48 years later, ‘Citizen Kane’ director’s final film makes its debut

TELLURIDE, Colo. — Orson Welles was on the line. “What are you doing Thursday?” he asked.

It was 1970, and the “Citizen Kane” director had called Peter Bogdanovich to ask him to appear in his film, “The Other Side of the Wind.” Yes, he knew that Bogdanovich was stretched thin. Just drop by the set on Thursday, Welles insisted. The whole movie was going to take only a few weeks to shoot — tops.

Forty-eight years later, “The Other Side of the Wind” has finally arrived. It was shown for the first time in North America on Saturday at the Telluride Film Festival, where two new documentaries about the herculean efforts to finish the film were also screened. “It’s sad because Orson’s not here to see it,” Bogdanovich, 79, said from the stage of the Palm Theater. “Or maybe he is.”

Cinema buffs had almost given up on “The Other Side of the Wind,” which Welles left unfinished upon his death in 1985. It is known as one of the most famous movies never released, held up by warring rights holders and financial troubles.

Once the film’s producers finally secured firm funding — Netflix stepped up last year — they had to sort through more than 100 hours of footage (long stored in a Paris warehouse) to craft a film that Welles conceptualized as a type of collage, with some parts in color and others in black and white, and scenes shot in various formats (35 mm, 16 mm, Super 8.)

“No one really knew if we had enough material to put together a movie that actually made any sense,” Marshall said Saturday.

The masses will soon get to decide for themselves. “The Other Side of the Wind” will arrive on Netflix and in a handful of theaters on Nov. 2. So far, critics at Telluride and the Venice Film Festival have responded with positive reviews.