The production reads like a footnote to Welles’s late career until the release and disappearance of the medium turned it into a minor mystery. The Cartrivision system did not reach consumers until June 1972 and, after poor sales, Sears discontinued the line in July 1973. Graver later recounted in his memoir that they finished the shorts, sent them off, and never received any feedback; he lamented not keeping copies. As of 2022 only two of the six—The Golden Honeymoon and Two Wise Old Men: Socrates and Noah—are known to survive, while four remain officially lost. The odd marriage of a canonical auteur, an experimental retail video format, and the sudden commercial failure of Cartrivision has produced enduring archival fascination and speculation among film historians and collectors about where those missing Welles recitations went and whether more will ever resurface.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
Orson Welles’s Missing Sears Cartrivision Shorts: Six Films Made and Four Vanished
An Evening with Orson Welles / 1970s
The production reads like a footnote to Welles’s late career until the release and disappearance of the medium turned it into a minor mystery. The Cartrivision system did not reach consumers until June 1972 and, after poor sales, Sears discontinued the line in July 1973. Graver later recounted in his memoir that they finished the shorts, sent them off, and never received any feedback; he lamented not keeping copies. As of 2022 only two of the six—The Golden Honeymoon and Two Wise Old Men: Socrates and Noah—are known to survive, while four remain officially lost. The odd marriage of a canonical auteur, an experimental retail video format, and the sudden commercial failure of Cartrivision has produced enduring archival fascination and speculation among film historians and collectors about where those missing Welles recitations went and whether more will ever resurface.
The daily feature is taking an intermission. There’s still an entire archive to explore.