Collections

The Ira Deutchman Papers represent the creator's ongoing career in the film industry, including his personal interests, teaching, and work as a production company executive for Cinecom and Fine Line Features as well as work with directors John Sayles, Alan Rudolph, and Robert Altman. The collection includes extensive catalogs and programs from film conferences and festivals around the world.

The Ira Deutchman Papers were donated to the University of Michigan Special Collections Library Screen Arts Mavericks and Makers Collection in 2015. The collection encompasses Ira Deutchman's 40 year career in independent film making as a producer, production company executive, and educator.

The Ira Deutchman Papers are arranged into sixteen series: Personal, Production Companies, Film and Project Files, Film Organizations, Film Miscellaneous, Film Scripts, Film Conferences and Seminars, Film Festivals, Books, Film Catalogs, Theatre, Artifacts/Memorabilia Oversized, Audio and Moving Image, Digital Media, and Posters

The Orson-Welles and Alessandro Tasca di Cutò papers reflect the working and personal relationship between Orson Welles and Alessandro Tasca di Cutò. He was a producer for many of Orson Welles’s films, but two were especially significant for Orson Welles: The Chimes at Midnight (also known as Falstaff, 1965) and Don Quixote (1955-73, unfinished). In both cases, Welles shot the material over a period of years, and on a shoestring budget. The majority of the archive consists of an assortment of letters, handwritten notes, and telegrams that Welles sent to Tasca di Cutò concerning the day-to-day working needs of the filmmaker.

The majority of the archive lies in its assortment of letters, handwritten notes, and telegrams that Welles sent to Tasca di Cutò concerning the day-to-day working needs of the filmmaker. The collection is divided into four series: Correspondence, Projects, Photographs, and Miscellaneous.

In the Correspondence series, the bulk of the letters are written from 1960-1964. Alessandro is usually referred to as Sandro by Orson Welles. The majority of letters are from Welles to Tasca di Cutò mainly discussing film production details. Welles signs many of his letters with just “O”. There is also a letter from Welles to Joseph Marks head of MAfilm in Hungary from 1985. The correspondence contains several references related to Orson Welles’s death in 1985, including a photocopy of a telegram of condolence from France’s President Francois Mitterand to Tasca di Cutò, and from Ann Rogers, Welles’s one-time secretary in London. In the Various to Tasca section letters include correspondence from Paola Mori and Rebecca Welles Manning along with business contacts. The letters are a combination of typed and handwritten letters and some letters are photocopies of originals.

The Projects series includes information on films Orson Welles acted and directed. Included in this series are scripts, production documents such as budgets and filming schedules, and photographs. The films include: "Black Magic", "Nella terra di Don Chisciotte" (In the Land of Don Quixote) a documentary, "Chimes at Midnight", "The Other Side of the Wind", "The Big Brass Ring", "The Dreamers", "King Lear", "The Cradle Will Rock", "Mercedes", "It’s All True", "The Unseen", "Don Quixote", and "Saladino". The "Chimes at Midnight" documents include 22 costume sketches that are attributed to Orson Welles, but are left unsigned. In "Don Quixote" there are eleven drawings and paintings by several different artists depicting scenes from "Don Quixote" based on stills from some early footage. The drawings are from different artists but all are in the style of Gustave Dore. The drawings were to show Don Quixote “reading his book and getting his Big Idea.” The unfinished projects include: "It’s All True", "The Other Side of the Wind", "The Big Brass Ring", "King Lear", "The Cradle Will Rock", "Saladino" and "Don Quixote".

Photographs are included in each project, but the Photographs series contains photographs of Alessandro Tasca di Cutò on set and in some of his acting roles.

Miscellaneous contains material such as stationary, and programs from many Orson Welles tributes. Included is a photocopy of a legal document that is a confirmation of ownership rights to Oja Kodar for some of Orson Welles’s material. The Clippings and Articles contains general clippings from several publications from 1943-1985 documenting Orson Welles’s career with some in French and Spanish.

The collection includes business and personal correspondence, production materials, scripts, photographs, motion picture, and sound recordings related to Richard Wilson and Orson Welles's work in radio, theater, and film from the 1930s to the 1950s. Also included are materials related to each man's later solo careers and personal life.

The Richard Wilson-Orson Welles Papers document many aspects of the two men's creative collaboration in radio, theater, and film for the Mercury Theater and Mercury Productions. Material related to several moments in Welles's post-Mercury Productions solo work and life form part of the collection. Richard Wilson's post-Mercury Productions work is also represented. The collection includes business and personal correspondence, production materials, scripts, photographs, and audio and motion picture recordings.

Materials relating to classic films such as Citizen Kane , The Magnificent Ambersons , The Lady From Shanghai, and Macbeth are included in the collection. The original filming and 1980s-1990s reconstruction, led by Richard Wilson, of the suddenly-terminated Welles film, It's All True (1942) is particularly well-documented.

The Wilson-Welles collection has been divided into seven series: Orson Welles; Richard Wilson; Mercury Theatre/Mercury Productions; Sound; Motion Pictures; Realia; and Bill Krohn: It's All True (1993).

The three primary series: Orson Welles, Richard Wilson, and Mercury Theatre/Mercury Productions have been largely organized by production type (e.g. Theater, Radio, and Film) and then chronologically by project. Completed films, theatrical productions, and radio broadcasts are dated according to their first public showing or general release date. Unfinished or unreleased projects are dated according to the year in which most of the work on the project took place.

Correspondence and business papers for each project are located together under the project name. An important exception to this organizational scheme was necessitated by the fact that Welles frequently worked on several projects simultaneously and a single letter or memo may address several projects. Sets of memos and correspondence are filed with the project to which they are most closely related. Notable examples of overlapping projects and sets of memoranda that address at least two films are Macbeth and Othello (much of the information related to Othello is actually in correspondence in the Macbeth files), and The Magnificent Ambersons and It's All True (much of the information related to The Magnificent Ambersons is contained within the It's All True files).

The Richard Wilson and Orson Welles series also contains material related to both men's families and personal lives.