By 1972, Orson Welles had other projects on his mind. Since, 1970 he had initiated what he thought would be his big comeback project. Titled The Other Side of the Wind, it concerned a director (John Huston) who was trying to make his comeback film. Welles insisted that the film wasn't autobiographical, despite what he told Huston one day: "It's a film about a bastard director...It's about us, John. It's a film about us." Welles would never finish the film during his lifetime. While filming had started on that project, Welles also began preliminary work on F for Fake. It would be his last finished film. That work began in Almeria while in production of another film. This was Treasure Island.
Welles had had a long association with the Stevenson classic. In July of 1938, Welles and the Mercury Theatre company recorded for the CBS network their version of Treasure Island. It was their second production. Welles, of course, played Long John Silver and gave the buccaneer a light, Musical Hall cockney accent, very reminiscent of Albert Chevalier. As it predates Robert Newton's legendary performance by a good 22 years, it's quite memorable. Among other highlights in the production is Agnes Moorehead's desperate Mrs. Hawkins and a distinctly zany Ray Collins as Ben Gunn, who is introduced by the famed bouncing scherzo from Dukas' L'apprenti sorcier.
A few decades later, Welles was trying to find a producer for his pet project Chimes at Midnight. Eventually he convinced producer Emiliano Piedra to finance his film on the grounds that he would film an adaptation of Treasure Island at the same times. In addition, promised Welles, he would use the same cast as Chimes and would act as writer, director, and lead actor. Needless to say, Welles didn't keep his promise. He shot some footage on a ship and then continued working on Chimes. Welles would complete it in 1966 where it would be praised at Cannes and panned elsewhere.
By 1971, Welles, as usual, needed money. He agreed to do another version of Treasure Island with a Spanish crew. He would act and write; he would not direct.
His heart was clearly not in the project. According to his producer Andrés Vicente Gómez, Welles would actually end up making most of F for Fake during the production of Treasure Island. He was ashamed with the final screenplay and asked that his name be changed to a pseudonym. Borrowing from W.C. Fields (who had billed himself as Mahatma Kane Jeeves when he wrote the screenplay to The Bank Dick) Welles credited himself as O.W. Jeeves. When it came time to record dialogue, Welles, according to Joseph McBride, went to a studio in Rome and was recorded in one night "while guzzling from a bottle of white wine." Welles would later claim that he was dubbed. This is only partially true; Robert Rietti would dub Welles' dialogue in the UK release of the film. The US version retains Orson's intoxicated ramblings.
The results are what you would expect. Welles, conjuring his best Robert Newton impersonation, mumbles his dialogue and is barely coherent. The film itself is amateurishly made and amateurishly acted. Many of the shots consist of your typical 1970s zoom-out shots, found frequently in B-Action movies and stag films. The troubling part is that the script is quite loyal to the book and the film has a good pace. However, I would rather recommend the Mercury Theatre production than this film. I'm sure Orson would agree.
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