranian financing, as a loan and not an investment, that would explain a lot. Gomez was spooked by something during the Arizona shoot, and may have decided that he needed to get his money back while he could. Perhaps Welles gave it back; perhaps Gomez took it, with or without Welles's tacit approval. In any case, the $250,000.00 would have had to come out of the Iranian funds. The Iranians, for obvious reasons, would not have been happy to see a quarter million dollars earmarked for production end up in someone else's pocket, and would have raised a stink.

Given Astrophore's proven contentious behavior, had Gomez really stolen $250,000.00, they would have put him in jail, period. If he did end up with that money, he must have had some claim on it.

Gomez, in his memoir, makes the telling point that he has a contract, signed by Welles, stating that his role was that of producer, not investor.

By all accounts, Astrophore producer Dominique Antoine showed up in Arizona believing something was wrong. Obviously, from her point of view, something was. But did she have all the information?

Whatever the case, this contretemps may have led to the interruption in funding that impeded the completion of TOSOTW.

Dominique Antoine remained, and remains a Welles partisan, so perhaps she received an acceptable explanation from him. Astrophore, on the other hand, seems to have turned against Welles around this time, demanding an ever increasing share of the film in return for more funds. This is the period in which Welles lost control of his own film.

Of course, Antoine famously turned down an offer, made after the AFI tribute, to buy out Astrophore's interest, in the hope that a better offer would materialize.

It didn't. Relations between Welles and Astrophore continued to deteriorate, until the Iranian revolution sealed TOSOTW's fate.

[mido505]

Using the Rosenbaum timeline, and Gomez's memoirs, we can construct the following:

Tests for TOSOTW commence in LA on August 17, 1970; principle photography begins on August 30, with Welles shooting the film-within-a-film scenes. Huston is not yet cast. Four months of party scenes are shot in Carefree, Arizona in 1971; presumably, this is the period detailed by Joseph McBride in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO ORSON WELLES. At this point, Welles is likely funding TOSOTW out of his own pocket.

In late 1971, Welles takes a break to shoot and complete F FOR FAKE. In 1972, Welles signs a production agreement with Gomez, who had worked with Welles on TREASURE ISLAND and FAKE. Gomez contributes to FILMING OTHELLO, has some unspecified involvement with DQ, and sets up future financing for TOSOTW with Astrophore, who funded FAKE, and Klaus Hellwig, who produced FILMING OTHELLO. During this time, Welles divides his time between Madrid and Paris.

Please note that most accounts of the financing of TOSOTW state that the production agreement signed at this time specified that Welles would provide 1/3 of the budget, Astrophore 1/3, and Gomez 1/3.

Gomez, however, insists that he was never an investor. Was his supposed share actually that of Hellwig, who only gets mentioned in Gomez's account of WIND? Was Gomez a front for Hellwig?

According to Gomez, Welles stayed in Madrid for 5 months, and in Paris for 2. With business wrapped up, both, along with a million in cash and some Cuban cigars, set off for Arizona to resume filming. This accords with the Rosenbaum timeline, which states that filming resumed in Arizona in 1973, with Huston finally cast as Jake Hannaford.

Here is where things get murky. Gomez claims he stayed around 6 months, then left because "we had to give up: there was no way to finish that film." Why? Did the money run out? Was there no film there, just endless shooting? Was Welles in poor health? Was Gomez confused by Welles's unorthodox methods? Whatever the case, Gomez bailed some time in 1974, concerned that he would be "ruined", perhaps taking $250,000.00 that he felt was owed to him (or to Hellwig?).

After Gomez leaves, filming becomes more perfunctory and fragmented. Welles renegotiates his position with Astrophore, losing control of the project, and Peter Bogdanovich supposedly donates anywhere from $200,000.00 to $500,000.00 to complete the film, which finally finishes principal photography in January 1976.

Please note the paradox here. It makes sense that Bogdanovich would donate funds when it looked like TOSOTW was in serious trouble. But Bogdanovich had started his long slide to the bottom in 1974; was he still flush at that point? Perhaps. DAISY MILLER (ugh) was released in '74, and AT LONG LAST LOVE, the real killer, didn't come until '75. Did Bogdanovich pony up $200,000.00 in an attempt to appease the Iranians, pissed that Welles had paid off Gomez with $250,000.00 of their money? If he did, I take back every negative thing I've ever said about him; he's a hero. But I still have my doubts.

In the midst of this mess, in 1975 Welles makes his AFI pitch, which results in an offer that Astrophore turns down. Despite its grotesque misjudgement, Astrophore then gets more hard-assed with Welles, refusing to renegotiate its position, and threatening to take away the film in order to edit and release its own version. This cinematic circus continues until the Iranian Revolution sends the whole thing into the crapper.

[Jedediah Leland]

Another pair of highly thought-provoking posts - many thanks.

I am going to go out on a limb and play devil's advocate for Gomez here.

I shan't take the bait! Much as I disagree with some of the underlying assumptions, I think it would be ill-advised to risk wading into potentially libelous remarks on a written forum about any of the principals involved. There are written accounts. The written accounts are inconsistent, and it's perfectly "fair comment" for us to point out the inconsistencies in such accounts - but I'm going to avoid definitively coming down on one side or another with a firm conclusion. It's in this spirit that I write.

I have a major question relating to all of the below (which perhaps Josh Karp can answer in his book) : Are there surviving production records? Yes, Welles was famously disorganised where paperwork was concerned, but the decades of litigation must have left a paper trail, and Astrophore must have retained their correspondence. What happened to it? Does Dominique Antoine have paperwork? Or Oja Kodar? Or Peter Bogdanovich, after 15+ years of trying to broker a settlement with all parties? I suspect that as long as we rely on recollections made by different parties years after the fact, we'll get these huge discrepancies over major issues, which will only be resolved if we can see the production records.

If Gomez had in fact advanced Welles a substantial sum of money during their early association, when he was setting up the Iranian financing, as a loan and not an investment, that would explain a lot.

It would. But the problems I have in fully accepting this argument are:

(a) nobody has ever said Gómez advanced the production money. Far from it, the Leaming account asserts that although he pledged to invest $350,000 (something Gómez now denies), he never paid any of his own money, and that the only small sums of money received from him had allegedly been taken out of the Iranian money.

(b) if this were the case, I would be astonished that Gómez doesn't at least try to say so.

Given Astrophore's proven contentious behavior, had Gomez really stolen $250,000.00, they would have put him in jail, period.

This isn't proof one way or the other. Firstly, assuming there had been any kind of a crime, it would have been near-impossible to get as far as even bringing charges, given the jurisdictions involved: Iranian funds for a French-registered production company with a Spanish producer allegedly collecting funds in France, an American director in Spain, and filming in the United States. Where would you even begin? Extradition proceedings in Spain? Where to? 1970s Iran, where no-one would get a fair trial, and no European government would agree to extradite a citizen? No chance. Furthermore, Welles told Leaming that the supposed money handed over was all in cash - that raises the question of what sort of receipts existed, and the ease with which such large sums of cash could have been disposed of. Furthermore, Gómez insists he was never an investor, but Welles said that he was - if he had been, then it's very difficult to know at what stage Astrophore would have reached a tipping point, and would have started prosecuting, since that would have been the stage at which they'd have given up on receiving Gómez's alleged funds, jeopardising the entire project which would need re-financing mid-production.

Gomez, in his memoir, makes the telling point that he has a contract, signed by Welles, stating that his role was that of producer, not investor.

Yes, that's an important point - but again, it proves nothing. A producer can also be an investor (and an investor can insist on being made at least an executive producer). Part of the producer's role involves securing finance to get the project off the ground, whether it's external funding, or their own money. Unless Gómez's producer contract contains a clause specifically stating "You will not provide any funds for this project", then this doesn't prove anything either way.

Astrophore, on the other hand, seems to have turned against Welles around this time, demanding an ever increasing share of the film in return for more funds. This is the period in which Welles lost control of his own film.

My reading is that Welles privately financed through to early '73, when this agreement was signed, Gómez withdrew in early '74 (circa March?), that completion funds first became an issue in '75 when he made his appeal at the AFI, but according to McBride's account, the real deadlock and loss of control was in '76.

Regarding the Rosenbaum timeline, there is an inconsistency in it. He writes that John Huston was only cast in January 1974, but my copy of Ronald Gottesman's "Focus on Orson Welles" reproduces an LA Times interview with Welles, dated 12 May 1973, in which he states he's just come back from filming in Arizona with John Huston. This is the period which we seem to think Welles was in Spain. Of course, the Gottesman book might just have a typo on the date... (I haven't looked up the original article.)

In late 1971, Welles takes a break to shoot and complete F FOR FAKE.

Yes, Welles had serious tax trouble with the IRS around this time, and rapidly needed to work to pay his tax debt. It may have been politically motivated, given Nixon was up for re-election in '72, and there are numerous other instances of the Nixon administration ordering tax audits on political "enemies" in the entertainment industry as disparate as John Lennon, Paul Newman and Barbara Streisand. Or Welles might just have owed a lot of taxes.

Please note that most accounts of the financing of TOSOTW state that the production agreement signed at this time specified that Welles would provide 1/3 of the budget, Astrophore 1/3, and Gomez 1/3.

Yes, though the Leaming account is that Welles put up more than $700,000, while Gómez and Astrophore were meant to put up around $350,000 each - 50/25/25 rather than 33/33/33; and that Astrophore ended up putting up more than 50%, and claiming ownership of 80% of the profits.

You're right to ask about Hellwig's role. I've never heard his name in connection with the film before. It sounds like someone ought to interview him. Again, Josh Karp, we need you!

According to Gomez, Welles stayed in Madrid for 5 months, and in Paris for 2. With business wrapped up, both, along with a million in cash and some Cuban cigars, set off for Arizona to resume filming. This accords with the Rosenbaum timeline, which states that filming resumed in Arizona in 1973, with Huston finally cast as Jake Hannaford.

No, the Rosenbaum timeline makes no mention of Arizona filming in '73. The only '73 filming mentioned is in Orvilliers & Paris from June to mid-September 1973. Then Rosenbaum writes that in January 1974 they started filming in Carefree, Arizona for 3 months (so until April?), with John Huston, who "comes for the last six weeks". The 1973 Arizona dates are from the May 1973 LA Times interview with Welles reproduced in "Focus on Orson Welles". In it, Welles says he's just come back from filming with Huston in Phoenix, Arizona. Since two separate places in Arizona are mentioned, I don't think the date is a typo. But if Welles was in Phoenix in April/May '73, that doesn't fit in with 5 months in Spain, then 2 months in Paris (which tallies with Orvilliers in June to mid-September '73), followed by 3 months in Arizona from January '74. Gómez says the early '74 Arizona shoot went on for 6 months, while Rosenbaum says 3 months. The only possible way I might square this would be that Gómez doesn't mention the 4-month break between the 2 months in Paris, and the Carefree, Arizona shoot. It's therefore possible he also doesn't mention a break between Spain and Paris, during which time Welles surfaces in Phoenix, Arizona to shoot some scenes with a newly-cast Huston.

[mido505]

Jedediah:

Thank you for an excellent post. You may make many salient points, but I beg to differ on a couple of important ones.

The Rosenbaum timeline I am using is the version posted in the Wiki article to which you linked earlier. That timeline states quite clearly that Welles shot with Huston in Phoenix in early 1973, before shifting to Paris and Orvilliers from June to September, and then returning to Carefree, Arizona in 1974. This accords with the information from the LA Times interview that you reference, where Welles, in May 1973, states that he is just back from shooting in Phoenix. Less than a month later Welles was back in Europe, which again accords with the timeline.

The Welles/Gomez/Astrophore agreement was signed in early 1972, not early 1973.

The production seems to have gone fairly smoothly until 1974, when Gomez bolts, with or without $250,000.00. Information is murky after that point, but I believe I have good reason to think that significant problems with Astrophore started at that time. If you read Leaming, and the timeline closely, it appears that Astrophore had stopped funding production in 1974, and was only willing to give Welles money to edit, demanding that Welles work in Paris where he could be watched. In order to get more production funds, Welles had to sign away most of his interest in the picture. He also, possibly, took a substantial loan from Peter Bogdanovich.

A clarification needs to be made about Welles's 1975 AFI pitch. He was not after completion money, per se. He was looking for an investor to buy out the Iranians. This is a very different thing. I can only surmise that the Iranians were insisting that Welles finish TOSOTW ASAP so that they could finally recoup their investment, and a frustrated Welles suggested that he could find a Hollywood producer to buy them out, letting him finish the picture on his terms. It didn't work out that way.

Astrophore turned down the first offer, and when no others were forthcoming, really put the screws to Welles in 1976, when they essentially froze him out and threatened to edit the film themselves. Welles continued to try and find someone to buy them out, but was unsuccessful, until the Iranian revolution put everything in stasis.

Gomez claims he was made a scapegoat for TOSOTW's problems. Whether or not that is true, it would not be the first time. I am a great admirer of Welles, but less so of some of the people he allowed around him. Someone put out that dreadful story that THE DEEP was not finished because Jeanne Moreau, a woman scorned, refused to loop her lines. How disgusting. One can argue that Jeanne Moreau made Welles's incredibly fruitful 60's career possible, by agreeing to star in THE TRIAL, FALSTAFF, and THE IMMORTAL STORY. That a consumate professional like Moreau would endanger a film, her reputation, and her career because of a jealous snit is a true libel. Moreau, who always spoke highly of Welles, claimed that he never called her to Paris to do her looping which is, of course, the truth. How do I know? Because Lawrence Harvey never dubbed his lines, either. Did he too have an unrequited crush on Welles and refuse to loop his lines because Welles doted on Oja Kodar? Of course not. Welles never called him in. When Harvey died prematurely, in 1973, years after production had halted, that sad event was also used to explain why THE DEEP remained incomplete.

I too am looking forward to Karp's book. He might explain a lot.

[Jedediah Leland]

Thanks, mido505. Another very informative post.

Just one clarification:

The Rosenbaum timeline I am using is the version posted in the Wiki article to which you linked earlier. That timeline states quite clearly that Welles shot with Huston in Phoenix in early 1973

Yes, but the Wikipedia article is a conflation of 2 sources: the heading for the timeline cites Rosenbaum for the overall timeline, but the only one of the subsequent items to have an independent in-line citation is the 1973 Arizona filming - the corresponding footnote says that Rosenbaum incorrectly identifies Huston as having been cast in 1974, and cites the same LA Times piece as the source for some 1973 Arizona filming with Huston. And checking with my own copies of these 2 books, I can confirm this is true: the 1998 edition of Rosenbaum cites Huston as being cast in 1974, and makes no mention of 1973 Arizona filming - that's just the Wiki using 2 sources.

The Welles/Gomez/Astrophore agreement was signed in early 1972, not early 1973.

Excellent - I didn't know this. It would make a lot of sense! And would explain the Gómez/Welles collaboration on "F for Fake" from 1972 onwards as well as TOSOTW.

A clarification needs to be made about Welles's 1975 AFI pitch. He was not after completion money, per se. He was looking for an investor to buy out the Iranians.

You're quite right - it's also confirmed in McBride's "Whatever Happened to Orson Welles?" I stand corrected, and that makes much more sense.

When Harvey died prematurely, in 1973, years after production had halted, that sad event was also used to explain why THE DEEP remained incomplete.

I'm not going to touch the Moreau story with a barge pole, but when I get round to reconstructing the epic post I was writing on Don Quixote, I'll try to set down why I think DQ was always planned to be released AFTER a commercially successful feature, and why I think the biggest factor in Welles abandoning "The Deep" had nothing to do with Harvey's death in '73, but with Welles deciding in 1970 that TOSOTW was an even better prospect for a trendy, commercial success - and a more artistic one to boot - that could pave the way to DQ. Anyway, that's a discussion for another thread...

[mido505]

I'm not going to touch the Moreau story with a barge pole, but when I get round to reconstructing the epic post I was writing on Don Quixote, I'll try to set down why I think DQ was always planned to be released AFTER a commercially successful feature, and why I think the biggest factor in Welles abandoning "The Deep" had nothing to do with Harvey's death in '73, but with Welles deciding in 1970 that TOSOTW was an even better prospect for a trendy, commercial success - and a more artistic one to boot - that could pave the way to DQ. Anyway, that's a discussion for another thread..

This comment is hugely insightful, and while it may be a discussion for another thread, I'll start it here. I've been brooding a lot about THE DEEP lately, without really knowing why, and I think you've explained it to me.

Despite barely being mentioned in most accounts of Welles's career, THE DEEP is pivotal. In fact, Welles's career could easily be divided into pre-DEEP and post-DEEP. During the decade prior to initiating production of THE DEEP, despite the usual troubles with money and his own quest for perfection, Welles was extremely productive, completing and releasing TOUCH OF EVIL, THE TRIAL, FALSTAFF, and THE IMMORTAL STORY. After THE DEEP, Welles only managed to release one more picture, F FOR FAKE.

I've called this productive decade prior to THE DEEP Welles's Paola Mori period, but it just as well could have been called the Jeanne Moreau years, as Moreau starred in all of these films except TOE, and had a major role in DEEP. THE DEEP is a bridge work in that it initiated Welles's Oja Kodar period, highly problematic for him from a professional point of view but, perhaps, more satisfying on a personal level. Tellingly, problems on THE DEEP ended Welles's professional relationship with Moreau.

THE DEEP is usually classified as one of Welles's self-financed productions. According to Oja Kodar, production began when a Yugoslavian company for whom Welles acted could not pay him his fee; he proposed, instead, that they pay him in equipment, staff and technical support, for a film version of the novel DEAD RECKONING, to the tune of the $60,000 they owed Welles.

$60,000 was not much and, again according to Kodar, the Yugoslavian film company overstated expenses, so that Welles only got around $30,000 out of them. What was the rest of the budget? I've never seen it stated, but considering that Welles supposedly spent $700,000 of his money on TOSOTW, a far simpler production, without ocean or burning yachts, I would guess at least that much, even if some salaries were deferred. That's a lot of cash to come out of Welles's pocket.

He didn't finish it. One may ask, why? A better question might be, why did he start? DEAD RECKONING was not exactly Welles material. Nothing really there for him to grab on to. It was THE STRANGER, without Nazis.

To make a star out of Oja? Perhaps, but that is too simplistic. I think Welles was too self aware to allow himself to become his own Kane to Kodar's Susan Alexander. Besides, he could have put Kodar into something more sympatico, such as an adaptation of an Isak Dinesen story. Actually, he tried that, but the financing collapsed.

To have a commercial success? More likely, but again why? Welles had been doing reasonably well for the last ten years without a commercial success. What did he want it for?

I think Jedediah is right, that Welles wanted a commercial success to pave the way for DQ. DQ was the big obsession of Welles's life, the vortex around which everything else swirled.

At some point Welles looked at THE DEEP and realized it was too complacent, conventional, and poverty stricken to do what he asked of it. He put it aside, making various excuses as to why he did not finish, and moved on.

Oja Kodar has claimed that THE DEEP was not finished for monetary reasons, but that is absurd. Welles shot FAKE, and poured $700,000 of his own money into TOSOTW, after THE DEEP had languished for years. Before Harvey died in 1973, Welles could have finished THE DEEP at any time, with his own cash. He didn't want to, so he didn't. It was choice, not necessity.

I think FAKE was also an attempt to create a commercial success to lead into the release of DQ, having been inspired by headlines about Clifford Irving and Howard Hughes. "My God, we are right in the middle of this" Welles was supposed to have exclaimed when the Irving/Hughes scandal broke, and he was right. For whatever reason, FAKE failed in its ostensible purpose, as a commercial vehicle, but emerged as some kind of a masterpiece. With THE DEEP, a more cynical exercise in which a wall existed between Welles and his material, Welles petered out. With FAKE, where Welles was able to wholly identify with his subject, he soared.

TOSOTW looks to have been another attempt at a trendy and commercial success, but oddly so. The commercial elements were walled off within the Antonioniesque film-within-a-film, with its boobs and pretention; the tortured and revealing Hannaford narrative seems to have come straight out of Welles's psyche. The old vs. new Hollywood story that Welles claimed to have been contemporary and relevant would only have been so to him, and to a few Hollywood insiders; the public at large would have cared less. The sex in TOSOTW was very daring for the early 70's, but by 1976 or so would have been old hat. I suspect Welles was counting on the sex to sell his film. I'm going to be extremely heretical here and suggest that Welles's attempts to purchase TOSOTW from the Iranians after 1976 may have been more to prevent them from releasing it than to enable him to.

Please note that in later years Welles stopped talking about releasing TOSOTW as a straight narrative, but as one of his "essay films". In other words, Welles had given up on the idea of TOSOTW being commercially viable.

As far as we know, Welles never completed the editing of DQ, outside of the sequences he put together for the AFI tribute. Why? He could have. While the negative was locked up in Paris, Welles had the rushes. Did Welles perhaps abandon TOSOTW, as he had THE DEEP, because it could no longer serve its intended purpose, that purpose being the release of DQ, his child, his obsession, and the one Welles "unfinished" project for which we have reasonable proof of completion?

[Roger Ryan]

All of Welles' original scripts/films which were not based on existing plays or novels were intended to capitalize on something that Welles thought was current. This emphasis on the "now" may be as blatant as the IT'S ALL TRUE project and F FOR FAKE or the subtler post-war European divisions that creep into MR. ARKADIN. If the topic of a project no longer seemed current to Welles, he sought to reshape it or abandon it. This is certainly what happened to DON QUIXOTE over the years and to how Welles came to see TOSOTW. In fact, I think it's safe to say that TOSOTW is the project that became dated the quickest given how short a period of time the "New Hollywood" exerted power. Welles would bemoan that, by taking a year or more to make, a feature film was always inherently dated. What then about a film project that took a decade to make? Welles would have been better off sticking with the classics, but he knew that the power and money came from something that was considered fresh.

As to THE DEEP: I've said this before, but the two-hour rough assembly just isn't very inspiring. Welles may have gone into the project believing it had commercial potential, but I don't think his heart was in it. Certainly by the time he was shooting TOSOTW and putting together F FOR FAKE, his whole approach to THE DEEP must have struck him as out-of-touch with the direction feature films were going in the early 70s. At best, THE DEEP may have worked as a TV movie-of-the-week, but that would have been an acknowledgement that he was washed up as a major director.

[mido505]

Trotting out a thought of the day while drinking my morning coffee. Has anyone ever looked intensively into the similarities between TOSOTW and Peter Bogdanovich's directorial debut, TARGETS? In TARGETS, Hollywood acting legend Boris Karloff stars as an aging movie star lamenting how his industry, and the world, has passed him by. In TOSOTW, Hollywood directing legend John Huston stars as an aging movie director lamenting how his industry, and the world, has passed him by. Both costar Peter Bogdanovich as the aging legends' admirer/acolyte. Both include a confessional drunk scene, and both climax at a drive in theater where the Hollywood icon's latest film is being premiered.

The script for TARGETS is credited to Bogdanovich and his then wife Polly Platt. According to Wikipedia, Bogdanovich has said that Samuel Fuller contributed significantly to the screenplay, but did Welles have a hand in it as well? Wellesnet contributor Harvey Chartrand asked this question on this site in 2002, but got no answer, and did not follow up. Given the similarities between the two films, I'd say the question is apropos.

[Jedediah Leland]

Okay, to go with the connection between TOSOTW and “The Deep”: In 1964, Welles gave an interview in which he said he was very nervous about releasing “Don Quixote” (in the form he then had planned for it – which seems to have been “Don Quixote Goes to the Moon”), as he said “It will infuriate everyone”, and he just couldn’t imagine an audience for it. Welles explicitly said he wanted to have a big commercial hit first. What was this hit?

Possibly “Chimes at Midnight”, although that was always going to have limited commercial appeal. “Treasure Island” was a more likely candidate – Welles was meant to film that back-to-back with CAM in 1964, but it had to be abandoned. “The Immortal Story” was never going to be a commercial hit, and “Orson’s Bag” was a TV project, not a film. No, I’m convinced that as “The Deep” was lined up to be a film to “show people we could make some money”, that was planned to give Welles the credibility to finally throw the intensely personal “Don Quixote” to the public. Welles had mostly finished his cut of "Don Quixote Goes to the Moon" in 1967, and I'm convinced that in his mind, its release date was tied to the release of "The Deep". I’ve not seen the assembly of “The Deep” footage, but I’ve read Roger Ryan’s excellent description of it, and aside from Stefan Drossler, everyone seems to agree it was a pretty pedestrian thriller. That explains Welles not being in hurry to release DQ in 1969-70, even though he’d practically finished a totally new cut with Mauro Bonanni after the moon landings made his "Don Quixote Goes to the Moon" obsolete. And by the summer of 1970, TOSOTW replaced “The Deep” as the “commercial” project he hoped would pave the way for DQ. This would also explain why he then did so little editing work on DQ in the early 70s, and only really resumed after TOSOTW fell by the wayside c.1977 - he gave priority to the "commercial" project which must come first.

At some point Welles looked at THE DEEP and realized it was too complacent, conventional, and poverty stricken to do what he asked of it.

He needn’t have even bothered to look at it. My sense is that he just got caught up in his new project, TOSOTW. It had started as a personal project when it was “The Sacred Beasts”, but its evolution into a Hollywood film, with the change of setting, transformed the whole dynamic. Suddenly, it was sexy and topical, and promised to fit into the post-“Easy Rider” boom of trendy, low-budget moneymakers which the major studios still didn't fully understand. It also promised to be a consciously “American” film, and to mark his return to the United States; remember, he’d been shut out of the studio system since “Touch of Evil” in 1957/8, and the chance of doing a low-budget, “now” movie with counter-culture elements held out the promise of a return to Hollywood, with studios taking a chance on low-budget counter-culture films.

I think FAKE was also an attempt to create a commercial success to lead into the release of DQ, having been inspired by headlines about Clifford Irving and Howard Hughes.

He certainly had high hopes for it, as “a new kind of movie”. But I do see it as a digression from TOSOTW, which he’d been filming for 2 years when work on “F for Fake” began in 1972. Let me suggest 3 possible reasons for this, all compatible with each other. Firstly, as your “My God, we are right in the middle of this” quotation shows, “F for Fake” held out the promise of being even more of a “Now” movie than TOSOTW (of course, in the end, it didn't even get a US release until 1976). Secondly, against the backdrop of Welles’s tax troubles and his throwing himself into work in 1972 (possibly the busiest year ever in his lifelong filmography?), “F for Fake” seemed to be easy to finish quickly. There was surprisingly little filming to do; just an editing job on mostly pre-existing footage shot by others. (Of course, once Welles got to work, he ended up spending a year on it!) Thirdly, TOSOTW depended on some of the most complex editing ever undertaken. “F for Fake” thus offered a perfect testbed for advanced experiments in rapidly inter-cutting totally different kinds of film stock, without the time and expense of shooting (much of) a new film. And it's a short-ish film (85ish mins), so would have been less demanding than TOSOTW.

The sex in TOSOTW was very daring for the early 70's, but by 1976 or so would have been old hat.

True, but not just the sex scenes (take the spoof Russ Meyer camera angles through the bedsprings – Meyer was a red-hot moneymaking director in the early 70s, but rather “old hat” by the end of the decade). As Roger Ryan says, the whole “New Hollywood” boom passed quickly.

I might ruffle a few feathers here, but here’s a counterfactual for you all: If TOSOTW had been completed and released in 1970-3, I suspect it would have been a major critical AND commercial hit. I don’t know how it would have gone down in 1974-5. If it had been released from 1976 onwards, I suspect it would have bombed at the box office. I say that despite Welles’s conception of the film becoming increasingly complex, and I’m convinced that the film he had planned by 1975-6 was a lot better than the film planned up to 1972, which was going to be 50% made up of the pretentious film-within-a-film.

I'm going to be extremely heretical here and suggest that Welles's attempts to purchase TOSOTW from the Iranians after 1976 may have been more to prevent them from releasing it than to enable him to.

It’s not that heretical – Welles didn’t want a butchered, quick release without his special experimental editing, which is what Astrophore wanted by 1976. I’m sure it would have been unwatchable in that form.

Regarding “Targets”, I think I can safely say Welles had no input. In “This Is Orson Welles”, Bogdanovich dates his first telephone conversation (and subsequent meeting) with Welles to “near the end of 1968”. “Targets” came out in August 1968, and was actually filmed in 1967 (Bogdanovich spent 6 months editing the film, uncredited – that’s incidentally the reason why I think he’d be a good choice to supervise editing of TOSOTW, even though I’ve also heard him say he doesn’t enjoy editing - he did a very slick job on that.) But there is a link to TOSOTW – the now-demolished drive-in movie theatre in Resada was a filming location for both films, proposed for TOSOTW by Bogdanovich. Also, Platt briefly worked as an actress on TOSOTW, before being recast after Bogdanovich left her for Cybil Shepherd (who was in turn spoofed by one of the characters in the movie).

[Nepenthe]

a major question relating to all of the below (which perhaps Josh Karp can answer in his book) : Are there surviving production records? Yes, Welles was famously disorganised where paperwork was concerned, but the decades of litigation must have left a paper trail, and Astrophore must have retained their correspondence. What happened to it? Does Dominique Antoine have paperwork? Or Oja Kodar? Or Peter Bogdanovich, after 15+ years of trying to broker a settlement with all parties?

Try the Bogdanovich papers in The Lilly

[Roger Ryan]

...I’ve not seen the assembly of “The Deep” footage, but I’ve read Roger Ryan’s excellent description of it, and aside from Stefan Drossler, everyone seems to agree it was a pretty pedestrian thriller...

Since I've made my opinion known regarding the quality of THE DEEP, I would like to clarify that my disappointment in it has nothing to do with Mr. Drossler's fine efforts to reconstruct the work prints into a presentable form. While I can't speak for him, I appreciate Mr. Drossler's enthusiasm for taking Welles' released and unreleased films and giving them a needed contextualization for viewers, regardless of Mr. Drossler's own personal opinion of the material. Ultimately, the important thing is to make the work available whether the project might be deemed a failure or not...which is why I'm all for attempting to create a completed version of TOSOTW.