By RAY KELLY
With the financial backing of a classic movies channel secured and a COVID-19 vaccine available, documentarian Josh Grossberg will travel to Brazil in September in search of Orson Welles’ lost, longer version of The Magnificent Ambersons.
TCM announced today it will distribute the documentary Grossberg intends to shoot about his quixotic quest for cinema’s Holy Grail.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that we will find the print,” Grossberg told Welesnet, adding the September expedition “is our last, best chance of finding the original version of The Magnificent Ambersons.”
With editing underway on Welles’ sophomore effort for RKO Pictures, the studio ordered him to Brazil in February 1942 to direct the ill-fated It’s All True. According to RKO memos and cables, two groupings of Ambersons footage (14 reels and another 10), as well as 10 reels of Journey Into Fear, were shipped to Brazil so Welles could edit the film. However, after a test audience reacted badly at a preview, RKO ordered a happier ending to be shot in Welles’ absence and cut the movie down to 88 minutes.
The excised footage and outtakes stored in RKO’s vault were subsequently destroyed.
“They destroyed Ambersons,” Welles would say four decades later, “and the picture itself destroyed me; I didn’t get a job as a director for years afterwards.”
Grossberg theorizes the 131-minute rough cut sent to Brazil could be in the hands of private collectors there.
More than two years after Welles left Brazil, RKO instructed Cinedia Studios in Rio de Janiero, which Welles used as a base in 1942, to junk the reels of The Magnificent Ambersons and Jouney Into Fear left behind. Cinedia owner Adhemar Gonzaga, a cineaste and film collector, notified RKO he had followed their orders.
During a trip to Brazil a quarter of a century ago, Grossberg met Michel do Esprito Santo, an archivist. He claimed he saw a Welles print in a film can at Cinedia, though he could not confirm it was The Magnificent Ambersons.
The archivist searched for it later, but it was gone — possibly trashed or sold to a private collector.
Grossberg has identified four private collectors who bought films from the Cinedia warehouses.
“The challenge, of course, is tracking down the film collectors … or their families if they’re no longer with us,” Grossberg said. “It’s also worth noting that Ambersons had a different name in Portuguese, Soberba, and while Welles directed the film, he never starred in it — so it’s possible whoever has the print in his possession may not realize its value.”
A journalist and award winning filmmaker, Grossberg has teamed with producers Joseph Schroeder, known for his work for PBS, National Geographic, A&E and Discovery; and Gary Greenblatt, an award winning digital content producer, app developer and hard core Welles enthusiast.
Their feature-length documentary will air in July 2022 on Turner Classic Movies. If Welles’ longer cut is found, TCM hopes to screen it next year to mark Ambersons’ 80th anniversary
“We know it’s a long shot but if these guys are able to find Orson Welles’ version of the film it would be one of the greatest discoveries in the history of cinema,” said Charlie Tabesh, senior vice-president, programming and content strategy for TCM, in a statement. “It’s too important not to try.”
Grossberg and his team had hoped to launch his search last year, but the pandemic forced him to delay those plans.
While it is a long shot the lost Magnificent Ambersons footage has survived the passage of nearly 80 years, it is not beyond the realms of possibility.
Previously “lost” films found many decades later include:
• A 16mm reduction negative of Fritz Lang’s original cut of the 1927 classic Metropolis was discovered in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2008.
• Silent footage from Welles’ 1938 stage production of Too Much Johnson turned up in a warehouse in Pordenone, Italy in 2008.
• A print of John Ford’s 1927 comedy Upstream was found in the New Zealand Film Archive in 2009.
“It’s been 80 years since The Magnificent Ambersons was made and a lot can happen in that time. Celluloid recorded on nitrate was utilized in Hollywood up until about 1950 before acetate took over and was highly flammable. And nitrate wasn’t easy to store as well,” Grossberg said. “Archives here in the States usually kept their nitrate films stored at 40 degrees Fahrenheit and 30% humidity so they wouldn’t deteriorate.”
He added, “Obviously, Brazil is a tropical country and quite hot and humid. So, we’d be lucky indeed if any archive or film collector unwittingly in possession of the print stored it correctly. However, even if not, and we can locate the missing reels and find they are degraded and in bad shape, there are technologies today which didn’t exist 30 years ago that might be able to restore the film.”
Grossberg had hoped to begin his hunt last year, but the pandemic made that impossible.
“Brazil is having a challenging time getting a handle on COVID. We were hoping to make this trip in 2020 but the lockdowns made that impossible. However, my team and I are fully vaccinated and my expectation is that the pace of vaccinations in Brazil picks up so by summer, things have settled down and we’ll be able to make the trip. There is film production happening both here and in Brazil with COVID protocols in place including regular testing and social distancing. By the time we arrive this September, I expect that any local crews we work with will be fully vaccinated. Regardless, we will implement the necessary guidelines provided by the Brazilian government to ensure everyone’s safety.”
(Follow @LostPrintMovie on Twitter and Instagram or visit thelostprint.com)
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