the magnificent ambersons (1942)
The Magnificent Ambersons (based on the novel by
Booth Tarkington) is the story of an arrogant young man who finally
gets his “comeuppance.” There were certainly people in Hollywood who
viewed Welles as an arrogant young man and were glad that he got
slapped down a little, too, when his second film was taken away from
him while he was out of the country. The entire story is too long to
get into here (see the reference books), but the last 45 minutes of
Welles’ original version was cut and a new ending was tacked on instead.
The original footage is now lost (I’ve heard that the laser disc
version ends with storyboards and script excerpts for the ending
Welles originally shot).
The Magnificent Ambersons is the only movie Welles
ever directed in which he did not appear. He had played George
Minafer in a radio adaptation of the book a few years previously, but
even with the girdle he wore in Citizen Kane he couldn’t play the role
on screen. He said later that he had really enjoyed directing without
having to act in the movie as well, but I suspect that in some of his
movies it was a commercial decision as well as an artistic one that he
should do both. He may not have been a commercial draw as a director
but he certainly was as an actor, plus (as he always pointed out) he
was the only really good actor he could ever get for free. Spike Lee
has also said that he would like not to have to be in all of his
movies, but it would be much harder for him to sell a movie if he
wasn’t going to appear in it.
In any case, Tim Holt is better in the role than
Welles could have been, so it all worked out for the best anyway.
Even with the butchered ending, anybody who cares
about movies should see this film, and probably more than once. The
tone is more reflective than many of Welles pictures, and it’s more a
portrait of a whole time and place and way of life than of a single
man, as many of his other pictures are. The cast is excellent (still
mainly drawn from his Mercury Theater actors he brought to Hollywood
with him). Anybody who thinks of Agnes Moorehead exclusively as
Endora on Bewitched should see this.
Welles narrates the movie, and the whole first
section is devoted to vanished small-town customs and changing
fashions, before any of the main characters are even introduced.
Apparently this was the first movie to use narration so extensively.
But I don’t think the reason to go see Welles’ movies is because they
were revolutionary at the time. The reason to see them is because
they are amazingly good.