The 1973 film "F for Fake", was produced and directed by Orson Welles. It was has last completed film. Orson Welles profiles art forger Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving, the creator of the fake Howard Hughes autobiography. He then discusses his contribution to fakery, the infamous 1938 radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds." The film was made in France and Spain. Orson Welles introduces the film and subject by posing as a magician and performing tricks for a little boy. One of his tricks is changing a key into a coin and then retrieving several coins. As the scene takes place in a French railroad station, the coins are French, from the 1970's.

The film had several titles before being released as "F for Fake."

In a French railroad station, Orson performs magic tricks for a little boy.

The key becomes a coin.

This coin is a Great Britain halfpenny of Queen Victoria minted 1860 to 1894. He tells the boy to open his mouth.

Orson shows the coins.

One is a French new franc coin with the "Sower" obverse. These coins were made of nickel from 1959 to 2001. The boy receives the traditional gift from a magician.

Orson's friend model Oja Kodar is watching from a train.

Oja Kodar has a short scene where she walks around the area while men watch her. Orson Welles then introduces the main film about fakes. He promises that the first hour of the film is based on verified facts.

Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving are the main subjects of the film.

Elmyr de Hory is an art forger of modern artists, including Amedeo Modigliani, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Pablo Picasso. He claims to have sold several thousand forgeries through art galleries and dealers. Clifford Irving is a writer who first wrote fiction, then a biography of de Hory. Later he wrote a fictional "autobiography" of billionaire Howard Hughes and collected $500,000 from a publisher for it. When the real Hughes denounced the book as a fraud, Irving and his accomplice wife went to jail. These scenes were filmed near de Hory's residence on the island of Ibiza in Spain.

What significance the money has is unknown but it appears throughout the film. Clifford shows a book with one of de Hory's fake Modigliani paintings which made it's way to a museum.

Elmyr de Hory is shown working in his studio.

The film leaves Clifford Irving and Elmyr de Hory for a while to discuss another fake. Orson Welles describes his background as an actor in Ireland and then as an American radio performer. He leads to his infamous October 30, 1938 Mercury Theatre radio program "War of the Worlds."

Some scenes of antique radios are shown, including this one.

The radio broadcast did not mention flying saucers which began appearing in the 1940's. Scenes from the 1956 Columbia Pictures film "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" are shown while simulated segments of the radio program are read.

A saucer fires a ray gun at the Los Angeles city hall.

This scene from "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" was taken from the 1953 Paramount film "War of the Worlds." Welles now returns to the Clifford Irving Howard Hughes story.

Howard Hughes supposedly lived in Las Vegas on the top floor of the Desert Inn hotel casino.

Hughes was a recluse tended by a group of men. He hadn't been seen in public for years. Clifford Irving's book became a major news story of the early 1970's.

Actor Joseph Cotten, a long-time associate of Welles, claims that the film "Citizen Kane" was to have been about Howard Hughes before the main character was changed to a newspaper publisher. Welles ends the film with a short segment involving the creation of fake Pablo Picasso paintings and the destruction of real Picasso paintings. This scene, he then admits, is fake.

Orson Welles as Himself and Narrator
Oja Kodar as Herself and The Girl
Elmyr de Hory as Himself
Clifford Irving as Himself
Joseph Cotten as Himself
Director: Orson Welles
Writers: Orson Welles