‘The Other Side Of The Wind’ Trailer: Orson Welles’ Long-Awaited Final Film Arrives

For as long as I can remember in the history of this site, we’ve heard in some shape or form that the legendary Orson Welles’ (“Citizen Kane“) unreleased 1970s film “The Other Side Of The Wind” would finally see release thanks to the help of his friend, protégé, frequent interlocutor and auteir in his own right Peter Bogdanovich. The film shot for six whole years and then financial issues forced the film to cave; Welles was never able to finish it and much of it languished in film cans.

READ MORE: The Essentials: The Directorial Films Of Orson Welles

Some ten odd years later, with all the legal hoops finally jumped through, “The Other Side Of The Wind” is almost here, it premieres at the Venice Film Festival which starts this week and it’ll be on Netflix in November.

The film stars John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, Robert Random and Susan Strasberg. Here’s the Netflix synopsis:

Surrounded by fans and skeptics, grizzled director J.J. “Jake” Hannaford (a revelatory John Huston) returns from years abroad in Europe to a changed Hollywood, where he attempts to make his comeback: a career summation that can only be the work of cinema’s most adventurous filmmaker, Orson Welles.

Here’s the Venice summary which tells more of the story of why “The Other Side Of The Wind” never came to be until now. Note, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy‘s husband and the a legendary producer behind the “Jurassic Park,” “Indiana Jones” and the ‘Bourne’ series was instrumental in getting the film completed

In 1970, legendary director Orson Welles began filming what would ultimately be his final cinematic opus with a cast of luminaries that included John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg and Welles’s partner during his later years, Oja Kodar. Beset by financial issues, the production ultimately stretched to 1976 and soon gained industry-wide notoriety, never to be completed or released. More than a thousand reels of film languished in a Paris vault until March 2017, when producers Frank Marshall (who served as a production manager on Wind during in its initial shooting) and Filip Jan Rymsza spearheaded efforts to have Welles’s vision completed more than 30 years after his death. Featuring a new score by Oscar-winning composer Michel Legrand and assembled by a technical team including Oscar- winning editor Bob Murawski, The Other Side of the Wind tells the story of famed filmmaker J.J. “Jake” Hannaford, who returns to Hollywood after years in self-exile in Europe with plans to complete work on his own innovative comeback movie. A satire of the classic studio system as well as the new establishment who were shaking things up at the time, Welles’s final film is both a fascinating time capsule of a now-distant era in moviemaking as well as the long-awaited “new” work from an indisputable master of his craft.

“The Other Side Of The Wind” premieres in Venice this week, I’m told it’s also scheduled to play at the Telluride film festival as well. “The Other Side Of The Wind” will be in select theaters, a rare move for Netflix, and on the streaming channel itself, November 2.