Yet more on OSotW

[Jeff Wilson]

This is from another recent article (from the 8/31 The Express) about the halted deal with Showtime, with some relevant quotes:

"The film lay abandoned until US cable network Showtime recently launched negotiations to exhume the movie, offering to edit the film as Welles had wished and planning a spectacular cinema and TV release.

Oja, who starred in several Welles films and lived with him for his last 20 years, helped to negotiate the deal.

"Orson left me the rights to all of his unseen films in his will, " she says.

"He entrusted them to me because he knew I would do all I could to ensure they could find a public."

Now living in Zagreb, Croatia, she claims that Welles's daughter knows only too well that her father would have wanted the film to be released.

"Miss Welles knows that and she did not contest the will at the time, " she says. "It is unfair that she is trying to block the film. It is heartbreaking for me. I have worked for years to get it on to cinema screens. I know in my heart it is what Orson wanted."

But Beatrice Welles - the director's 46-year-old daughter by his third wife Paola Mori, the Countess of Girfalco - insists she is the rightful owner of her father's copyright under US law. She has proved a tenacious defender of her father's legacy, even stopping the 1998 Cannes Film Festival from premiering a re-edited version of Welles's 1958 classic Touch Of Evil, saying
the "altered" version could not be shown without her consent and firing off numerous other lawsuits.

SHE considers The Other Side Of The Wind incomplete without final editing and, without her father alive to make the final cut, is adamant that no one else should do so.

Cinematographer Gary Graver, 61, who shot every scene in the movie's six-year production (except for a year's break in 1972 when he filmed Welles's movie F For Fake) hopes that his lost classic finally sees the light of day but he has experience of how aggressive Beatrice can be when it comes to her father's work. The two clashed when she sued him for the return of the Oscar
statuette awarded for best screenplay which Graver claims was a gift from Welles.

He says of the unseen movie: "It could be considered one of Welles's great films. Its release could make people re-evaluate Welles's legacy.

Filming was completed; everything has been shot. There's nothing more to do as far as photography and sound recording. Most of the editing has been done. It's as close to complete as could be but it lacks the money to finish it off and no one's going to put up the money if they think they won't be able to
screen the movie and recover their investment.

"Beatrice claims she has the rights to the film but the reality is that Oja Kodar owns half the rights and the other half are owned by the Iranian co-producer, Medhi Bousheri, the brother of the Shah of Iran."

Beatrice's battle is being waged by artists' rights consultant Thomas White, who has represented the estates of stars including Fred Astaire, Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and Edward G Robinson.

"Beatrice has put her foot down and won't let her father's work be mutilated, obliterated and destroyed by other people's incompetence, " says White, from his Beverly Hills office. "The film's shooting is incomplete and the editing is incomplete so the film can't be finished because no one can step into Orson Welles's shoes. It can't be a complete 'Orson Welles film' without it being completed by Orson Welles.

"It's inaccurate to say that Kodar owns all Welles's uncompleted works. Under the law, Beatrice stands in the shoes of Orson Welles in all matters that would have been his to decide.

She controls the estate and protects her father and won't do anything that she knows he wouldn't have approved of. The only way this project can go forward is with her blessing."

Beatrice has been dismayed by some of her father's films that were completed in his absence with disappointing results: Don Quixote and It's All True, being forgettable pauses on Welles's fall from Hollywood favour. Welles himself complained that The Magnificent Ambersons was edited by "the studio janitor".

White explains: "She won't try to pass off the film to the public as 'an Orson Welles movie, ' as past films have done, when it's incomplete. This is an artistic work that needs to be preserved and protected from exploitation by others. Beatrice is doing everything she can to protect her father's name from degradation and to protect his work from mutilation and destruction."

[jaime marzol]

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

wow.

such a terribly sad thing to read. it sounds like any day now they expect orson to rise from the grave and finish the film. very sad.

"Under the law, Beatrice stands in the shoes of Orson Welles in all matters that would have been his to decide."

this legal tid-bit i didn't know. the direct descendant steps into welles' shoes. we will never see the film.

[ChristopherBanks]

What will happen if they find the work print of Ambersons? Will she stop that being restored and screened too?

[Jeff Wilson]

The difference between finding, say, the lost footage of Ambersons or Lady From Shanghai, and OSotW, is that those first two films are owned by major studios who won't be cowed into inaction by legal threats. They own the properties and will vigorously pursue their right to make a buck off of them. If Beatrice had her way, we wouldn't have had the Touch of Evil re-edit, yet there it is. Why? Because Universal owns it, period. I could see them leaving the commentary track off the DVD if Heston made some potentially libellous statements, but that's another matter.



Edited By Jeff Wilson on Sep. 03 2002 at 08:47

[Fredric]

Beatrice has been dismayed by some of her father's films that were completed in his absence with disappointing results: Don Quixote and It's All True, being forgettable pauses on Welles's fall from Hollywood favour.

She forgot to mention her own reedit Othello. Oh, wait, that one doesn't count!

"Beatrice has put her foot down and won't let her father's work be mutilated, obliterated and destroyed by other people's incompetence, " says White, from his Beverly Hills office.

Kettle, this is Bea, you're black!

OUT!

[Peter Tonguette]

I guess Beatrice skipped over the part in "This Is Orson Welles" where Bogdanovich claims -- and I have no reason not to believe him -- that Welles once asked him to finish the film should anything ever happen.

Peter

[Terry]

I wonder what Rick Schmidlin thinks about Beatrice opposing his cut of Evil, which, after all, only honoured Orson's requests. I know Jaime didn't care for the letterboxing, and honestly I can't see where it was badly cropped, but I did think the editorial and soundtrack changes were super sweet.

Gads, that was a Cartman moment. If I boil my head for a turnip, it might be useful.

[dm olson]

Perhaps we should put Beatrice and her attorney-rotweiler onto Ferry to Hong Kong. Let them do something constructive for a change. Has his other daughter (Christopher) not spoken up? Maybe she's not an obstructionist by nature...

[Harvey Chartrand]

Speaking of Rick Schmidlin, I read in the latest Filmfax that he is reconstructing Tod Browning's London After Midnight (1927), with Lon Chaney, Sr. playing a vampire (of sorts). This is a lost horror flick, so no salvaged footage is used. Still photographs are linked together, with music and narration added. Jaime, this is an approach that I am sure you've considered for your Ambersons reconstruction. Also, the narrative techniques used by Welles in his ground-breaking The Fountain of Youth (1956) could be adopted for the Ambersons reconstruction (lots of stills and stop motion, narrator's voice speaking through the characters, narrator inserting himself into scenes as actors fade into background, ...).

[jaime marzol]

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

harvey, i like that approach, the narrator never pretending to be the character, just speaking for the character. will have to try that. some one mentioned that the reader pretending to be the character was annoying. the version of ambersons you saw just tries many different reconstruction methods to see what works. rick had the advantage in greed not to have to deal with words. some of the cut scenes in ambersons are loaded with dialogue. i don't think much of what we have done so far on ambersons works fantastically. some of it works ok, some of it, like the monty python moving stills, as is, don't work at all.

when rick did GREED, and now with TOWER OF LONDON, he has hundreds of stills to work from. we have about 28 stills. kind of difficult stretching 28 stills to reconstruct AMBERSONS.

wouldn't it be wonderful to have the tuxedoed orson from FOUNTAIN reading the missing scenes in AMBERSONS?

store hadji:
i like everything walter murch and rick did on touch of evil. what i feel was flubbed had nothing to do with them, had to do with conglomeration. a topic to vast to be discussed here.

[Jeff Wilson]

Has his other daughter (Christopher) not spoken up? Maybe she's
not an obstructionist by nature...

I've never read she or Rebecca Welles was included in the original will, or else they might have. I think there's a book that collected celebrity wills, of which Welles' was one. Has anybody ever seen or heard of this? Might be interesting to look at.

[Jeff Wilson]

I went and found this book at the library today, but it wasn't much help. Titled Wills of the Rich and Famous, the book gives brief summaries of the entrants' wills, with some excerpts. Here is excerpts from the bit on Welles:

In his 1982 Will, Welles makes the following bequests and devise of real property to a woman who had been his companion for several years:

"I hereby give to Olga Palinkas (also known as Oja Kodar), whose address is Post Restante Primosten, Republic of Yugoslavia, the house located at 1717 North Stanley Avenue, Los Angeles, California...and all of the improvements and household furniture, furnishings, pictures, books, silver, paintings, works of art and other personal effects therein...All taxes attributable to this bequest shall be paid from the residue of my Estate."

Welles left his residuary estate to his third wife, the Italian actress Paola Mori Welles, whom he had married in 1955. If Mrs. Welles had not survived her husband, then Welles' residuary estate was to be left entirely to Olga Palinkas.

To each of his three daughters, Rebecca, Christopher, and Beatrice, Welles made a $10,000 bequest...

As the executor of his Will, Welles named producer Greg Garrison, whom Welles had first met in 1946 and with whom Welles collaborated often in his later years. Apparently, Welles felt that neither his wife Paola nor friend Olga were appropriate for the role...

Finally, the Will contains this unusual section excerpted from the in terrorem clause:

"If any beneficiary under this Will in any manner directly or indirectly contests or attacks this Will or any of its provisions, including paragraph B or Article FOURTH hereof giving the entire house to Olga Palinkas, any share or interest in my Estate given to such beneficiary under this Will is revoked and shall be disposed of in the same manner provided herein as if such beneficiary had predeceased me leaving no living lawful descendants."

By specifically referring to the gift to his companion Olga, Welles obviously wanted to prevent his wife from contesting the gift of his California home to his beautiful companion...


So while the book doesn't clear up the issue of the films being left to Kodar, it's some interesting info anyway. And all his children were included, as we see.

[jaime marzol]

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

after being the most brilliant director the films have ever seen, that is what he left his family.

welles could be considered the greatest contributor and smallest benefactor of the movie business.

[Le Chiffre]

It's too bad Welles didn't leave more detailed instructions in his will as to how the unfinished works should be completed and who should complete them. Then there wouldn't be the legal mess there is now. Beatrice was reportedly "outraged" when she saw Jess Franco's assemblage of Don Quixote and, given that she grew up on those Quixote sets, perhaps she takes that film personally. TOSOTW is a different matter; a film she had absolutely no connection with. Nevertheless, she apparently wants a say as to who edits it and distributes it and how the footage is used. Perhaps she doesn't even want an assembly of the footage done. In the spirit of Devil's advocacy, here's a couple excerpts from an interesting post from the old tierranet Welles board, one of the few that I saved before the old board was fumigated:

A Final Word on THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND
Posted by PC on September 09, 1999

Several of my associates and I (among them Gary Graver, F.X. Feeney, George Hickenlooper, Oja Kodar) have extensively screened what exists of the footage. There are several complete sequences of the film, among them the famous "Wanna gumdrop" scene between the producer and the studio executive, and the infamous car love making scene with Oja Kodar. But the truth of the matter is, there is just too much material that is uncut and which was shot in such a cinema verite, impromptu manner, that realistically only Orson Welles would have been able to form some shape to it. This is what distinguished Welles from most other directors - much of his magic was created in the editing room. Therefore, it would be extremely difficult to make much sense out of all the footage that exists. Yes, most of the film is shot...but it is most certain the film could never be what Welles intended...It is my opinion that the footage of THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND would be best put to use in a documentary about the making of the most famous unfinished film in history. I don't know. Just a thought, but I think it would work better knowing the footage as I do.

[Jeff Wilson]

I don't think there's any question that whatever form OSotW takes, should it ever receive any kind of release, it won't be what Welles wanted. I'm not sure the documentary thing is such a great idea, though. I guess it depends how it's done.

I remain unconvinced that Beatrice Welles is interested in anything but her own financial statements. Her shark can give the press all the lip service he wants about Beatrice honoring Daddy's memory and being true to his art, but what has she done in that regard so far, having been in control of his legacy for 16 or so years?

We have Othello, which was, in my opinion, a botch job "restoration" on a film that didn't need it. Poor research and questionable choices were made. Look at Criterion's LD; does that look like a film that needed heavy work done on it?

What else? Despite some talk a couple years or so ago about releasing Immortal Story or Chimes, there's been nothing. Not even the vaguest whiff of a hint that she's been doing anything beyond filing lawsuits. She has the right do whatever she likes with Welles' legacy as she sees it, but why not be honest about it? It's about money and personal vendettas and nothing else.

And its convenient for her to come out now as stating that she was "outraged" over the Franco/Quixote debacle. Had the film been acclaimed around the world, would we be hearing that? I don't think so. It's an easy way to attack Kodar, by implying that her previous choices were poor and unworthy of Welles (which in this case was true).