MovieChat Forums > Saint Jack (1979) Discussion > If the 'planned-to-direct' Orson Welles ...

If the 'planned-to-direct' Orson Welles played Peter B's part


Welles was supposed to direct. His best friend and biggest fan, Peter B., had it set up through Corman for that to happen. After Hugh Hefner climbed on board, he along with Peter's girl, Cybill Shepard, thought it would be better for Peter than the infamously flakey tho iconic maverick. So PB direct4d, and lost his friend until years later when Welles was in the hospital, and had only months to live (all this is in the preface for THIS IS ORSON WELLES)...

Anyhow, here are my thoughts: Peter probably took a role in this movie, and it's small but very important playing a CIA-type guy who winds up hiring Jack to ruin a Senators career with a photo...

Peter, who would have been the producer along with Corman, would have been Directed By his Master, Welles. But...

Since Peter directed, imagine if he wound up giving Orson a good news/bad news type of thing:

You aren't directing but you can have, for the first time in a while, a really good, essential role as... the part Peter plays and not very well. He's cozy with the camera but lacks, basically, a pulse. I never though the guy could act... in his own movies. I wish that Henry Jaglom or someone else would have played "Sammy" in TARGETS and...

Oh man if Orson Welles played the role of the instigating CIA man in this movie, it would mean so much more to the overall picture. The job Jack's hired to do would have more of an underlying threat. And Orson would just seem more of a tycoon able to put things into place: Like a brothel for American GI's in Vietnam.

What's more or less a filler role played by the director, his own personal god would have really nailed it, and sealed it too.

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