Just saw Ambersons for the first time...

[Joshua]

It took me awhile, but I finally tracked down a VHS copy of The Magnificent Ambersons at my University library yesterday--and I watched today. I must say, that all the things I have read about how this film was mutilated hardly do it justice. It was probably the most frustrating viewing experience of my life. You can see the greatness--it's right there--so close. I thank RKO for giving Orson a chance to make Citizen Kane, but what they did to Ambersons is the biggest tragedy the movie business will ever see. I suppose it will take many viewings for me to attempt to appreciate what is actually there, not what could have been. All in all, this is a pretty darn good movie, even in its current state. But what happened to Major Amberson? I assume he must have died--but it's never mentioned is it? The movie feels so rushed through most it, never more than the ending which is simply forced on you. How are we as viewers supposed to accept that? This entire movie leads up to cheerfully walking down the hall--everything is just ok despite all these absolutely horrible things that have happened to these people. Sickening. What Orson could have done had he been given final cut--this could have been one of the best films of all time. I have a hard time believing it could be better than Kane, but when you take the vision of a film genius and place it in the hands of lesser artists and what is born is Ambersons in its current state--still a hell of a good movie--who knows what could have happened.

Sorry for the rant, but I knew you faithful Welles viewers would understand and sympathize much more than my wife--I'm sure she would thank you for sparing her from a similar and probably much longer and less coherent verbal rant.

By the way...does anybody know where I can read the vanity fair article from '02 about Ambersons? My library doesn't have a copy...

[purplepines]

I like these lines of dialogue from the film, which were removed, of course. (in chronological order):

At the beginning, Orson's narration from a one minute cut shot after Eugene (Joe Cotton) tries on all the clothes
Orson: "The pioneers were thrifty or they would have perished...they often feared they hadn't stored enough...They left traces of that fear in their sons and grandsons"

At the party at the Ambersons mansion
Jack (to Isabel and Eugene): Do you know what I think whenever I see these smooth...triumphal young faces? I always think, Oh, how you're going to catch it!"

Then
Jack: I suppose you know that all these young faces have got to get lines on 'em?
Isabel: Maybe they won't. Maybe times will change and nobody will have to wear lines.

And then
Eugene: The deepest wrinkles are carved by lack of faith. The serenest brow is the one that believes the most.
Isabel: In what?
Eugene: In everything.

And then
Jack: Angel? My nephew? Look at him. Do you see an angel?
Eugene: All I see is a remarkably good-looking young fool-boy with the pride of Satan and a set of nice drawing-room manners.

Also
Eugene: Mothers are right. Mothers see the angel in us because the angel is there.

At the end of the sleigh ride sequence, everyone's packed in the car.
Isabel (in front with Eugene): When we get this far out you can see there's quite a little smoke hanging over town. (They all stop singing)
Jack: Yes, that's because the town's growing.
Eugene: Yes, and as it grows bigger it seems to get ashamed of itself, so it makes that big cloud and hides in it.

Then
Lucy: I feel as if I must be missing something about it, somehow, because I don't ever seem to be thinking about what's happening at the present moment. I'm always looking forward to something...thinking about things that will happen when I'm older.

Also
George: (glaring as Jack joins Lucy in song): There's a few people that, from their birth and position and so on, puts them on top, and they ought to treat each other entirely as equals. I wouldn't speak like this to everybody.

Later, Major Amberson and Jack in a carriage.
Jack: Never mind, Father. Don't think of it. When things are a nuisance, it's a good idea not to keep remembering 'em.
Major: I try not to. I try to keep remembering that I won't be remembering anything now very long...Not so very long, my boy...Not so very long now, huh...not so very long!

Later. Lucy and Jack walking toward the Morgan mansion.
Jack: I wonder, Lucy, if history's going on forever repeating itself. I wonder if this town's going on building up things and rolling over them...


Later.Major Amberson staring into a fireplace, right before his death. (In the film there is a crass fadeout from this)
Major: We go back to the earth we came out of, so the earth goes back to the sun it came out of...and in a little while we'll all be back in the sun together. And time means nothing, just nothing at all. I wish--
George (offscreen): Did you want anything, Grandfather?
Major: Huh.
George (offscreen): Would you like a glass of water.
Major (speaking slowly): No...no I...I don't want anything at all. I wish somebody could tell me...

[Joshua]

You know, it might be stupid of me, but I still hold out hope that some where an original cut will be found. That kind of stuff happens all the time--such and such feared lost forever miraculously found. If not, hopefully the video library in heaven contains it

[nextren]

All in all, this is a pretty darn good movie, even in its current state.[...] in its current state--still a hell of a good movie[...]

I agree. I recently saw it for the first time (on TCM), without preconceptions, and I only disliked the last shot. Later, nagging questions occurred to me about what happened to everyone. But while watching it, I was struck by the beauty of its visuals, soundtrack, story, acting.

It hangs together, but could have been so much more.

[NoFake]

Joshua asked:

[quote]By the way...does anybody know where I can read the vanity fair article from '02 about Ambersons? My library doesn't have a copy.../quote]

You may want to check eBay. I found it being offered (together with another issue) for $4.95.

[Joshua]

Joshua asked:

By the way...does anybody know where I can read the vanity fair article from '02 about Ambersons? My library doesn't have a copy.../quote]

You may want to check eBay. I found it being offered (together with another issue) for $4.95.

Cool--I'll check that out. Thanks.

[Joshua]

All in all, this is a pretty darn good movie, even in its current state.[...] in its current state--still a hell of a good movie[...]

I agree. I recently saw it for the first time (on TCM), without preconceptions, and I only disliked the last shot. Later, nagging questions occurred to me about what happened to everyone. But while watching it, I was struck by the beauty of its visuals, soundtrack, story, acting.

It hangs together, but could have been so much more.

Yeah, I think my preconceptions ruined the first viewing for me at times. At other times, I simply forgot about it and appreciated the "Wellesian" things that still shine through. The ending really set me off though. Such a shame.

[Store Hadji]

Here's the ending of the radio version:

Narrator: The night George saw his uncle off he walked homeward slowly through what appeared to be strange streets in a strange city, for the town was growing and changing as it had never grown and changed before. It was heaving up in the middle incredibly, and as it heaved and spread it befouled itself and darkened its sky. From day to day, from week to week, great new industries were springing up, steel and oil, and this new all-conquering thing, the automobile.

Strange people swarmed about him obliterating, destroying every trace of the magnificence that once was Amberson, destroying with it the last of the Ambersons, George Amberson Minafer. The city rolled over his heart and buried it, as the city had rolled over Ambersons and buried them to the last vestige. A thing had happened, the thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many. The hope of many good citizens had finally come to pass, but not one of them was there to see it. George Amberson Minafer got his comeuppance. He got it three-times filled and running over.

Later, as he walked down Amberson Boulevard, now known as Tenth Street and filled with second-rate shops and cheap boarding houses, and climbed the stairs of the old house for the last time, a terrible loneliness assailed him. He opened the door, softly, into Isabel's room. It was still as it had been. Tomorrow everything would be gone, and soon after that the very space which tonight was still her room would be cut into new shapes by new walls and floors and ceilings.

Yet, Isabel's room would always live, for it couldn't die out of George's memory, and whatever remained of that old high-handed arrogance was still within him, he did penance for his deepest sins that night, and it may be to this day, some impressionable, over-worked woman in a kitchenette, after turning out the light, will seem to see a young man kneeling in the darkness, clutching at the covers of a shadowy bed, and it may seem to her that she hears a faint cry, over and over...

George: Mother. Mother, forgive me. Mother? Mother. Forgive me.

Narrator: You must have guessed by now who George Amberson Minafer was. Take my word for it, please, that the George Amberson Minafer who was, is no more.

[Door opens]

Lucy: Poppa.

Eugene: Why Lucy! What brings you downtown this morning?

Lucy: I tried to get you at one of the factories, but no one could locate you. I wanted to talk to you, Poppa. Are you very busy?

Eugene: I'm never too busy to talk to you, Lucy. Is something wrong?

Lucy: Yes, Poppa, there is something wrong. It's George.

Eugene: George? You mean...

Lucy: Yes, Poppa, George Minafer.

Eugene: Well?

Lucy: He's been hurt, badly hurt. He's in the city hospital, both his legs broken.

Eugene: That's too bad.

Lucy: He was run down by an automobile.

Eugene: An automobile? George Amberson Minafer run down by an automobile.

Lucy: Poppa, do you know what he's been doing the past two years?

Eugene: No, no, and I couldn't honestly say, Lucy, that I'm very interested.

Lucy: He's been working with explosives at the Akers Chemical Company, a dangerous job, the most dangerous job there is.

Eugene: Well, I never thought he lacked nerve, Lucy.

Lucy: You don't understand, Poppa. No one else would take the job. He needed work so badly he took it, and... and Poppa, he's made good. He's changed. He's not the old George at all, and now this has happened to him.

Eugene: Well?

Lucy: I want you to go to see him.

Eugene: No, Lucy. After all, you can't expect me to have any particular affection for that young man.

Lucy: I'm sure that Isabel...

Eugene: Isabel... Isabel's been dead three years... three years... and if it hadn't been for him, she might... she might -

Lucy: It's what she would want you to do, Poppa. You know that. She'd want you to be kind. She'd want you to come with me to the hospital. He's lonely, Poppa. His heart's broken. He needs us. We can help him. You could do so much for him, and I... I could... Well, Poppa, what are you going to do?

[music cue]

Eugene: Isabel, my dear, up there in that small, bare hospital room this afternoon, you were by my side. Do you remember, Isabel, that last day we were together? You said that things in our lives were like smoke, and time like the sky into which the smoke vanishes, and I told you that, for us, things would not change like that, that we would always be together. You were with me when I walked into that room where your son was lying, with Lucy sitting beside him. He felt you too. He lifted his hand in a queer gesture, half forbidding, half imploring. "You've come," he said, "you must have felt my mother wanted you to come, so that I could ask you to forgive me." And as he held my hand in his... if you could have seen Lucy's face at that moment, dear Isabel, she was radiant, but for me another radiance filled the room... for then I knew that I had been true to you at last, my true love, and that through me, you had brought your boy under shelter again.

[Joshua]

That's good stuff. Thanks Store Hadji.

[Joshua]

I just wanted to revisit this thread because I've now seen the studio Ambersons five times and Roger Ryan's (fantastic work Roger) version twice. I still find the studio version to be very much a sock to the stomach at the end. Even though all the other changes and cuts distort the story and are confusing, I just can't stand the end. I don't even like the dialogue, which I guess is mostly from Welles's script. I'm not fond at all of the line that goes something like "I was finally true to my one true love." I suppose just the context of the merry walk down the hall could have ruined the dialogue for me. But the more I think about it, I think that Cotton and Moorhead could definitely have saved the scene, simply through mood and acting. More of a somber mood, especially from Fanny, would make this dialogue acceptable.

Another scene I just don't like is the indian scene in the garden with Lucy and Eugene. It's almost silly, and way too obvious. Was this scene shot by Welles?

What I am happy about is that repeat viewing has allowed me to focus on the Wellesian aspects of the film. This film without a doubt has some of the best long takes I have ever seen. Agnes Moorhead is BRILLIANT as Fanny. The score is fantastic, and most of the camera work is as well. Also, there are parts of this film where the mise en scène is the best I've ever seen. Of course, an example of this is the ballroom scene. But I also love the short gossip scene in the beginning where the lady is getting dressed, and she is talking about Isabel having the most spoiled children the town has ever seen. Beautifully done.

[Roger Ryan]

[quote="Joshua"]
Another scene I just don't like is the indian scene in the garden with Lucy and Eugene. It's almost silly, and way too obvious. Was this scene shot by Welles?
quote]

This scene was shot by Welles, but it really only makes sense coming after the complete fall of the Ambersons (the studio cut moves it up to right after Jack's train station farewell which is pointless); as you say, it's an "obvious" comment on that fall and I think it works as a good time transition from the point where George and Fanny move out of the mansion to George's accident (again, the studio cut has the accident immediately following George's comeuppance scene which is too abrupt).

For me, the garden scene works because of the subtext. Note how removed both Eugene and Lucy are from the tragedy of the Ambersons; this disconnect ties in well with the tone of the original boarding house finale where Eugene seems oblivious to Fanny's discomfort (his "romantic-to-a-fault" disposition allows him to say that ridiculous "one true love" line with a straight-face, not realizing how hurtful and absurd it sounds). The strangeness of Lucy's line about how she wants no one but her father mirrors George's Oedipal relationship with his mother. I love how Cotten as Eugene is taken aback by this line, then quickly changes the subject.

I believe Welles began thinking that Tarkington's ending (and the ending to the radio version) was unrealistic. His shifting of location and tone (from the hospital room to the boarding house) brought a new level of irony to Eugene's lines as written by Tarkington. These aren't inner thoughts being expressed in voice-over, but actual statements being made to Fanny. The audience is meant to recognize that Fanny is having old wounds torn open by Eugene's thoughtless musings on his deceased love, that Eugene has contributed to the change that has crushed the Ambersons way of life. He hopes he can make everything better again by visiting Fanny and telling of his reconciliation with George, not understanding why Fanny wants nothing to do with him.

JACK: "Have you danced with poor old Fanny too, this evening?"
EUGENE: "Twice."
JACK: "My gosh, old times certainly are starting all over again."
EUGENE: "Old times? Not a bit! There aren't any old times. When times are gone, they're not old, they're dead! There aren't any times but new times."

The irony of the boarding house scene is that Eugene has forgotten about his own maxim expressed earlier in the film; he goes to Fanny not realizing how much time has changed their circumstances. The reason the re-shot hospital corridor ending feels like a "sock to the stomach" (and not in a good way) is that it pretends the old times are starting all over again.

By the way - thanks Joshua, I'm glad you liked the reconstruction.

[tonyw]

Thank you, Roger, for this very expert reading. Since I;m teaching a class on Nicholas Ray at the moment, I'd also like to mention that the producer of THE TRUE STORY OF JESSE JAMES (1957) insisted that Moorehead's performance as Jesse's mother was too "hysterical" in the sequence where her son is whipped so insisted on reshooting with more subdued acting. Doesn't this sound familiar?

[Tony]

I was talking to another Welles buff a while back and we both agreed that Moorehead is indeed too hysterical in many scenes in Ambersons. She overplays too such an extent that she unbalances the film, much to the director's delight, as he told Bogdanovich years later Aunt Fanny was central to the story: "that was the big role". Very oddly, though, there is no Aunt Fanny in the radio play at all. I'm on record here in Wellesland as being against the majority in my not liking the script for Welles's ending, especially since Aunt Fanny couldn't very well be expected to stay in that awful boarding house once her nephew married into money. In fact, the studio returned to Tarkington for the words Morgan says to Aunt Fanny at the end. I think the studio was on the right track in changing Welle's ending, but they just didn't go far enough: they should have had Fanny, Eugene, Georgie and Lucy (and maybe even Jack!) in the hospital room, with a grand reunion and with Eugene saying or voicing over those same lines- which I think are very beautiful.

In my opinion, the more the director became obsessed with the Fanny character, the more this wonderful ensemble piece became unbalanced; however,even Welles recognized something needed to be done to ameliorate the downbeat ending he had devised, since he wrote a possible alternative credits scenario (even though he still has poor Fanny improbably living in that miserable boarding house, while the others are living in opulance):

"ORSON WELLES TO JACK MOSS:

April 2, 1942

To leave audience happy for AMBERSONS, remake cast credits as follows and in this order:

First, oval framed old fashioned picture, very authentic looking of Bennett in Civil War campaign hat. Second, live shot of Ray Collins, no insert, in elegant white ducks and hair whiter than normal seated on tropical veranda with ocean and waving palm tree behind him—Negro servant serving him second long cool drink. Third, Aggie blissfully and busily playing bridge with cronies in boarding house. Fourth, circular locket with authentic old fashioned picture of Costello in ringlets, looking very young. Fifth, Jo Cotton at French window closing watch case obviously containing Costello's picture tying in with previous shot; sound of car driving away. Jo turns, looks out window and waves. Sixth, Tim Holt and Anne Baster in open car—Tim shifting gears but looking over shoulder—as he does this, Anne looking same direction and waving, they turn to each other then look forward both very happy and gay and attractive for fadeout. Then fade in mike shot for my closing lines as before. "

For more info:

Ambersons memeos: http://ambersons.com/Memos.htm

Ambersons visuals: http://ambersons.com/main.htm

[Joshua]

I believe Welles began thinking that Tarkington's ending (and the ending to the radio version) was unrealistic. His shifting of location and tone (from the hospital room to the boarding house) brought a new level of irony to Eugene's lines as written by Tarkington. These aren't inner thoughts being expressed in voice-over, but actual statements being made to Fanny. The audience is meant to recognize that Fanny is having old wounds torn open by Eugene's thoughtless musings on his deceased love, that Eugene has contributed to the change that has crushed the Ambersons way of life. He hopes he can make everything better again by visiting Fanny and telling of his reconciliation with George, not understanding why Fanny wants nothing to do with him.

Very well put, that is exactly what I think could have saved the ending, and made the semi-goofy Eugene lines work. Excellent insight, that clears alot up for me--and makes me yearn for the original version even more.

As you mention Roger, I suppose it is unfair to the work as a whole to say that certain scenes, like the garden scene, don't work--simply because they have been taken out of context through editing. I don't think I ever thought of the scene in terms of the "disconnect" that exists now between the two families, and I guess that is true. Another problem I have with the scene, the bright and cheery lighting (even though I know it is outside--it just doesn't fit with the mood at that point) makes sense when you look at it that way.

Tony, that is certainly an interesting memo from Welles. Do you think that indeed he felt that changes needed to be made? Or was this in response to the bad previews and generally negative opinion from the studio of the film? I see you have the date noted on the memo, but I'm not 100% certain when the previews took place.

Moorhead is too "hysterical" in parts of Ambersons, it's true, but I think that is required of the character. Moorhead was, of course, capable of being calm and subdued, as proven in Citizen Kane. Fanny is desperate for attention and I think she is for much of the movie attempting to be a sort of Amberson, and she just doesn't quite fit in, she is an uncomfortable character. The only time I think she may have taken it a bit too far is right after she is on the floor leaning up against the boiler ("I wouldn't care if it burned me!") and there is the tracking shot of her laughing and crying while stumbling forward with George grasping her. Incidentally though, that is one of my favorite scenes in the movie--"It's not hot it's cold!" I think it works, and works perfectly--but I can see how you and others could have a problem with her performance, even though, as you mention, this is exactly what Welles wanted from her.

[Roger Ryan]

Joshua - The initial AMBERSONS previews were held on March 17th and 19th, 1942. On March 23rd, Moss sent Welles a telegram describing the audience response at both previews and detailing a plan to re-edit the entire film (this plan already contained most the changes that would be made for the 88 min. final cut). So when Welles cabled Moss on April 2nd with his idea for a more upbeat end credit sequence he realized the film was in trouble. Had Welles not heard about the bad audience reaction at the previews, I'm sure he never would have suggested redoing the end credits.

Tony - I'm not certain it's completely improbable for Fanny to remain at the boarding house if Lucy and George marry. It's clear throughout the film that Fanny sees herself as an outsider and it appears that much of her neurosis is due to her inability to measure up to the Ambersons. With her fragile psyche, it's quite possible that she would prefer to remain among the less successful folk. I could almost imagine another scene in which Eugene, George and Lucy try to persuade her to move into the Morgan Mansion and she steadfastly refuses.

As to the claim of "overacting": well, one of my delights in watching the film is watching Fanny unwind! There are few good neurotic characterizations from this era of film and Moorehead's Fanny Minafer is one of the best. I should add that I have had personal experience with people who have had similar mental collapses, so I don't necessarily see the performance as unrealistic. The question is does Moorehead prepare for the ultimate hysteria, is it logical that she reaches that point? I think she does.