The legend of Orson Welles (1916-1985) continues to draw as much from his lesser-known body of unfinished and fragmentary work as his eleven completed feature films. The long list of Welles' unrealized and uncompleted films begins with the ill-fated It’s All True, the deliriously ambitious Rockefeller-funded Latin American project begun with great promise in 1942 only to collapse under its own impossible weight. The tragicomedy of It's All True’s demise – and the butchering of The Magnificent Ambersons, partially caused by the Latin American adventure –revealed the self-destructive side of Welles' creative process, the state of perpetual distraction and over-stimulation in which he both thrived and suffered.

Over the years dedicated archivists and historians have gradually assembled the scattered fragments cast off from Welles’ career into a mosaic portrait of one of the most influential and iconic American directors. New attention has also been given to another side of Welles' career – his work as a versatile performer and public persona equally famous for his countless scene-stealing appearances on the big screen as his appearances on television as a celebrity raconteur and occasional magician. One of the leading experts on Welles' multi-faceted career is Stefan Drössler, the director of the Munich Film Museum, who has gathered several hours of Welles rarities into a series of wonderful presentations which he brings to the Harvard Film Archive, in a program that also includes two of Welles’ most underappreciated films, Othello (1952) and the masterful Chimes at Midnight (1965).