The Magnificent Ambersons is a
1942The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
American drama film written and directed by
Orson WellesGeorge Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
. His second feature film, it is based on the 1918
novel of the same nameThe Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for novel. It was the second novel in his Growth trilogy, which included The Turmoil and The Midlander . In 1925 the novel was first adapted for film under the title Pampered Youth...
by
Booth TarkingtonBooth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams...
and stars
Joseph CottenJoseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
,
Dolores CostelloDolores Costello was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen"...
,
Anne BaxterAnne Baxter was an American actress known for her performances in films such as The Magnificent Ambersons , The Razor's Edge , All About Eve and The Ten Commandments .-Early life:...
,
Tim HoltTim Holt was an American film actor perhaps best known for co-starring in the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.-Early life:...
,
Agnes MooreheadAgnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
and
Ray CollinsRay Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio, and television. One of Collins' best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason.- Biography :...
. Welles provides the voiceover narration.
Tarkington's novel had originally been filmed in 1925 by
Vitagraph PicturesAmerican Vitagraph was a United States movie studio, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York. By 1907 it was the most prolific American film production company, producing many famous silent films. It was bought by Warner Bros...
, starring
Cullen LandisCullen Landis was an American motion picture actor and director whose career began in the early years of the silent film era.-Biography:...
,
Alice CalhounAlice Calhoun was an American silent film actress.-Film star:Born Alice Beatrice Calhoun in Cleveland, Ohio, she made her film debut in a role not credited in 1918 and went on to appear in another forty-seven films between then and 1929. As a star with Vitagraph in New York City, she moved with...
and
Allan ForrestAllan Forrest was an American silent film actor.-Life and career:He starred in 119 films mostly silent between 1913 and 1932 in films such as The Torch Bearer, with actresses such as Charlotte Burton....
, and directed by
David SmithDavid Smith , was an English film director of the silent era. He directed 79 films between 1915 and 1927.He was born in Faversham, Kent, and died in Santa Barbara, California.-External links:...
. Welles adapted it for radio in 1939 for the
Mercury Theatre of the AirThe Mercury Theatre was a theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and John Houseman. After a string of live theatrical productions, in 1938 the Mercury Theatre progressed into their best-known period as The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a radio series that included one of the...
. The only actor from that production who also appeared in the film was Ray Collins.
Welles lost control of the editing of The Magnificent Ambersons to RKO, and the final version released to audiences differed significantly from his vision for the film. More than an hour of footage was cut by the studio, and a new, happier ending was shot and tacked on. Although Welles's extensive notes for how he wished the film to be cut survived, the excised scenes did not.
A TV movie was made in 2002 using the Welles screenplay and his editing notes. It was directed by
Alfonso Arau-Biography:Arau was born in Mexico City, the son of a doctor. He directed the films Zapata: The Dream of a Hero, Like Water for Chocolate , A Walk in the Clouds with Keanu Reeves and Anthony Quinn, and the Hallmark Hall of Fame production A Painted House, adapted from the John Grisham novel of the...
and starred
Madeleine StoweMadeleine Mora Stowe is an American actress. She rose to prominence appearing in films such as Stakeout, Revenge, Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, Blink, China Moon, 12 Monkeys, and We Were Soldiers...
,
Bruce GreenwoodBruce Greenwood is a Canadian actor and musician. He is generally known for his roles as U.S. presidents in Thirteen Days and National Treasure: Book of Secrets and for his role as Captain Christopher Pike in the 2009 Star Trek film...
, Jonathan Rhys Meyers,
Gretchen MolGretchen Mol is an American actress and former model. She is known for her roles in films like Rounders, Celebrity, 3:10 to Yuma, The Thirteenth Floor,and The Notorious Bettie Page, where she played the title character...
and
Jennifer TillyJennifer Tilly is an American actress and poker player. She is an Academy Award nominee, and a World Series of Poker Ladies' Event bracelet winner. She is the older sister of actress Meg Tilly.-Early life:...
. This film does not, however, strictly follow Welles's screenplay. It lacks several scenes that are in the 1942 version, and also has essentially the same happy ending.
Even in its radically altered form, the 1942 film is often regarded as among the best American films ever made, a distinction it shares with Welles' first film,
Citizen KaneCitizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
.
In 1991, The Magnificent Ambersons was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was included in Sight and Sounds 1972 list of the top ten greatest films ever made, and again in 1982's list.
Plot
Set in the early 1900s, the film tells the story of the Ambersons, an upper-class Indianapolis family, focusing on Major Amberson's grandson, George (
Tim HoltTim Holt was an American film actor perhaps best known for co-starring in the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.-Early life:...
). At the beginning of the film, George is home on break from college, and his mother Isabel (
Dolores CostelloDolores Costello was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen"...
) and grandfather (
Richard BennettRichard Bennett may refer to:* Richard Bennett , film star and father of actresses Constance Bennett and Joan Bennett* Richard Bennett , English cricketer...
) hold a reception in his honor. Among the guests are the widowed Eugene Morgan (
Joseph CottenJoseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
), a prosperous automobile manufacturer who has just returned to town after a twenty-year absence, and his daughter, Lucy (
Anne BaxterAnne Baxter was an American actress known for her performances in films such as The Magnificent Ambersons , The Razor's Edge , All About Eve and The Ten Commandments .-Early life:...
). George instantly takes to the beautiful and charming Lucy, but seems to scorn and dislike Eugene almost instinctively.
The patriarch of the Amberson-Minafer family, Wilbur Minafer (Donald Dillaway), dies. Eugene's automobile plant continues to prosper, and soon he builds a mansion to challenge the magnificence of the Ambersons'. During a dinner party, George tells Eugene that he thinks "automobiles are a useless nuisance, which had no business being invented." The other family members are taken aback by his rude demeanor, but Eugene interjects by saying that George may turn out to be right, since he knows that automobiles are going to drastically alter human civilization, for better or worse. George then learns from his uncle Jack Amberson (
Ray CollinsRay Collins may refer to:*Ray Collins , American actor*Ray Collins , pitcher in Major League Baseball*Ray Collins , American football defensive tackle*Ray Collins , cartoonist...
) and aunt Fanny (
Agnes MooreheadAgnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
) that Eugene and Isabel had once been an item. He is particularly enraged by his aunt's implication that not only did Isabel always love Eugene — even during her life with George's father, Wilbur — but that people in town are gossiping about this juicy tidbit.
Eugene continues to court Isabel and then decides to ask for her hand in marriage. Sensing the developing intensity of their relationship, George takes control and rebuffs a planned visit from Eugene at the door of the Amberson mansion. Isabel's love for George overrides her love for Eugene, so she complies with his demands, even though she is aware of what has transpired and that George is trying to keep her from Eugene. George takes his mother on a world tour, ostensibly to get away from the "scandalous" talk in the town of her love for Eugene even prior to her husband's death, but clearly also simply to remove her from the possibility of a relationship with him. Before leaving for Europe, George attempts to get Lucy to reveal sorrow that he is leaving, perhaps forever, but she feigns cheerful insouciance concealing her true pain.
George and his mother travel, then live in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
for a while, until her illness compels their return to the United States, where George still acts as gatekeeper for those who wish to see the dying Isabel. Eugene comes to visit her, and George refuses him as Isabel lies on her deathbed. Shortly after her death, her grief-stricken father dies. For reasons that are not made clear in the movie (but which Tarkington's novel makes clear stem from unfortunate investments in cotton mills and a predilicition for
opiumOpium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
), George's grandfather does not leave what remains of his estate to anyone in the family, leaving George and the other family members to fend for themselves financially. Lucy does not reconcile with George, and tells her father a story about a
Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
chieftan who was "pushed out on a canoe into the sea" when he became too obnoxious and overbearing (used as an analogy for George).
As the entire family's fortune has been depleted, George immediately decides to give up his job at a law firm and go work in a factory which pays more, in order to take care of Aunt Fanny, who has descended into
psychosisPsychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
. The film ends with George wandering around an increasingly polluted city, confused and disoriented by how fast industrial civilization has risen around him.
An additional ending shot without Welles' consent shows George getting injured in an automobile accident, and Eugene later reconciling with him at the hospital.
Soundtrack
A CD of the soundtrack to this film was released in 1990 in the US. The pieces were totally re-recorded.
All pieces by
Bernard HerrmannBernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
. Re-recorded by the Australian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Tony Bremner.
- "Theme and Variations/George's Homecoming" (07:18)
- "Snow Ride" (03:05)
- "The Door/Death and Youth" (00:56)
- "Toccata" (01:12)
- "Pleasure Trip" (01:06)
- "Prelude" (01:30)
- "First Nocturne" (04:08)
- "Garden Scene" (01:14)
- "Fantasia" (02:11)
- "Scene Pathetique" (02:19)
- "Waiting" (01:32)
- "Ostinato" (01:52)
- "First Letter Scene" (03:25)
- "Second Letter Scene/Romanza" (02:12)
- "Second Nocturne" (03:22)
- "Departure/Isabel's Death" (01:47)
- "First Reverie/Second Reverie" (02:40)
- "The Walk Home" (02:49)
- "Garden Music" (02:59)
- "Elegy" (01:23)
- "End Title" (02:20)
Production
The Magnificent Ambersons was in production at RKO's Gower Street studios in Los Angeles from 28 October 1941 through 22 January 1942 on a set constructed like a real house, but in which walls could be rolled back, raised or lowered to allow the camera to appear to pass through them in a continuous take. RKO later used many of the film's sets for its low-budget films, including the series of horror films produced by
Val LewtonVal Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s.-Early life:...
. Location shooting took place at various places around the Los Angeles area, including
Big Bear LakeBig Bear Lake is a reservoir in the San Bernardino Mountains, in San Bernardino County, California, United States. At a surface elevation of , it has an east-west length of approximately 7 miles and is approximately 2.5 miles at its widest measurement, though the lake's width mostly averages a...
, the
San Bernardino National ForestSan Bernardino National Forest is a federally-managed forest covering more than 800,000 acres . There are two main divisions which are the San Bernardino Mountains on the easternmost of the Transverse Range, and the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains on the northernmost of the Peninsular...
and
East Los AngelesEast Los Angeles is the portion of the City of Los Angeles that lies east of Downtown Los Angeles, the Los Angeles River and the unincorporated areas of Lincoln Heights, west of the San Gabriel Valley, East Los Angeles and City Terrace, south of Cypress Park, and north of Vernon, California and...
. Snow scenes were shot in the Union Ice Company ice house in downtown L.A. The film was made on an estimated budget of $850,000.
The original rough cut of the film was approximately 135 minutes in length. Welles felt that the film needed to be shortened and, after receiving a mixed response from a March 17 preview audience in
Pomona-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Pomona had a population of 149,058, a slight decline from the 2000 census population. The population density was 6,491.2 people per square mile...
, film editor
Robert WiseRobert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
removed several minutes from it. The film was previewed again, but the audience's response did not improve.
Because Welles had conceded his original contractual right to do the final cut in a negotiation with RKO over a film that Welles was obliged to direct but never did, RKO was able to take over the editing of the film once Welles had delivered a first cut. This resulted in RKO deleting over 40 additional minutes and reshooting the ending in late April and early May, directed by assistant director Fred Fleck, Robert Wise, and Jack Moss, the business manager of Welles' Mercury Theater. The retakes replaced Welles' original ending with a happier one that broke significantly with the film's elegiac tone. The reshot ending is, however, identical to the ending of the novel.
Welles did not approve of the cuts, but because he was simultaneously working in Brazil on another project for RKO –
Nelson RockefellerNelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
had personally asked him to make a film in Latin America as part of the wartime
Good Neighbor PolicyThe Good Neighbor policy was the foreign policy of the administration of United States President Franklin Roosevelt toward the countries of Latin America. Its main principle was that of non-intervention and non-interference in the domestic affairs of Latin America...
– his attempts to protect his version ultimately failed. Details of Welles' conflict over the editing are included in the 1993 documentary about the Brazilian film
It's All TrueIt's All True was the title of an unfinished Orson Welles feature film of three stories about Latin America. "My Friend Bonito" was shot in 1941 and both "The Story of Samba" and "Four Men on a Raft" in 1942...
.
The negatives for the excised portions of The Magnificent Ambersons were later destroyed in order to free vault space. A print of the rough cut was sent to Welles in Brazil, but it has yet to be found and is generally considered to be lost along with the prints from the previews. Robert Wise maintained that the original was not better than the edited version.
The Magnificent Ambersons is one of the earliest films in movie history in which nearly all the credits are spoken by an off-screen voice and not shown printed onscreen — a technique being used before only by French director and player
Sacha GuitryAlexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...
. The only credits shown onscreen are the RKO logo, "A Mercury Production by Orson Welles", and the film's title, shown at the very beginning of the picture. At the end of the film, Orson Welles's voice announces all the main credits. Each actor in the film is shown as Welles announces their name. As he speaks each technical credit, a machine is shown performing that function — e.g., when Welles announces the name of the film editor, an editing machine appears onscreen, and when he announces "Sound recording by", a sound recording console is working onscreen. Notably missing from the list of spoken credits is any mention of the music written by
Bernard HerrmannBernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
. Herrmann strongly objected to his score being recut and portions replaced with music by Roy Webb, and demanded his name be removed from the credits. The movie also included music not by Herrmann - for example, an arrangement of the obscure Parisian waltz Toujours où jamais by
Émile WaldteufelÉmile Waldteufel was a French composer of dance music.-Life:Émile Waldteufel was born in Strasbourg to a Jewish Alsatian family of musicians....
.
Some of Herrmann's music that was edited out of the final cut, such as the "Second Nocturne", was later reused in his opera
Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
(1943–51). Coincidentally, Orson Welles was invited to direct the premiere production of the opera in
Portland, OregonPortland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
in 1982, but he declined.
The film features what could be considered an
inside jokeAn in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding...
, as news of the rise of automobile accidents is featured prominently on the front page of the Indianapolis Daily Inquirer, one of the chain of newspapers owned by mogul Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane. Also appearing on the front page is the column, "Stage News", by Jed Leland, with a photo of Cotten, who portrayed the character in the earlier film.
Cast
- Joseph Cotten
Joseph Cheshire Cotten was an American actor of stage and film. Cotten achieved prominence on Broadway, starring in the original productions of The Philadelphia Story and Sabrina Fair...
as Eugene
- Dolores Costello
Dolores Costello was an American film actress who achieved her greatest success during the era of silent movies. She was nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silent Screen"...
as Isabel
- Anne Baxter
Anne Baxter was an American actress known for her performances in films such as The Magnificent Ambersons , The Razor's Edge , All About Eve and The Ten Commandments .-Early life:...
as Lucy
- Tim Holt
Tim Holt was an American film actor perhaps best known for co-starring in the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.-Early life:...
as George
- Agnes Moorehead
Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...
as Fanny
- Ray Collins
Ray Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio, and television. One of Collins' best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason.- Biography :...
as Jack
- Erskine Sanford
Erskine Sanford was an American actor in films from the late 1930s. A member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre company, he also appeared in several of Welles' films, most notably as the bumbling, perspiring newspaper editor Herbert Carter in Citizen Kane.Erskine Sanford lived the last decades of...
as Roger Bronson
- Donald Dillaway as Wilbur Minafer
- Richard Bennett
Richard Bennett was an American actor who became a stage and silent screen matinee idol over the early decades of the twentieth century.-Early Life:...
as Maj. Amberson
- Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
as narrator
Reception
The film has always received positive reviews from critics. It is reported by review aggregator
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
that 96% of the critics gave the film a positive review with only one negative. Despite not being as wildly acclaimed as Citizen Kane, it is considered one of Welles' best works. It and Citizen Kane were his only films to be nominated for Best Picture.
Awards
Wins
- New York Film Critics Circle Awards
New York Film Critics' Circle Awards are given annually to honor excellence in cinema worldwide by an organization of film reviewers from New York City-based publications. It is considered one of the most important precursors to the Academy Awards....
: NYFCC Award; Best Actress, Agnes Moorehead; 1942.
- National Board of Review: Best Acting, Tim Holt & Agnes Moorehead, 1942
Academy Award Nominations
- Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
- Agnes Moorehead
- Best Black-and-White Art Direction-Interior Decoration
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
- Albert S. D'AgostinoAlbert S. D'Agostino was an American art director. He was nominated for five Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction...
, A. Roland FieldsA. Roland Fields was an American art director. He won an Academy Award and was nominated for another two in the category Best Art Direction. He worked on 39 films between 1942 and 1951.-Selected filmography:...
and Darrell SilveraDarrell Silvera was an American set decorator. He was nominated for seven Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction...
- Best Black-and-White Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
- Stanley Cortez
- Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
- Orson Welles
External links