THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (FILM)

'''The Magnificent Ambersons''' is an American film released in 1942 and directed by Orson Welles, his second feature film.
The picture is based on the novel ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' by Booth Tarkington. The screenplay was written by Welles and he provides the voice-over narration.
The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In 1972 and 1982, the film was included in ''Sight and Sound's list of the top ten films ever made.

Contents

Plot

Production

Cast

Awards

Adaptations

See also

Footnotes

External links

Plot

The film tells of the Ambersons, an upper-class family who live in Indianapolis. One day, the matriarch of the family, Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello), is quite by accident humiliated in public by her beau, the inventor Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten). She breaks off their relationship and decides to marry the bland Wilbur Minafer (Donald Dillaway) instead.
People in town are certain that Isabel can't possibly be in love with Wilbur. She has one child, George Minafer (Tim Holt), whom she spoils. As George grows up, many in the town long for the day when the arrogant, immature mama's boy will get his "comeuppance."
Later, when George returns from college, his mother and grandfather (Richard Bennett) hold a reception in his honor. Among the guests is the older Eugene, who's now a prosperous automobile manufacturer. He brings his daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter) with him. George takes to Lucy right away, but he takes a dislike to Eugene, especially after learning from uncle Jack Amberson (Ray Collins) and aunt Fanny (Agnes Moorehead) that Eugene and Isabel had once been quite the couple.
After the death of Wilbur Minafer, the widowed Eugene decides to ask Isabel for her hand in marriage. This time, she is willing, but George selfishly manipulates his mother into rejecting Eugene. George's haughty attitude leads to tragedy for everyone--and, at long last, George Minafer receives his comeuppance.

Production

The original rough cut of the film was approximately 135 minutes in length. Welles felt that the film needed to be shortened and after receiving a mixed response from a preview audience, Robert Wise, the film's editor, removed several minutes from it. The film was previewed again, but the audience's response did not improve. This resulted in RKO deleting over 40 additional minutes and re-shooting the ending sequence, replacing Welles' original ending with a happier one, one that more closely resembled Tarkington's. Welles did not approve of the cuts, but because he was simultaneously working in Brazil on another project for RKO, his attempts to protect his version ultimately failed. Details of Welles' conflict over the editing are included in the 1993 documentary ''It's All True''.
The negatives for the excised portions of ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' were later destroyed in order to free vault space.^[1] A print of the rough cut was sent to Welles in Brazil. It has yet to be found and is generally considered to be lost along with the prints from the previews. Robert Wise maintained that the original was not better than the edited version.^[2]
''The Magnificent Ambersons'' is one of the earliest films in movie history in which nearly all the credits are spoken by an offscreen voice and not shown printed onscreen. The only credits shown onscreen are the RKO logo, "A Mercury Production by Orson Welles", and lastly the film's title, "The Magnificent Ambersons". These are shown at the very beginning of the picture. At the end of the film, Orson Welles's voice announces all the main credits. Each actor in the film is shown as Welles announces their name. As he speaks each technical credit, a machine is shown performing that function - e.g. when Welles announces the name of the film editor, an editing machine appears onscreen, and when he announces "Sound recording by," a sound recording console is working onscreen.^[3] Notably missing from the list of spoken credits is "Music by Bernard Herrmann." Herrmann strongly objected to his score being recut and portions replaced by music by Roy Webb, thus he demanded his name be removed from the credits.
The movie has also been released as a colorized version by Turner Entertainment. This version is available on DVD at least in Finland.

Cast

★ Joseph Cotten as Eugene

★ Dolores Costello as Isabel

★ Anne Baxter as Lucy

★ Tim Holt as George

★ Agnes Moorehead as Fanny

★ Ray Collins as Jack

★ Erskine Sanford as Roger Bronson

★ Donald Dillaway as Wilbur Minafer

★ Richard Bennett as Maj. Amberson

★ Orson Welles as Narrator

Awards

'Wins'

★ New York Film Critics Circle Awards: NYFCC Award; Best Actress, Agnes Moorehead; 1942.
'Nominations'

★ Academy Awards: Oscar; Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Agnes Moorehead; Best Black-and-White Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Albert S. D'Agostino, A. Roland Fields and Darrell Silvera; Best Black-and-White Cinematography, Stanley Cortez; Best Picture, Orson Welles; 1943.
'Other distinguishments'

★ In 1991 the film was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry.

Adaptations

The film was remade for television in 2002 and used the same name. The film used Orson Welles' screenplay, was directed by Alfonso Arau, and starred Madeleine Stowe, Bruce Greenwood, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Gretchen Mol, and Jennifer Tilly.^[4]

See also

★ List of films recut by studio

Footnotes

1. ''It's All True'' at the Internet Movie Database.
2. Imdb, ''It's All True'', ibid.
3. Imdb, ''The Magnificent Ambersons'', ibid.
4. ''The Magnificent Ambersons'' (2002) at the Internet Movie Database.

External links

★ http://ambersons.com/

★ .