Almost from the first frame, you can tell you are watching an Orson Welles film. In 1941, Wells released Citizen Kane, a film that would eventually prove his brilliance as a filmmaker but was a box-office disappointment thanks in part to a smear campaign launched by William Randolph Hearst, who took the film as a personal attack. The film had been an, at the time, unprecedented opportunity for Wells to have unlimited control of his work with no studio interference. The film didn’t lose money in the end, but it wasn’t a massive success until much later. He wasn’t going to get the same kind of deal again.
The following year, he released his follow-up picture, The Magnificent Ambersons, a film that many consider to be amongst the greatest films of all time, right up there with Citizen Kane. Just looking at it, over eighty years later, you can see the care and craftsmanship that showcase the kind of filmmaker he was. He put as much thought and preparation into this film as he did Citizen Kane, and the results speak for themselves. This is a gorgeous film to examine on a technological level. But it is not just the technological side that this film needed to excel at. It also needed to be a compelling drama about the rise and fall of fortunes and the changing of times. While many see the film as an absolute success on that front, I don’t quite share that opinion.
The production was heavily overseen by RKO Studios, who, having learned from their experiences with Citizen Kane, stepped in late in the game and took the film away from Wells, recutting the ending and heavily editing the score, so much so that composer Bernard Herrmann insisted on his credit being removed from the finished product. While none of the removed film elements remain, that we know of, Wells’ notes on his definitive cut of the film still exist, so we can imagine what could have been. Many years later, working off those notes and the original screenplay, the A&E Network made a television version of the film. Though it was advertised as such, many alterations to the original script were made, including maintaining the original film’s ending. This version of the story is readily available for anyone curious enough to seek it out.
The story, as the title implies, is about a wealthy family: the Ambersons. They are by far the wealthiest family in their unnamed midwestern city in the waning days of the 19th century. Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotton) courts Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello), but she rejects him after a public embarrassment and marries Wilbur Minafer (Don Dillaway), a passionless man that she does not love, instead. This marriage produces a son, George (Tim Holt), a spoiled brat and the love of his mother’s life. George’s bad habits and cruelty have the townspeople long for the day when they will see him get his “comeuppance.”
Years go by, and George is returning home from college for the holidays. Eugene has also come home after twenty years, now a widower. Eugene has invested in automobiles, something that George looks down on with disdain, preferring the traditional horse-and-buggy. He also sees Eugene as a social climber (i.e. new money) who still has eyes for Isabel. George does, however, take a liking to Eugene’s daughter, Lucy (Anne Baxter), and he sets out to court her. But Lucy sees George as someone with no ambitions in life, perfectly content on living off his family’s money and never making anything of himself. This attitude about life stands in the way of her ever marrying him.
Bad investments eventually drive Wilbur Minafer into the grave, which doesn’t seem to affect George in the slightest. As time goes on, Eugene has become very wealthy as the automotive industry has continued to grow. Lucy has also officially rejected George’s proposal for marriage, which he blames on her father. On top of that, he learns that Eugene is courting his mother. George uses his control over her heart to stand in the way of their love, forcing her to make a decision between the two, leaving her heartbroken and weak, though she stays by his side even when he makes her leave with him to avoid seeing Eugene again. All of this takes a toll on her health and burns through the remainder of the Amberson fortune, leaving George and his aunt, Fanny (Agnes Moorehead), destitute.
George is a pitiless character, one that we are to dislike almost immediately. We first see him as a young boy playing cruel jokes on the people around him. When he arrives back in town from college, he hasn’t changed much, riding through the streets recklessly in his cart and whipping people with his horse whip as he passes by. This is not a sympathetic character but one we are to dislike immediately. Like the townsfolk, we want to see him get his comeuppance. That will eventually happen, but not until very late in the story after circumstances force humility on him.
The story is a sad one, mainly because many of us have known people like George or Isabel. Isabel has sacrificed any chance for a happy life because she cannot say no to her son. There are so many people in this world who grow up never having been told no and are ill-prepared for the real world. It takes a great deal to humble such a person, and that usually never happens. These people, many of them heirs of massive empires, often have no ambitions just like George. I know of at least a few that are the grandchildren of the founder of the company I work for that do nothing with their lives except travel the world, spending the money their grandfather made. With a seemingly unlimited supply of money there isn’t any motivation to do otherwise.
In some ways, this is a cautionary tale. After all, had Isabel not been so easily embarrassed and married Wilbur, George would not have been born. She could have also raised him better, disciplining him and teaching him respect for others. But none of that happened, and she spends the rest of her life living with the consequences of that decision. She’s not innocent in all of this but doesn’t deserve the sadness and loneliness George inflicts on her.
Like Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons is epic in scope, covering a great deal of time. It also makes a lot of observations about actions and consequences. Eugene Morgan makes his fortune through the rising popularity of the automobile industry because he was able to look to the future and realize the advantages of this new invention. George, who cannot look to the future, sees it pass him by, leaving him without money and forced to take a dangerous job because it pays better than his legal work. The ending, which was tacked on by the studio, feels rushed and ins’t necessarily a happy one, though it is considered one.
While The Magnificent Ambersons is viewed as a real classic, it suffers a lot from studio meddling. Over forty minutes were apparently removed without Orson Welles’ input, and the final product suffers from it. Whole events go by without much of an explanation, and character motivations are largely absent. This makes the film weaker than it otherwise would have been. Some of that blame belongs to Welles, who was off in Brazil making propaganda films for the US government and wasn’t answering calls from his editor, Robert Wise, thus washing his hands of any final editing decisions. Ultimately, this makes The Magnificent Ambersons feel like an incomplete film, butchered to death in the final edit. Couple that with the lead role being largely miscast with Tim Holt, who was much better in the Westerns he was primarily known for, and you have a film filled with potential that just didn’t quite live up to it.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Orson Welles
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Agnes Moorehead
Best Black-and-White Cinematography: Stanley Cortez
Best Black-and-White Art Direction - Interior Decoration: Albert S. D’Agostino, A. Roland Fields, and Darrell Sivera
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Release Date: July 10, 1942
Running Time: 88 Minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Joseph Cotton, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, and Richard Bennett
Directed By: Orson Welles
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