The Magnificent Ambersons 09

Orson Welles - prod.,dir.,script (1942)
from the novel by Booth Tarkington (1918)

stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins. Welles provides the voiceover narration.

Welles lost control of the editing of The Magnificent Ambersons to RKO, and the final version released to audiences differed significantly from his vision for the film. More than an hour of footage was cut by the studio, and a new, happier ending was shot and tacked on to the film. Although Welles' extensive notes for how he wished the film to be cut survived, the excised scenes have not.

Prologue
NARRATION:

The magnificence of the Ambersons began in 1873. Their splendor lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland town spread and darken into a city. In that town in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet and everybody knew everybody else's family horse and carriage. The only public conveyance was the streetcar. A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt at once, and wait for her, while she shut the window, ... put on her hat and coat, ... went downstairs, ... found an umbrella, ... told the 'girl' what to have for dinner...and came forth from the house. Too slow for us nowadays, because the faster we're carried, the less time we have to spare.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• orson
• welles
• magnificent
• ambersons

[goback3spaces]

Anybody notice the in-joke at 5:18? The newspaper that Eugene is reading is the Indianapolis Enquirer, and the first column on the page is a dramatic review by Jed Leland.

[ZANTEDESH]

The butchering weakens the film for me. :( I wish i could see it as intended. Ending stinks. "Georgie" did not deserve ANY girl; without SEEING him ask forgiveness, i can't buy it. I found the middle part choppy. BUT It DOES endure; we know Welles had a higher ideal for it. Cinematically it is awe inspiring. I love Agnes M. in her scenes. I'm a Joseph Cotton fan too. Too ahead of his time, O.W. = his curse. Today, the outcome would be better for him. Thanks for posting this. God Bless All.

[Strokton]

@goback3spaces great discovery pal!

[thesafekind]

The ending is the ending of the book, they just had to wrap it up really quickly. Welles apparently shot an ending with similar dialogue but a sadder tone. But Booth Tarkington is to blame for the happy ending.

[osharemind]

I know it's unlikely, but I wholeheartedly pray that somewhere in Brazil lies the original missing footage of Ambersons, the way it was meant to be seen, as envisioned by Orson himself.

[krushnoi]

Wow I read the book and the film's ending really deviates from that but truth be told the book's ending was kind of odd too but would have been better than this shortcut version soap opera stuff. I guess with WW2 going on they had to tone it down a bit for the audience.

[Applemask]

"My name is Orson Welles."

[BeekPerson]

The Doom is so friggin thick, like oil laying at the bottom of this movie. You can stir the movie, try to clean it up, water it down... but The Doom Cannot Be Killed.

PT Anderson once said he put the title to Boogie Nights as a physical neon sign in the movie just so the title could not be changed against his will. Welles' safeguard was much more complex:

The Sheer Density of Welles' style, the pervasive Wellesian Atmosphere, cannot be denied. It Comes Through Still, and the film lives on.

[ectorlove]

"This is a Mercury Production"...just excellent!

[donlongluca]

manage to be awe inspiring, cinematically breathtaking, and emotionally stirring. I have now added another favorutie film to my list and it is Orson Welle's The Magnificent Ambersons, and the irony of it is, it's a chopped up cut of it. One can only imagine how exhilerating his final cut would have been. The sheer tragedies of cinema.

[donlongluca]

Do you know what the funny thing is? Before reading the comments posted on here, i had absolutely NO CLUE that the cut that i had just finished watching (this one right here obviously) was buthchered. That's right, i just finished watching it being completely blown away by its utter brilliance and magnificence and i find out that this was a rough, butchered cut of the movie. This goes to show the genius of Orson welles, even when his films are torn up by greedy studio executives, his films still