{"id":2178,"date":"1999-01-24T22:27:13","date_gmt":"1999-01-25T02:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=2178"},"modified":"2011-05-08T22:32:20","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T02:32:20","slug":"the-magnificent-ambersons-1942","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/?p=2178","title":{"rendered":"the magnificent ambersons (1942)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Magnificent Ambersons<\/em> (based on the novel by\r\n\r\nBooth Tarkington) is the story of an arrogant young man who finally\r\n\r\ngets his \"comeuppance.\" There were certainly people in Hollywood who\r\n\r\nviewed Welles as an arrogant young man and were glad that he got\r\n\r\nslapped down a little, too, when his second film was taken away from\r\n\r\nhim while he was out of the country. The entire story is too long to\r\n\r\nget into here (see the reference books), but the last 45 minutes of\r\n\r\nWelles' original version was cut and a new ending was tacked on instead.\r\n\r\nThe original footage is now lost (I've heard that the laser disc\r\n\r\nversion ends with storyboards and script excerpts for the ending\r\n\r\nWelles originally shot).<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The Magnificent Ambersons<\/em> is the only movie Welles\r\n\r\never directed in which he did not appear. He had played George\r\n\r\nMinafer in a radio adaptation of the book a few years previously, but\r\n\r\neven with the girdle he wore in Citizen Kane<\/em> he couldn't play the role\r\n\r\non screen. He said later that he had really enjoyed directing without\r\n\r\nhaving to act in the movie as well, but I suspect that in some of his\r\n\r\nmovies it was a commercial decision as well as an artistic one that he\r\n\r\nshould do both. He may not have been a commercial draw as a director\r\n\r\nbut he certainly was as an actor, plus (as he always pointed out) he\r\n\r\nwas the only really good actor he could ever get for free. Spike Lee\r\n\r\nhas also said that he would like not to have to be in all of his\r\n\r\nmovies, but it would be much harder for him to sell a movie if he\r\n\r\nwasn't going to appear in it.<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In any case, Tim Holt is better in the role than\r\n\r\nWelles could have been, so it all worked out for the best anyway.<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Even with the butchered ending, anybody who cares\r\n\r\nabout movies should see this film, and probably more than once. The\r\n\r\ntone is more reflective than many of Welles pictures, and it's more a\r\n\r\nportrait of a whole time and place and way of life than of a single\r\n\r\nman, as many of his other pictures are. The cast is excellent (still\r\n\r\nmainly drawn from his Mercury Theater actors he brought to Hollywood\r\n\r\nwith him). Anybody who thinks of Agnes Moorehead exclusively as\r\n\r\nEndora on Bewitched<\/em> should see this.<\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Welles narrates the movie, and the whole first\r\n\r\nsection is devoted to vanished small-town customs and changing\r\n\r\nfashions, before any of the main characters are even introduced.\r\n\r\nApparently this was the first movie to use narration so extensively.\r\n\r\nBut I don't think the reason to go see Welles' movies is because they\r\n\r\nwere revolutionary at the time. The reason to see them is because\r\n\r\nthey are amazingly good. <\/P>\r\n\r\n\r\n


return to the orson welles page<\/a><\/P>

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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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2178"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2181,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2178\/revisions\/2181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u-town.com\/collins\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}