The Other Side of the Wind (found Orson Welles film; 1969-1976)

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Orson Welles, the writer and director.

The Other Side of the Wind was an unfinished, unreleased film written and directed by Orson Welles that was shot between 1969 and 1976 starring John Huston, Bob Random, Peter Bogdanovich, Susan Strasberg and Oja Kodar. The film tells the story of Jake Hannaford (Huston), an eccentric film director from the Golden Age who is trying to recover from a career slump by making a new film in the tradition of the "New Hollywood" that pushes the boundaries of violence and sex, Hannaford has also just celebrated his 70th birthday, only to die in a car crash shortly afterwards. Speculation begins by friends and reporters that the death may have been a suicide, and in going through the footage of the birthday party, they discover that he had harbored several big secrets.

As Welles began filming, he first focused on the film-within-a-film. Welles was uncertain about whether or not to cast himself as Hannaford before finally settling on Huston. The party goers were played by friends of Welles who either worked for free or below their usual salaries as favors to him. As with many of Welles' unfinished projects, financial problems caused the project to stop, start, then stop again. Conversation scenes were often shot a year or so apart due to the fact that Huston hadn't been cast yet. Ultimately, the film was mostly completed,  barring one or two small shots. However, since one of the financiers for the film was the brother in law of the Shah of Iran at the time, The Shah being deposed caused Iranian authorities to seize the film, stalling it indefinitely.

In the years since Welles' death, the Iranian authorities had released their grip on the film, and the negatives reside in a vault in Paris to this day. Although two copies of a workprint are in existence and despite numerous announcements by producers and directors, including Bogdanovich himself, that they would complete the film, debate still rages over who has the rightful ownership of the film. The project is largely unedited and Welles left ten hours of raw footage behind, of which only a few short clips have managed to surface.