The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.

Directors:

Orson Welles, Fred Fleck (uncredited)

Writers:

Booth Tarkington (from the novel by), Orson Welles (script writer)

Stars:

Tim Holt, Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello

Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 4 wins.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Joseph Cotten	...	Eugene Morgan
Dolores Costello	...	Isabel Amberson Minafer
Anne Baxter	...	Lucy Morgan
Tim Holt	...	George Minafer
Agnes Moorehead	...	Fanny Minafer
Ray Collins	...	Jack Amberson
Erskine Sanford	...	Roger Bronson
Richard Bennett	...	Major Amberson
Orson Welles	...	Narrator (voice)

Storyline

The young, handsome, but somewhat wild Eugene Morgan wants to marry Isabel Amberson, daughter of a rich upper-class family, but she instead marries dull and steady Wilbur Minafer. Their only child, George, grows up a spoiled brat. Years later, Eugene comes back, now a mature widower and a successful automobile maker. After Wilbur dies, Eugene again asks Isabel to marry him, and she is receptive. But George resents the attentions paid to his mother, and he and his whacko aunt Fanny manage to sabotage the romance. A series of disasters befall the Ambersons and George, and he gets his come-uppance in the end.

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Plot Keywords:

national film registry | year 1873 | begins with narration | horse drawn streetcar | man wearing a top hat | 

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Taglines:

From the Man Who Made "The Best Picture of 1941"

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 July 1942 (USA)

Also Known As:

Soberbia

Filming Locations:

Big Bear Lake, Big Bear Valley, San Bernardino National Forest, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$850,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Mercury Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

88 min 148 min (original cut) 131 min (preview)

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Robert Wise assembled a three-hour version of the film and flew with it to Miami, where Orson Welles screened it and gave cutting notes on his way to Brazil. That was the last time Welles got to work on the film. Because of wartime travel restrictions, the U.S. government refused Wise permission to travel to Brazil for the final editing.

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Goofs

Towards end of long tracking shot with George and Lucy in horse-drawn carriage, portion of rear end of camera car and some sort of filmmaking equipment briefly enters left side of frame.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Narrator: The magnificence of the Ambersons began in 1873. Their splendor lasted throughout all the years that saw their midland town spread and darken into a city. In that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet, and everybody knew everybody else's family horse and carriage. The only public conveyance was the streetcar. A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt at once and wait for her, ...

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Crazy Credits

All of the credits except the RKO logo, the film's title and the copyright notice are recited orally (by Orson Welles) at the end of the film, not written out onscreen. As Welles recites the names of the production crew, we see such items as a motion picture camera when he says "Director of Photography", a pair of hands turning knobs as he says the words "Sound Recording By", etc.

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Connections

Featured in This Is Orson Welles (2015)

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Soundtracks

The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
(1892) (uncredited)
Music and Lyrics by Fred Gilbert
Sung a cappella by Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter,
Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins

User Reviews

Irony in the ending

This is a wonderful film, one of great pathos and sensitivity. Orson Welles was drawn to Tarkington's novel because Tarkington had been a friend of Welles' father and Welles identified strongly with the story, seeing something of his own family's history there.

Whether it is better than Kane is a fun question for film clubs to debate (I did once but I don't now), but it is interesting to note that while Orson Welles was particularly bitter that RKO re-shot his ending to make it more appealing to audiences, if you read the novel you will see that it is the novel's ending that RKO tacked on. Welles' ending was of his own invention and would have given the film a completely different tone.

So it is ironic that Welles always seemed to claim that RKO had destroyed the integrity of the novel's story when they only preserved it, if rather poorly in execution.