The Premise: Orson Welles' film was to be a satire of both classic Hollywood and the contemporary filmmaking revolution of the 1970s, including a film-within-a-film and a mockumentary style. John Huston would play director Jake Hannaford, who is desperate to stage a grand comeback with his new movie. Why It Never Got Released: As incendiary a movie as Welles ever made, The Other Side of the Wind took pot-shots at just about every aspect of Hollywood at the time of its creation, though did also manage to rope in a number of directors to play bit-parts (including Peter Bogdanovich and Dennis Hopper). The content of the film also proved controversial in much broader terms, as Welles filmed a number of graphic sex scenes for the film as well as a surreal dream sequence involving a gigantic black penis. The production itself was a rocky one, with a producer embezzling a portion of the budget, while many cast and crew members were never paid, and Welles had to gift his Academy Award for writing Citizen Kane to cinematographer Gary Graver as payment. Filming the movie took 6 years, and post-production was chaotic, with Welles using 5 moviolas simultaneously to streamline his complicated editing process. With funding running dry and his own investors attempting to edge him out of the project, he only worked on it sporadically over the next decade. Following Welles' death, a legal battle over the film ensued between his daughter Beatrice and partner Oja Kodar, and it wasn't until this past October that a deal was finally reached to finish the film. Peter Bogdanovich is planning to reconstitute Welles' footage into a coherent final cut by May 6th, 2015 (Welles' 100th birthday), though it remains to be seen whether this will actually happen.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
