Orson Welles is having one helluva 100th birthday, so much so that the legendary filmmaker was trending on Twitter yesterday. And there’s more good news for fans of the actor/director/writer/showman, so let’s just dive right in, because decades after his death there’s still lots of his work to check out.
READ: Retrospective: The Directorial Films Of Orson Welles
First up, Rialto Pictures has dusted off Carol Reed‘s fantastic "The Third Man," given it a 4K restoration, and are ready to drop the results at the Cannes Film Festival, followed by a theatrical release this summer. It’s one of the great all-time noirs, and a chance to see it on the big screen is one you can’t miss. Orson Welles’ performance as Harry Lime is simply one of his finest, the picture is masterfully directed, and there’s a reason it’s considered one of the all time greats. "The Third Man" will hit New York’s Film Forum on June 26th for a 2-week run, before landing at L.A.’s Nuart on July 3rd, with San Francisco, Washington, DC, Seattle, Philadelphia, and more cities to follow.
Meanwhile, Orson Welles’ final film, "The Other Side Of The Wind," keeps inching its way toward completion. For years, the rights issues have been wrangled over, and the process of sifting through the footage and assembling it to Welles’ wishes has been dragging, and now it has hit an interesting catch. Wellesnet reveals that, before distributors agree to take on the movie, they want to see a finished product. "The undamaged negative was recovered from a vault sealed by numerous court decisions," producer Jens Koethner Kaul recently revealed. "Even if we comply with the provisions for completion in Orson Welles’ will, doubts remain with the distributors, who are cautious about paying for completion. With all due encouragement, they understandably want to check a finished product.”
But to bring the movie to completion is going to take some money — $2 million dollars in fact. So an Indiegogo campaign has been launched to help the editing, score, and post-production and release the film this year. That latter goal seems ambitious, but let’s hope people dig into their pockets for this one with as much excitement as they did for "Super Troopers 2."
Check out "The Third Man" trailer below and the Indiegogo campaign video for ‘Other Side.’
