Did Welles use parts of "Elmyr: The True Picture?"?

[Tony]

In "The Unseen OW, when discussing the making of "F For Fake", Bill Krohn mentions that Welles used some of Reichenbach's footage from the latter's documentary on Elmyr D'hory, entitled "Elmyr: the True Picture?". Actually, I had heard for years that Welles asked Reichenbach to use his picture before it was released, and hence it was never released. (In the unseen OW, there is also an extensive interview with Oja, wherein she seems to believe that Reichenbach's film was never released). However, Krohn reveals that the picture WAS shown in 1970 at least 3 times on BBC. Now, when Krohn asks Welles about the footage he borrowed from the Reichenbach doc., Welles claims that all he used were outtakes not appearing in Reichenbach's film:

"The amount of footage which was somebody else's has been enormously exagerrated. That which I did not shoot is all stuff Reichenbach had thrown out of his documentary...we found all the stuff he'd thrown out. And all of what I did not shoot myself was from the dustbin."

Now I recall Stefan Droessler stating here that he had offered that Reichenbach documentary to Criterion to include in their 'F For Fake' release, but they declined, which dissappointed him as he though it would be interesting to compare the two. But if Welles didn't uses anything from Reichenbach's documentary, then it would only be interesting as as an instigator for Welles to make his own, and to compare the two styles.

So: has anybody seen Reichenbach's documentary? And if so, can we firmly establish whether or not Welles used footage from "Elmyr: the True Picture?", or only outtakes?

[Roger Ryan]

This subject was brought up in a casual luncheon discussion during the Yale symposium. The general consensus was that Reichenbach's documentary was completed and shown a number of times and that Welles used portions from the completed documentary in "F For Fake". He may have used outtakes as well, but the quality (impact-wise) of much of the Reichenbach footage is so good that it's hard to imagine it not being included in the original film. It's true that Criterion decided against including the Reichenbach documentary in the DVD release last year which is inexplicable, unless it was cost prohibitive for some reason.

[Wellesnet]

This page, https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/e68ad9cd6eb ... 1c92018e75 says it was shown on BBC Two on July 16, 1971. Imdb says it was shown May 30th, 1970.

Here it is on Youtube, uploaded about a month ago, although it's been available on Vimeo for about six years!. Yes, Welles used quite a bit of footage from it:

[Wellesnet]

From co-director Richard Drewett's imdb page (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0237738/bio ... _ov_bio_sm):

(Drewett) produced most of the early segments of Michael Parkinson's famous BBC talk-show on British television, including the early one (in the summer of 1971) in which Parkinson interviewed Orson Welles. In conversation with Welles after the show, he mentioned the famous art forger Elmyr de Hory, and it was this casual conversation that gave Welles the original idea for his later film, "F For Fake". Welles always gave him full credit for this, and he both appears in the film and is credited as an associate producer (billed as "Drewett", not "Drewitt", as he also was on the TV show).