Several factors contributed to the demise of It's All True (1943). Among them:
- The poor test audience results for Orson Welles' sophomore RKO film, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942).
- The resignation of Welles ally George Schaefer as RKO president, and Nelson Rockefeller's departure from the RKO board of directors.
- The use of black and mixed race people in It's All True was a source of concern at RKO.
- Welles' interest in depicting the lives of the poor was hardly the commercial travelogue Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas might have wanted.
While some of the footage shot for It's All True (1943) was re-purposed 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. In the 1980s a cache of nitrate negative, largely black-and-white, was found in a vault and presented to the UCLA Film and Television Archive. A 2000 inventory indicated that approximately 50,000 feet of It's All True had been preserved, with approximately 130,045 feet of the deteriorating nitrate not yet preserved.
On May 19, 1942, Orson Welles and his crew were preparing to film a scene for Jangadeiros when the raft carrying the four fishermen overturned. Only three of the four were rescued; Jacaré, a national hero, was lost at sea. Welles continued to soldier on with the film until RKO abandoned it.
In the book 'It's All True: Orson Welles's Pan-American Odyssey', author Catherine L. Benamou detailed the results of a 2000 inventory of the surviving footage, which is housed in the UCLA Film and Television Archive nitrate vaults. The materials include:
In addition, it was reported that 200,000 feet of Technicolor nitrate negative, mainly from 'Carnaval', was destroyed by Paramount Pictures in the 1960s or 1970s (A RKO inventory in 1952 included the 200,000 feet of color negative.).
Based on the 1952 and 2000 inventories, more than half of the footage shot for It's All True (1943) was destroyed and less than 28 percent of the surviving footage has been preserved.
- Carnaval - Approximately 32,200 feet of black-and-white not preserved; 3,300 feet preserved. Approximately 2,700 feet of Technicolor not preserved (in Paramount Studios vaults). Approximately 2,750 feet was processed and used in the 1993 documentary.
- Jangadeiros - Approximately 28,000 feet of black-and-white not preserved; approximately 35,950 feet preserved.
- My Friend Bonito - Approximately 67,145 feet of black-and-white not preserved; 8,000 feet preserved.
In addition, it was reported that 200,000 feet of Technicolor nitrate negative, mainly from 'Carnaval', was destroyed by Paramount Pictures in the 1960s or 1970s (A RKO inventory in 1952 included the 200,000 feet of color negative.).
Based on the 1952 and 2000 inventories, more than half of the footage shot for It's All True (1943) was destroyed and less than 28 percent of the surviving footage has been preserved.
Orson Welles was under pressure from RKO to shoot a portion of his third film, the multi-story It's All True (1943), in Brazil. He had been appointed a goodwill ambassador to Latin America by Nelson Rockefeller, coordinator of Inter-American Affairs and a major stockholder in RKO, in November 1941. The OCIAA had been established a year earlier with funds from both the U.S. government and private sector.