Ambersons Again - Missing Footage

[Oscar Christie]

On a lighter note, a trivia question.

Who is dolores costello's grandchild?

[R Kadin]

Drew Barrymore

[mteal]

Well, that settles it: we've got to get Drew Barrymore to do voiceovers for Isabel!

Jack184,
Good suggestion about Robert Wise. I'd love to send him a copy of the project and let him make any comments he wants. I don't think the project is ready yet, but there is a question I'd love to ask him immediately: Did he film a scene where George finds Isabel unconscious? That would settle the debate over whether Welles' 14-minute "big cut" (discussed earlier in this thread) was made for the first Pamona preview.

[Sir Bygber Brown]

Isn't it Pomona?

[mteal]

Quite right, thanks for the correction.

[Ecnerwal]

I just watched Ambersons again, comparing with original version as I went along - it gave a real sense of how truly magnificent the film would have been if orson had his way.

I noticed one shot that was in the version I was watching, but according to the notes was actually cut. It's just after Wilbur's funeral and before the kitchen scene:

'The next two shots were deleted - an insert showing George's college diploma followed by an exterior shot of the Amberson mansion in the rain'

The diploma is still missing, but there is definitely a shot of the mansion in the rain. Just wanted to check that this is in all versions, not just mine.

[Citizen K]

You're quite right, Ecnerwal. Thanks for pointing it out! I guess all available versions of the film are exactly alike.

[Citizen K]

Sorry, correction. I checked right after posting: Carringer does include the shot of the mansion in rain. I remembered wrong and assumed it was cut. I bow my head in shame. There, done.

[Oscar Christie]

In the 1970's the man who controlled the RKo library tried to assemble the surviving cast members to re-shoot the movie.

Does any one have information on this

[Gordon]

The man is Ben Barry.



Any news on MTeal's "Magnificent Ambersons" restoration?

[mteal]

Not a whole lot, Gordon, but thanks for asking. Ever since I saw Roger Ryan's Ambersons restoration, my interest in the project has waned, as his version is far more polished and professional looking. A while ago I sent my version to a museum in Europe that expressed interest in it. I was going to send a copy of Roger's too, but then I never heard anything back from the museum, and they didn't respond to several emails I sent them, so I didn't send it. I probably should have.

A few months ago R. Kadin was gracious enough to make DVDr's of both my version and Roger's and send them both to a well-known film critic in America. According to R. Kadin, the DVDs were received, but I don't know that any comment or suggestions were ever made by the critic.

I may do some more work on it this winter, but the silence recieved from both parties we sent the restorations to, suggests that they were not impressed with it. The museum had expressed reservations earlier about the voiceovers we used for the dialogue and soundtrack etc; and suggested we use subtitles instead. That may be the next step, if there is one.

I also sent a copy of my restoration to Citizen K over in Europe. That was several months ago. He said he enjoyed it and was working on one of his own, but I haven't heard anything else from him yet.

Jaime Marzol also contacted me about a month ago, about doing some more work on it, but he's also working on a restoration of THE STRANGER, which is his primary concern right now. I've also contributed to this project, which was originally scheduled to be finished and released in order to coincide with the release of Clinton Heylin's new book. Jaime told me he's redoing the whole thing with a new computer, so obviously, that original release plan is not gonna happen.

[Harvey Chartrand]

The uncut AMBERSONS is as lost to history as fabled Atlantis or pre-WW2 Tokyo and Berlin or the valley of the giant spiders scene in KING KONG (1933) or the attack of the huge vampire bats in TARZAN ESCAPES (1936) or the original ending of Curtis Harrington's RUBY (1977) or the American Film Institute's 9 Most Important MIA Films:

CAMILLE (1927) starring Norma Talmadge
CLEOPATRA (1917) starring Theda Bara
THE DIVINE WOMAN (1928) starring Greta Garbo
GREED (1925) Erich von Stroheim's 40-reel version
THE KAISER, BEAST OF BERLIN (1918) A World War I anti-German film
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (1922) An early Walt Disney cartoon
LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927) starring Lon Chaney
THE ROGUE SONG (1930) starring Laurel and Hardy
THAT ROYLE GIRL (1925) starring W.C. Fields

All gone forever, taken out to the studio parking lot and burned. Or dumped in the Pacific Ocean. Or simply misplaced and allowed to deteriorate past any hope of restoration.

No way to reconstruct any of these lost works.
Cherish the still photos that are all that remain of them.

(Of course, some films thought to be lost forever do turn up occasionally, like Thomas Edison's 1910 FRANKENSTEIN.)

[mteal]

I wonder why Ambersons isn't on that AFI list. Did you see Schmidlin's GREED restoration for TCM? An outstanding job, and there's no reason why he couldn't do Ambersons as well, if he was interested.
There's another silent film I would add to that list as well: Josef Von Sternberg's 1926 WOMAN OF THE SEA, reportedly destroyed by it's producer Charlie Chaplin. One person who saw it said it was one of the most poetic Hollywood films he'd ever seen.

[Glenn Anders]

Mteal: I've said it before. Two years ago, Schmidlin told me personally after a showing of his GREED restoration, that he was deeply interested in a restoration of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, and he was working on the possibility.

Too bad he is no longer on this site. He struck me as a remarkably down-to-earth, accessible sort of guy.

Glenn

[Harvey Chartrand]

Perhaps if we had all been more civil to Mr. Schmidlin, he would have stuck around. He was one of the few industry insiders who actively participated on this message board, but he grew weary of the way his every comment was misinterpreted and attacked by some of the more argumentative members of this board, and so Mr. Schmidlin announced his intention to leave the board – and who can blame him?
Worst of all, Mr. Schmidlin's experience on this board may have soured him on an AMBERSONS restoration project. Or at the very least, it could have been the final disincentive that tipped the scales against his moving forward with the project. According to his IMDB listing, Mr. Schmidlin has not been involved in any new restoration project since his LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT still photo reconstruction in 2002. Nor did a quick Google Search uncover news of any projects undertaken by him since then.
Hopefully, we have all learned a valuable lesson here in how to express ourselves clearly without alienating our correspondent(s).