NEW AMBERSONS - Anybody seen it?

[R Kadin]

The less said about the "New Ambersons" the better IMHO. Highly doubtful, without the weight of Welles's much-discussed original attempt pulling the project along, this newer and very minor train would have ever made it INTO the station, let alone out of it. Just one more comment, though: even if this legendary "lost" version of the original does turn up some day, with "Ambersons" we will still be left pining (as we do for so much of the master's work) for what might have been. The water in our Welles is ever bittersweet.

[aggie]

What about the peabrain reviewer in the New York Times this week who called Uncle Jack a "forgettable character"? Can't remember her name.

Shouldn't Bogdanovich have directed the remake? He showed in Daisy Miller he can do the stuff even in colour and with a variable cast.

[mteal]

Aggie,
I sort of agree that Bogdanovich is the one they should have hired to direct the remake. He knew Orson better then probably anyone else in Hollywood, and knew the original Ambersons as well as anyone. And with Bogdanovich at the helm they at least wouldn't have made a complete hash out of Welles' screenplay like Arau and Co. did.

DAISY MILLER does have something of an Ambersons quality to it, and the lonely sounding harmonica in Lavagnino's music score is reminiscent of Mr. Arkadin. But Cybill Shepard is pretty weak in the title role, so Bogdanovich is not infallable when it comes to casting and directing actors. After all, for his latest picture he hired Jennifer Tilly, who was laughable as Fanny in the new Ambersons, to play Louella Parsons. It'll be interesting to see if PB can do anything more with her then Arau did.

[Jeff Wilson]

In the case of Daisy Miller, though, PB had caught Pygmalion syndrome, thinking he was going to turn Sheperd into a star. He was also sleeping with her, and that obviously didn't help his judgment. Let me again strongly recommend the book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, for an eye-opening ride through the New Hollywood of the late 60s early 70s, which includes the rise and fall of Bogdanovich.

[mteal]

Pygmalian, yes. Or you could compare it to Charles Foster Kane's attempt to turn Susan Alexander into a star. Even Orson was guilty of that syndrome with both Paola Mori and, later, Oja Kodar. As Jean-Luc Godard put it,

"The history of cinema is the history of boys photographing girls"

[jaime marzol]

would bogdanovich have been hungry enough to direct the new ambersons had he been offered it? that would be a grand case of stepping in the dead man's shoes. i think it would have been the end of bogdanovich, if indeed the end hasn't come yet. where is THE CAT'S MEOW? has anyone seen it?

will look for EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS. read the andrew yule book on bogdanovich a while back. quite a good read. it's available almost anywhere now for 75-cents.

i'm about halfway through WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, also quite a good read. huston was a self destructive bastard. i know WHITE HUNTER is fictionalized, but i have several other books on huston, and in WHITE HUNTER it seems the fiction is thin and the non fiction is rippling.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

I'm just going by the information I have on this, but didn't Orson's movie of Magnificent Ambersons become a flop because the editors cut parts out of it while he was doing his movie "It's All True".

Actually, still according to the books, nearly all of his movies when he completed them, were taken, cut, considered flops, and after he passed away, put back together again, and considered #1 hits. With the acception of Citizen Kane, of course, which already was.

Probably because there was no cutting.

Has anyone seen The Big Brass Ring? I have. If you did, I even wonder, since movies were taken from him and cut up, maybe screen-plays were burned, rewritten and his name posted just for Orson Welles fans, like me to go crazy. That's actually the #1 reason I did watch it.

Why all these questions? Because you guys seem to have all the answers. Or better ones than what the books have to say.

[Michael]

Good grief! This is the second "Welles" related thing I've watched out of "car wreck" curiousity (the other being D.Q.). Good heavens, I was so depressed after watching it. Some good performances, but in all, the worst sin of all Boring and poorly made! And Rhys was all one note from beginning to end. And Tilley.... well... what can one say? All I could think of was the "what ifs". Ah well...

Thanks! Michael