While some of the footage shot for It's All True was repurposed or sent to stock film libraries, approximately 200,000 feet of the Technicolor nitrate negative, most of it for the "Carnaval" episode, was dumped into the Pacific Ocean in the late 1960s or 1970s.

The unrealized production was the subject of a 1993 documentary, It's All True: Based on an Unfinished Film by Orson Welles, written and directed by Richard Wilson, Bill Krohn and Myron Meisel.

[4]: 365–366 "In addition to the tenuous boundary between 'real' and 'staged' events," wrote Catherine L. Benamou, "there was a thematic emphasis on the achievement of dignity by the working person, along with the celebration of cultural and ethnic diversity of North America.

Welles hired the shop's owner, David Stuart, as a researcher and consultant on the screenplay for "The Story of Jazz", which journalist Elliot Paul was put under contract to write.

Most of the filming would take place in the studio, but the episode also incorporated innovations including New Orleans jazz pioneer Kid Ory addressing the camera directly at an outdoor location in California, where he then lived, and animation by Oskar Fischinger.

[5]: 311 "The Captain's Chair", an unproduced segment that was also based on a Flaherty story, was originally set in the Arctic but was relocated to Hudson's Bay to conform with the premise of the film.

The OCIAA's Motion Picture Division played an important role in documenting history and shaping opinion toward the Allied nations, particularly after the U.S. entered World War II in December 1941.

[5]: 10–11 The OCIAA's Motion Picture Division was led by John Hay Whitney, who was asked by the Brazilian government to produce a documentary of the annual Rio Carnival celebration taking place in early February 1942.

"[1]: 65 "RKO put up the money, because they were being blackmailed, forced, influenced, persuaded—and every other word you would want to use—by Nelson Rockefeller, who was also one of its bosses then, to make this contribution to the war effort," Welles recalled some 30 years later.

A select listing includes Misha Reznikoff and photojournalist Genevieve Naylor (October 1940–May 1943); Bing Crosby (August–October 1941); Walt Disney (August–October 1941); Aaron Copland (August–December 1941); George Balanchine and the American Ballet (1941); Rita Hayworth (1942); Grace Moore (1943); John Ford (1943) and Gregg Toland (1943).

Welles was thoroughly briefed in Washington, D.C., immediately before his departure for Brazil, and film scholar Catherine L. Benamou, a specialist in Latin American affairs, finds it "not unlikely" that he was among the goodwill ambassadors who were asked to gather intelligence for the U.S. government in addition to their cultural duties.

[4]: 158–159 [10]: 15 "On paper and in actual practice, It's All True was programmatically designed by Welles to encourage civic unity and intercultural understanding at a time of Axis aggression, racial intolerance, and labor unrest at key sites in the hemisphere," wrote Catherine L.

[13]: 189 In addition to working on It's All True, Welles was responsible for radio programs, lectures, interviews and informal talks as part of his OCIAA-sponsored cultural mission, which was a success.

[13]: 192  He spoke on topics ranging from Shakespeare to visual art to American theatre at gatherings of Brazil's elite, and his two intercontinental radio broadcasts in April 1942 were particularly intended to tell U.S. audiences that President Vargas was a partner with the Allies.

Welles's ambassadorial mission would be extended to permit his travel to other nations including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

Two weeks after Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Welles was asked by Nelson Rockefeller (then the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs) to make a non-commercial film without salary to support the war effort as part of the Good Neighbor Policy.

RKO Radio Pictures, of which Rockefeller was a major shareholder and a member of its board of directors, would foot the bill, with the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs guaranteeing up to $300,000 against potential financial losses.

Led by Manoel Olimpio Meira (called "Jacaré"), the jangadeiros were protesting an economically exploitative system in which all fishermen were forced to give half of their catch to the jangada owners.

After 61 days and 1,650 miles without any navigating instruments, braving the wind, rain and fierce sun, and making many friendly stops along the way, they sailed into Rio de Janeiro harbor as national heroes.

The result was a bill that was signed into law by President Vargas that entitled the jangadeiros to the same benefits awarded to all union laborers—retirement funds, pensions for widows and children, housing, education and medical care.

[16][a] Required to film the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro in early February 1942, Welles rushed to edit The Magnificent Ambersons and finish his acting scenes in Journey into Fear.

He ended his lucrative CBS radio show[13]: 189  February 2, flew to Washington, D.C., for a briefing, and then lashed together a rough cut of Ambersons in Miami with editor Robert Wise.

[4]: 369–370  At the time it did not seem that Welles's other film projects would be disrupted, but as film historian Catherine L. Benamou wrote, "the ambassadorial appointment would be the first in a series of turning points leading—in 'zigs' and 'zags,' rather than in a straight line—to Welles's loss of complete directorial control over both The Magnificent Ambersons and It's All True, the cancellation of his contract at RKO Radio Studio, the expulsion of his company Mercury Productions from the RKO lot, and, ultimately, the total suspension of It's All True.

The June 1942 issue of International Photographer gave an accounting what had been filmed to date:[18] "A part of this time the crew has worked day and night," the magazine reported, "recording in the afternoons and shooting after dinner.

"[18] Actors and performers in the "Carnaval" segment included Grande Otelo, Odete Amaral, Linda Batista, Emilinha Borba, Chucho Martínez Gil, Moraes Netto and Pery Ribeiro.

Nelson Rockefeller, the primary backer of the Brazil project, left its board of directors, and Welles's principal sponsor at RKO, studio president George J. Schaefer, resigned.

"There is a notable resonance between the later version of the 'Michael Guard' script and the basic plot and setting of the high-budget Notorious, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and released with considerable success by RKO in 1946," Benamou wrote.

In the late 1960s or 1970s, perhaps fearing legal action by Grande Otelo—then a celebrity, but an unknown at the time he was filmed for It's All True—Paramount discarded some 200,000 feet of Technicolor nitrate negative into the Pacific Ocean.

The preservation of It's All True at UCLA was supported by the American Film Institute, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the initiative of Fred Chandler and Welles's executive assistant Richard Wilson.

Benamou, a Latin American and Caribbean specialist fluent in the dialect spoken by the jangadeiros, performed the field research and conducted interviews with the film's original participants in Mexico and Brazil.