The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

In 1873, the Amberson’s are at the height of society. Nearly undefined daughter Isabel (Dolores Costello) is wooed by the young men of the town, in particular bland (though we’re not supposed to think he’s bland) Eugene (Joseph Cotton). Though we are told she loves him, sticking with the old ways, she marries some guy we never learn anything about and gives birth to a truly obnoxious child who grows into the equally unpleasant and one-dimensional adult George (Tim Holt). Eugene, now a widower, returns to town with his cute daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter) who apparently takes a liking to George for no reason (we’re given plenty of reasons for her to despise him, but zero for her to be fond of him) and he for her, because that’s her reason for existing in the story. With the Amberson fortunes failing and Isabel now a widow, Eugene wants to marry her, but George won’t hear of it and throws tantrums. He is at first egged on by his aunt, Fanny (Agnes Moorehead), who is the only one that comes close to being a believable character.

“If only!” is the mating cry of the fan of The Magnificent Ambersons. “I just know it would have been perfect.” Yeah…

Like all of Orson Welles’s films, his second feature was about Orson Welles. “Towering Ego” is the term I hear most often applied to Welles and The Magnificent Ambersons is an echo of that ego. His choice of the story is an exercise in ego as he believed Booth Tarkington’s novel was based on his own family. Discussions of Welles’s films are more discussions of him and his filmmaking and the disasters that occurred during film-making than of the films. With The Magnificent Ambersons, the finished film seems nearly irrelevant.

So, let’s get to that disastrous production. Many insist that since Welles was a genus (I don’t deny it), that all his works must be masterpieces, so when they are not, the search is on for who to blame. In the case of The Magnificent Ambersons, that blame is normally thrown on RKO Studios and Robert Wise who was in charge of re-edits. Welles had ignored his budget, as well as most everything the studio had said (He was Orson Welles; listening to others was beneath him!) and created an overlong 131 minute cut that preview audiences hated (to be fair, Welles had not thought that this unlikable version would be the final cut). Studio representatives who’d seen it hated it as well, and now knew they had an expensive bomb on their hands. Welles had gone to South America to work on a war-time propaganda piece that was never released. So with only slight input from Welles—well, he actually had a great deal of input since it was Welles, but it was mostly ignored—it was chopped down to 88 minutes, with 7 of those minutes new scenes, shot in the attempt to give the work narrative cohesion as well as create a less dour ending. Welles declared it was cut with a lawn mower by a janitor.

Perhaps the modern day fans are correct and the re-edits destroyed the picture. The brief tacked on ending is certainly a disaster, painfully out of touch with the rest of the movie in tone and appearance. The entire last act is a disjointed mess. Nothing flows. It’s just a series of unrelated moments. One scene even fades while the character is speaking. And what might those missing minutes have accomplished? A crippling problem is the lack of character development. Eugene has little personality. He’s an inventive genus we are told, but never shown. What does he do when not on screen? I’ve no idea. What does he like or dislike, beyond Isabel. I’ve no way to even guess. He is empty. Isabel doesn’t even merit being called a character. She’s just a symbol of “mother.” We need some depth from her to explain her repeatedly bad choices. Lucy is nothing but “the desirable girl.” If that character work was in the excised footage, then perhaps the cuts did kill the film.

But there’s a problem with that line of thought. As the footage hasn’t survived, it is hearsay now, but the best sources indicate that what was cut was mainly mood. Long tracking shots were shortened as were establishing shots. There’s no mention of character moments except for George, and what the film didn’t need was more of George.

Then there is a bigger problem. Critics like to fawn over what-might-have-been as great art, but The Magnificent Ambersons could only have been low art, if the term “art” could apply. It is a soap opera, melodrama at its worst. It is over-emotionalized, and over-sentimentalized in concept and execution. It is Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, without the excuse of being a gothic romance. These are not real people, and only Agnes Moorehead manages to exist in this artificial world. She hams it up, but it fits.

Then there is George, semi-acted by cowboy star Tim Holt. It would be easy to blame him for the failing (both artistically and financially) of the film—even rabid fans admit that Holt lacked the stature for the role and wish that Welles had taken the part himself. Holt’s portrayal would make sense if this was a video of first line readings rather than a finished product, but I can’t imagine any actor who could have pulled off the part. The script makes George a loathsome man-child, but not one that could actually exist. He’s the kind of strawman that out-of-touch, entitled sixty-year-olds come up with when discussing “those darn kids nowadays.” Even with a better written, better acted lead, the movie has basic structural problems. It is George’s story, but Welles has little interest in George. His focus is on the changing world and nostalgia, not on his characters, leaving George an also-ran in his own movie, playing second fiddle to a decaying mansion and Welles’s own very dramatic narration.

It all ends ridiculously, without a single character ending up where they do due to their previous actions, statements, or personalities (to the extent they have personalities). With Fanny this is clearly an effect of the reshoots, and that is likely the case with Eugene. With others, that seemed what Welles had wanted. Lucy in some weird platonic garden with her father? Really? And we have the woman dying of sadness trope, which is embarrassing. Well, I can’t claim Welles as sexist since we also have a man who dies of “financial troubles.” Huh. Padmé doesn’t seem quite so silly now.

Yet, this is Welles, so I can’t write it off as hack-work. It looks fabulous—not as a whole, but piece by piece. Welles knew how to work with focus and shadow. Likewise the sound is Oscar-worthy and the sets are amazing; those long shots, creeping up the staircase of the mansion, are indeed outstanding. No fault can be found with the art direction. Scene after scene is beautifully shot, but to no effect. The look of those scenes doesn’t advance the story or the characters or do anything at all except inform us that Welles could shoot a beautiful scene, which I have a feeling was the point. Sometimes you need to stop playing with stylized camera angles and shoot the damn story.

The Magnificent Ambersons is a monument to Welles. What kind of monument is an ongoing discussion. I see similarities to Ozymandias. For those who assume his greatness, and use studio “butchering” as an excuse to laud a nonexistent movie, it is something else—perhaps a jewel-encrusted falcon that’s acquired a layer of black enamel to hide its worth.