Long-lost Orson Welles silent film found in Italy

MILAN – An Italian film archive has announced the discovery of a long-lost Orson Welles film, a silent movie he made just before going to Hollywood to direct Citizen Kane.

Giuliana Puppin of the Italian film archive Cineteca del Friuli said Thursday that the 1938 slapstick comedy Too Much Johnson was found in a warehouse in the northeastern Italian city of Pordenone where it was stored for years before being identified.

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How the film arrived there remains a mystery.

Ciro Giorgini, an Italian expert on Welles who identified the film about three years ago, said discovering it “was like finding an important, lost painting — like seeing a painting of Caravaggio that no one knew about.”

The movie will debut in October at a silent film festival in Pordenone.