Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the so-called "heart of Africa". Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames. This setting provides the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the ivory trader Kurtz, which enables Conrad to create a parallel between what Conrad calls "the greatest town on earth", London, and Africa as places of darkness.
Stefan Schnabel
When Mercury Productions moved to the West Coast, Schnabel was one of the actors Welles cast in "Heart of Darkness", the film he first proposed for RKO Pictures before settling instead on "Citizen Kane". After elaborate pre-production the project never reached production because Welles was unable to sufficiently trim its budget to compensate for lost revenue in the wartime overseas market.