Ambersons radio show

[Tony]

Just listened again to the Mercury's "Magnificent Ambersons" radio show; Welles is HORRIBLE as Georgie; Ray Collins is identical in tone to his performance in the movie; Walter Huston as Morgan is superb; his wife, Nan Sunderland, plays Isabel; Everett Sloane and Richard Wilson are apparently there also, but I'm not sure where. Who's missing is Aunt Fanny, so a central character of the movie is just not there: no Fanny scheming and having it backfire and ruining Isabel's and Eugene's chances of being together ever; and no final scene with Fanny and Eugene in the boarding house. Fanny obviously became very important to Welles between the radio show (Oct. '39) and the writing of the Amberson's screenplay (1941). Another big difference is the narration: much of the narration text is identical, but Welles tone in the radio program is rushed, high, almost throwing away the words; of course, his narration in the film is, to my mind, the single greatest narration in American movies, and what's even more impressive is that apparently he recorded the narration in a cartoon or radio studio in Miami, just before he went to Brazil, when Bob Wise came down with a rough cut. The story goes that they recorded the narration in a single, long night session, and I've often wondered if this is true or mere legend.

[jaime marzol]

probably true because wise has parroted the same story. it was at fleischer's animation studio.

i like the radio ambersons. walter huston is superb in anything he did. i never thought about it, but yes, no fanny.

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

Welles tone in the radio program is rushed, high, almost throwing away the words

i agree with you there. but in a different radio program. i've only heard the amberson's show once or twice. and that was a while ago.

but i thought he sounded that way in one of his versions of the count of monte cristo. one version he sounded wonderful. in the other, rushed, high, ewww. the 1939 version i think. where everette was the abbey faria. ray collins did it better.

in the movie, he had a longer time to be good. probably wasn't being rushed.

it the 1938 version. (fingers to lips motion) perfect. and he was always looking for perfection. but not all of them could be perfect. so at least one was. haven't heard to many others.

bye now!

[Welles Fan]

I remember a while back that O-W-O was insiting that Orson's reading of The Hitchhiker on the Suspense program was more gripping than the later Campbell's Playhouse recording. I had always admired the Campbell's version, and I scrounged around my MP3 collection and found the Suspense version, and she was totally right. While the Campbell's version is recorded a bit better, the growing intensity of Welles' performance is much more effective in the earlier recording. I guess with live radio, it all depended on how the performer felt, how fast the show was going, etc. It may be that with the Ambersons show that Orson wanted to keep more material than he had time for so he may have purposefully sped up the narration.

I have not heard it for years, as I cannot stand Orson's whiney nasally voice as George. Why would a guy who was playing old men while in his 20s play a "pampered youth" like Georgie?

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

have you heard 'donovan's brain'? you know how he's got some kind of a shake or tremble in his voice to make him seem scared? he tried doing that in the hitchhiker. and he really didn't need to. for 'donovan's brain', it's ok. but for the hitchhiker, he sounded scared without having to add the shaking or the trembling.

[/quote]Why would a guy who was playing old men while in his 20s play a "pampered youth" like Georgie?[quote]

maybe just tryin out new things?

bye now!

[Tony]

Finished with the Ambersons and continued on with Tarkington's "Seventeen"; Oh me God, he uses the same high, whiny voice as George Baxter, (who is seventeen)! Everybody else, even the child actor, acts: Welles...well, I don't know what he does. At the end, when reading the credits, he says "...and as George Baxter, it was probably all to obvious.." or something like that, showing a little embarrassment. This is more fuel to my belief that Welles shouldn't have played Georgie in the Ambersons film; however, he could have easily played Uncle George, a character Welles collapsed , along with another brother, into the character Ray Collins played. By the way, Collins is wonderful in both the Ambersons and Seventeen radio plays. Actually, Welles is the worst actor in both!

[Obssessed_with_Orson]

this may seem funny, or not, don't know which. but in the shows, and that is most of them, you don't get bored of orson. you can listen to the same show over and over again and not get bored. you may get bored with the story, but you will, if your as big a fan as you say you are, never get bored with orson welles and his crew.

yes, it's true, not all of the shows are 100% perfect. so, play the ones that you enjoy the best.

from a different post in a different discussion, christopher banks:

OW really did have a fantastic voice

he had the best...didn't always work in the right place at the right time...but yes, he did have a fantastic voice.

bye now!

[Tony]

Obsessed:
Yuo are correct; Orson is never boring; it's just that in the Tarkington radio shows, he's very inappropriately cast; he doesn't sound like a young person; he sounds like an older person trying to play young. And he's VERY hammy; I have a feeling OW would agree with me on this one; after all, he didn't even like himself as Othello!

[mteal]

Welles does ham it up in both of the Tarkington radio adaptations of his that survive, but I think that was his over-the-top attempt to convey the comic spirit of Tarkington. Welles considered Tarkington to be terribly funny and compared him to Mark Twain. Ambersons is not a comedy, but Welles treats George as a figure of ridicule to some extent in both the radio and movie versions, especially in the first half; and his attempt to convey George's arrogance and post-adolescent angst does seem pretty forced at times. He tries a similar performance in SEVENTEEN, but that is a very funny book that's not nearly as complex as Ambersons, so his whining performance in that show seems somewhat more appropriate and succesful. Welles wasn't necessarily a bad comic actor. Listen to I LOST MY GIRLISH LAUGHTER sometime and, despite the crummy sound, you'll see how well he could get into a comedic spirit. Of course, in that show, the entire Mercury is in prime screwball form. I think that was around the time they did their stage production of the slapstick farce TOO MUCH JOHNSON. BTW, there was a third Mercury/Tarkington adaptation of CLARENCE that is now believed lost.

Welles entire conception of Ambersons did change drastically in between the '38 radio show and the '42 film - and not just in the fact that he decided against playing George in the film. The film is so much darker - at times almost more like Chekhov then Tarkington, as Joseph Cotton said. The radio Ambersons is much closer to the sentimentality of the book and, as was posted, revolves almost entirely around George. In Welles' original version of the film - and especially in his Pamona preview cut - Fanny becomes as important a character, if not more important, then George. Why this happened is anybody's guess. Maybe the war, maybe his experience making KANE, maybe the fact that he had Agnes Morehead giving such a stunning performance as Fanny.

I agree that the reason Welles frequently treated radio narration in a casual, offhand manner is probably because he was very conscious of having to fit these shows into neat little 1-hour or 30-minute packages. Yes, Welles narration in the movie Ambersons is some of the greatest in American film, revealing a depth of feeling not evident in the radio version. It's interesting that Welles considered the Major's death scene to be the point where the film ceased to be his and became the studio's. This is also the point in the story where Welles' narration returns to the film, having been absent since just before the ballroom scene. Welles' narration was also a victim of studio recutting.

[colwood]

After this thread was first begun, I decided to go and listen to my copy of the Ambersons radio show and compare to the movie, which I also viewed again to brush up.

I knew going into the radio version that Fanny was not present. I also knew that Welles played Georgie. I have listened to the show 2 or 3 times now and I have to say that my impression is that, yes, Welles does use an almost nasally voice as George, but I don't think that he is bad at it. If anything, I think it offers a different variation on a complex character. And with that nasally voice, almost comes off more of a moma's boy than Tim Holt did in the movie. I like his narration, but of course, his narration in the movie is not only great, but clearly one of the best narrative tracks in cinema history. I like Walter Huston as Eugene, but I clearly think that Joseph Cotten was much better suited for the role. As for Fanny, when I first heard the radio version and then viewed the movie (for only the second time ever), I actually liked the radio version better. Fanny, I first thought, was a weak, pathetic character and the story worked better without her. But upon a number of subsequent viewings did I realize how good and relevant her character is towards making this a complex story.

And Tony, I took a listen to the broadcast again, Everett Sloane plays Archie Malik Smith and Richard Wilson plays Rev. Malik Smith, they are the young boy and father that the young George attacks when provoked (the boy who calls George a girl and then challenges him to get off the horse carriage). I had to take a couple of listens but I'm almost postive that it is Everett Sloane playing the young boy.