It's All True (film) - The Demise of The Project

The Demise of The Project

Major changes occurred at RKO in 1942. Floyd Odlum took over control of the studio and began changing its direction. Rockefeller, an important backer of the film, left the RKO board of directors. Around the same time, the principal sponsor of Welles at RKO, studio president George Schaefer, resigned. The changes throughout RKO caused a reevaulation of the project.

Welles' relations with his studio RKO were troubled during production. He had left California with editing on The Magnificent Ambersons unfinished. Welles being in Brazil also led to communication problems and misunderstandings between himself and the studio. The escalating costs of the project and the production-related death of Jacare also worked against the film, and RKO terminated the project. Welles was allowed to finish shooting "Four Men on a Raft" by mid-July 1942 with a minimal budget and crew. When Welles returned to the United States, RKO ended its contract with him and It's All True was abandoned.

Welles sought to continue the project elsewhere and tried to persuade other movie studios to finance the completion of the project. Welles eventually managed to purchase some of the footage of the film, but ended up relinquishing ownership back to RKO based on his inability to pay the storage costs of the film. Some footage was eventually dumped into the Pacific Ocean by RKO to create additional space in its studio storage facilities. The remaining footage was forgotten in the RKO vaults until it was discovered in 1985 in 300 cans, some labeled "Bonito," others "Brazil". The majority of the lost footage was from the portions of the film shot at Carnaval.

Welles also thought that the film had been cursed by voodoo. He said in an interview, aired on the show Unexplained Mysteries, that at one point he found the script pierced completely through with a long needle. At the end of the needle was "a length of red thread." At that point, he decided that he could not finish the film.