Romancefest 2021: The Magnificent Ambersons

Written and Directed by Orson Welles

Based on the novel by Booth Tarkington

Starring Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford and Richard Bennett

Narrated by Orson Welles

USA, 1942

Okay, this is one of the many times in life I feel obligated to turn in my film buff's card. I'm a fraud, because I hadn't seen THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS until a couple weeks ago. That's right. The movie some say is even greater than CITIZEN KANE. Hadn't seen it.

But, it's not my fault. See, every time I'd read about it as a youngster I'd read all about how the studio stole it away from Orson Welles and chopped a 2.5 hour movie down to less than 90 minutes and how the original version is lost, although it might be in Brazil somewhere. Then at some point TCM or someone tried to cobble together a semblance of a director's cut, using the original script and some stills interspersed with the finished film.

So, do I watch it or wait until Brazil finds it? I waited, and waited. Nothing. Meanwhile, every source says even the short cut of the film is a masterpiece, so why wait? Well, as I always say, the more time you spend watching movies the less time you have to watch movies, so I never got around to it and Brazil never got around to it and here we are.

But enough about me! THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS is the turn of the century tale of how a once wealthy and prosperous midwestern family and their decline. The movie strongly suggests the matriarch simply married the wrong guy -- instead of hooking up with an early innovator in the world of horseless carriages (that's cars, folks!), she goes another direction. After her first husband dies, she rekindles the flame with her true automobile industry love, but the spoiled son of her first marriage who the entire town hates, objects. After all, how dare you court another guy after Dad's dead. Right?

If you've seen KANE, this movie has everything in it that you'd expect from early, peak Orson Welles: groundbreaking special effects, beautiful cinematography and great performances (especially Agnes Moorehead). Also like KANE you've got a variety of show of everything from high melodrama to dark comedy to keep you entertained.

And there's even romance -- or is there? I guess, if you count tragic romance. The central relationship is the ill-fated one between the widowed matriarch of the Ambersons and the automobile industry magnate. Her ungrateful, spoiled son stands between them, and she ultimately takes his side. For his part, the son fails to woo the daughter of the automobile magnate, as she sees right through him and wisely chooses life without him, even if she does harbor some feeling for him.

Romance or not, any lover of cinema owes it to themselves to see this one and I'm sorry I deprived myself for so long. It's the studio's fault, really, not mine. And Brazil's.