Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1061972
71 Q4 2018 / CINEMONTAGE had a Welles connection. "The co-star of the movie was an actor named Robert Random," Murawski remembers. "Whenever he was on screen, the movie was really elevated by his performance. I found out he had worked with Orson Welles — and, not only that, but everybody said he had starred in Orson Welles' final movie." That would be Wind, in which Random co-starred as actor John Dale — a strong, silent type whom Hannaford cast in his ongoing magnum opus. After tension develops between the two men, Dale exits Hannaford's movie. About 12 years after Danger Zone III, Murawski and Innis moved into a house in Studio City, when he would again cross professional paths with a veteran of Wind: indie-and-exploitation cinematographer Gary Graver. "I discovered that Gary was living three doors down from me," recalls Murawski, who was an avid admirer of the DP's work on Satan's Sadists (1969) and The Toolbox Murders (1978), among others. "I saw him on his lawn early one morning when I was driving away," Murawski comments. "A few days later, I introduced myself to him. We got to talking and became really good friends." Then Graver took Murawski on a tour of his garage. "I saw that he had a rack full of work prints that said 'Orson Welles Productions,'" Murawski recalls. "I said, "Wow, so you worked with Orson Welles?' He said, 'I shot everything that he did for the last 15 years of his life.'" Graver shared with Murawski bits and pieces from Wind, prompting the editor — who, through his company Grindhouse Releasing, was in the process of editing another incomplete,'70s-era exploitation movie, Gone with the Pope (finally released in 2010) — to offer his services on Wind. "We had talked about maybe getting together to work on it when we were between jobs," Murawski says. "Sadly, Gary had had cancer, and then the cancer came back. He passed away in 2006. I figured that was my last chance to ever work on that movie." Then, in 2014, The New York Times ran a story with a headline that surprised and delighted Welles fans: "Twisting Plot of Welles's Last Film Nears an End." Against all odds, Royal Road Entertainment, headed by producer Filip Jan Rymsza, announced that it would complete Wind, and Bogdanovich and Frank Marshall would sign on as producers. Affonso Gonçalves, ACE, was announced as editor, but as the post-production process faced delays, he moved onto other projects. Last August, Murawski learned of the job opening from his longtime first assistant editor Dov Samuel, who had already joined the crew of Wind. "I really wanted to do the movie," he recounts. "The funny thing is, when I interviewed with Frank and Filip, I thought that I wasn't going to get the job. I just had myself psyched-out. I thought that they thought I was too mainstream." Not a chance. Murawski's appreciation for, and knowledge of, exploitation cinema proved useful in trying to suss out Welles' intentions for Wind. "I had this theory that Orson had probably seen some of Russ Meyer's movies, because Gary had been dating Erica Gavin at the time," the editor speculates, referring to the star of Meyer's Vixen! (1968). "Russ' saying was always: 'Cut, cut, cut — create the punishing rhythm.' Orson shot so much footage that it really enabled me to be able to do that. I really wanted to jam in as much as possible into the shortest amount of time." SCALING A 'DENSE MOUNTAIN OF FOOTAGE' Months before Murawski arrived, Samuel and second assistant editor Ray Boniker began the daunting process of sorting through the original footage — shot in both color and black-and-white, and encompassing an array of formats (including 16mm, 35mm and reversal film stock). For example, scene slates had been cut off. "A lot of valuable information was lost, on top of the fact that all of the paperwork was pretty much gone," Samuel says. "It was a very dense mountain of footage. We spent a long time deciphering what the Bob Murawski at the bar at Musso and Frank's Grill.