white portions of this film were filmed in 1942, when  Orson Welles (qv) was asked by Nelson Rockefeller to make a  "goodwill" film documentary about South America. RKO assumed Welles  film would resemble an innocuous travelogue; instead, he began to  film a documentary about ordinary daily life in Brazil. Legends  (ultimately proved untrue) sprang up about Welles riotous behavior  in Brazil, and RKO pulled the plug on the film after a fatal  accident involving fishermen. For years, the original footage was  considered lost, but what was left was eventually found, and edited  into this 1993 release.