The Other Side of the Wind

Infobox Film
name = The Other Side of the Wind


image_size =
caption =
director = Orson Welles
producer = Orson Welles & Dominique Antoine
writer = Orson Welles & Oja Kodar
narrator =
starring = John Huston
Peter Bogdanovich
Lilli Palmer [Oja Kodar]
music =
cinematography = Gary Graver
distributor = Showtime
released =
runtime =
country = America / Iran
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0069049

"The Other Side of the Wind" is an unreleased 1975 film directed by Orson Welles and starring John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Dennis Hopper and Oja Kodar. The film features John Huston as an aging Hollywood director modeled on Ernest Hemingway, who is trying to make a hip with it film in the early seventies that is laden with sex and violence to revive his flagging career.

Like many of Welles' personally-funded films, the project was filmed and edited on and off for several years - work on the script started in the late 1960s, and in 1975 Welles said that filming was "96% complete", and by 1976 it was on the brink of completion. Serious financial problems dogged the project, and Welles's use of funds from the brother-in-law of the Shah of Iran came back to haunt him after the Shah was overthrown in 1979. A complex, decades-long legal battle over the ownership of the film ensued, with the original negative remaining in a vault in Paris. By 1998 all legal matters had been resolved and the Showtime cable network had guaranteed end money to complete the film, when a new lawsuit by Welles' daughter Beatrice was filed, causing Showtime to withdraw its funding. As of late 2007, a new agreement had been reached with Showtime, but new complications have surfaced, and the Showtime deal in currently "on Hold."

Peter Bogdanovich, a Welles aficionado and expert, announced in 2004 that he plans to restore this film and release it soon. Details of the release, however, are murky at best. The main reservation Welles fans have is that while footage for almost the entire film exists, editing it together in Welles' experimental style may prove difficult. Bogdanovich was a close friend of Welles, and knows the project well, so he will be the obvious choice in bringing the film to viewers.

Welles himself completed editing 40 minutes of the film and reportedly left additional editing notes. It is rumored that Sasha Welles is to edit the final release of the film to Orson's original specifications. Two edited scenes (in workprint form) can be seen in the documentary film "Orson Welles: One Man Band", which is available as a bonus feature on the Criterion Collection DVD release of "F for Fake". The scenes included in the documentary are a scene featuring John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich and Susan Strasberg, along with an explicit sexual scene featuring Oja Kodar Bob Random having sex in a car driven by an actor featured in Russ Meyer's "Vixen" Robert Aiken.

At a March 29, 2007 appearance during the 16th Florida Film Festival, Peter Bogdanovich responded to a question about the status of the film. He announced that the four parties involved had come to an agreement earlier that week and that the film would be edited and released in the very near future.

Bogdanovich states in an April 2, 2007 press report [http://www.nysun.com/article/51609?page_no=1] that a deal to complete the film is "99.9% finished," with a theatrical release planned for late 2008. However, in March 2008 Bogdanovich said there was over a year's worth of work left to be done.

Cast list

*John Huston....Jake Hannaford
*Bob Random....John Dale
*Joseph McBride...Mr.Pister
*Susan Strasberg...Juliette Riche
*Peter Bogdanovich...Brooks Otterlake
*Tonio Selwart...The Baron
*Lilli Palmer....Zarah Valeska
*Howard Grossman...Mr. Higgam
*With:Cathy Lucas, Norman Foster, Edmond O'Brien, Cameron Mitchell, Mercedes McCambridge, Gary Graver, Richard Wilson, Dennis Hopper, Curtis Harrington, Rich Little, John Carroll, Paul Mazursky, Henry Jaglom, Claude Chabrol, Stéphane Audran, Benny Rubin, Pat McMahon

External links

*http://www.wellesnet.com/?cat=8))
*imdb title|id=0069049|title=The Other Side of the Wind
* [http://www.nysun.com/article/51609?page_no=1] April 2, 2007 New York Sun article: "Deal Near on a Lost Welles"

distributor = Showtime
released =
runtime =
country = America / Iran
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0069049