The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

Pages: (1) (2) (3) (4)

Background
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) is the legendary Orson Welles' second film - another audacious masterpiece. It was produced, directed, and scripted (but not acted in) by Welles, a follow-up film one year after his masterful classic Citizen Kane (1941). It was based on Booth Tarkington's 1918 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, and had been filmed earlier as a black and white silent film from Vitagraph under the title Pampered Youth (1925). This film's screenplay was written by Welles in only nine days. He had first adapted the story for a CBS-radio broadcast (Campbell's Playhouse) with his Mercury Theatre in the fall of 1939, featuring Walter Huston as Eugene Morgan and Welles himself as George Minafer. He used his regulars from Mercury Theatre within this production: Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins (the only actor in the film who also appeared in the radio version). Although the beautiful, near-masterpiece film is rich in cinematic technique (overlapping dialogue, deep focus cinematography and magnificent lighting, fluid dolly and truck shots, innovative crane shots, iris in-out openings and closing of scenes, long takes, etc.) and layered with complexity and subtle meaning, in its initial preview screening, it was a disastrous flop for its emotionally-downbeat mood, and because of its focal point: a spoiled brat (played by B-Western actor Tim Holt) of the town's richest family and later, as a conceited young man. Ambersons' public previews (in Pomona, California) were considered a disaster due to its being inappropriately double-billed in its premiere showing with a B-comedy starring Lupe Velez titled Mexican Spitfire Sees a Ghost (1942), and because of its original depressing ending. Worried about its financial viability and the unreleasable nature of the film, RKO studios, in Welles' absence while he was in Brazil, proceeded to drastically cut the film, from its originally-edited, first-cut length of 131 minutes down to a mere 88 minutes of both original and reshot footage. More than 50 minutes of original footage were removed - over a third of Welles' original footage, by shortening extended tracking shots, and eliminating or drastically abbreviating other scenes. With a tacked-on, optimistic ending, and with the addition of rewritten/reshot portions of film without the director's approval (under the supervision of editor Robert Wise), it was re-released, and all surviving footage from the original film was destroyed (to prevent any efforts at reconstruction). The remaining, damaged skeleton of a film suffers from disconnectedness and choppiness after its first half, but the film is still remarkable for its acting and visual style, Welles' memorable voice-over narration, Stanley Cortez' cinematographic use of light and shadow, Bernard Herrmann's uncredited musical score, and the extraordinary set construction for the interior of the Ambersons' mansion. [Other films in American film history have been similarly 'ruined' and damaged by studio intervention von Stroheim's Greed (1924), Welles' own The Lady From Shanghai (1948) and Touch of Evil (1958), and John Huston's The Red Badge of Courage (1951).] It was later remade in 2001 at 150 minutes by director Alfonso Arau, aired on cable TV's A & E Network, with stars Bruce Greenwood, Madeleine Stowe, Jonathan Rhys-Davies, James Cromwell, and Jennifer Tilly. In spite of controversies surrounding the film, it was still nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Agnes Moorehead), Best Black and White Cinematography (Stanley Cortez), and Best Black and White Interior Decoration. The story of the film spans two generations (about twenty-five years), and is set at the turn of the century in an upper-middleclass Midwestern American town [Indianapolis, Indiana - identified by the front page of the Indianapolis Inquirer at the end of the film]. This tale is set against the social decline, ruin and fall of the aristocratic Amberson family at the turn of the century with the coming of the industrial age and the rise of the automobile (and the prosperous Morgan family). Industrial and technological progress parallels the decline of the fortunes of the wealthy Amberson family. The film is centered on the ill-fated, middle-aged romance between a struggling (and ultimately prosperous) horseless carriage inventor/manufacturer (Eugene Morgan) and a beautiful, self-less, widowed Amberson matriarch-heiress (Isabel Amberson Minafer). Her selfish, buggy-driving young son (George Amberson Minafer) impedes their pairing and denies her mother's death-bed longing to see him again. A sub-plot chronicles the way in which the insufferable son courts and falls in love with Eugene's daughter Lucy (Anne Baxter), but when she insists that he choose a productive career, he breaks off the relationship. Ultimately, he receives his "come-uppance." The revised ending, in an about-face, infers that Eugene will accept an impoverished and disabled George as his 'son-in-law'.

The Story
Stark white letters on two black backgrounds in two title cards announce:

A MERCURY PRODUCTION by ORSON WELLES THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS From The Novel by BOOTH TARKINGTON After fading to another black screen, Orson Welles in an impressive, radio-announcer style voice-over narrates nostalgic segments taken from the first portion of Tarkington's literary work. In the film's prologue (first ten minutes), the outer perimeter of the frames are edged or rimmed with a soft-focus, faded, vignetted effect, suggesting the time period and its fashions and giving the look of old faded photographs in an album. In the film's short beginning, all the major characters are economically introduced. The tone of the eloquent, beautiful narration chronicles youthful nostalgia and the changing pace of life in society. The film begins with a memory-image of a disappearing, magnificent age - from an earlier, gentler era of agrarianism and a landed aristocracy that was fast being replaced by the growth of industrialism, urbanism, and an industrial bourgeoisie. Welles' magisterial narration is in the left column, and the action of the film is described in the right column: NARRATION: 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, while she shut the window, ... put on her hat and coat, ... went downstairs, ... found an umbrella, ... told the 'girl' what to have for dinner...and came forth from the house. Too slow for us nowadays, because the faster we're carried, the less time we have to spare. NARRATION: [This short montage on changing male fashions was inserted here by RKO Studios into the original sequence of the prologue - slightly earlier than Welles had intended.] During the earlier years of this period, while bangs and bustles were having their way with women, there were seen men of all ages to whom a hat meant only that rigid, tall silk thing known to impudence as a stovepipe. But the long contagion of the 'Derby' had arrived; one season the crown of this hat would be a bucket, next it would be a spoon. Every house still kept its bootjack. But hightop boots gave way to shoes and Congress gaiters, and these were shaped through fashions that shaped them now with toes like box ends and now with toes like the prows of racing shells. Trousers with a crease were considered plebian; the crease proved that the garment had lain upon a shelf, and hence was readymade. With evening dress, a gentleman wore a tan overcoat, so short that his black coat-tails hung visible five inches below the overcoat. But after a season or two, he lengthened his overcoat till it touched his heels, and he passed out of his tight trousers into trousers like great bags. DESCRIPTION OF FILM ACTION: As the film slowly opens from a black background, there is a straight-on shot of a Gothic brick house [it is not the Amberson mansion - which is across the street], with horses and buggies passing by and respectably-costumed figures on the sidewalk. A quaint old horse-drawn streetcar from the Western-Midland Transit Co. (No. 1) pulls into view from left to right and stops in front of the house. Passengers leisurely get off and mill around, as the car waits for a neighbor of the Ambersons, Mrs. Johnson, who has signalled the car from her upstairs window with a cry of 'Yoo-hoo' (not a whistle), to come downstairs, hastily run forward and eventually to take her seat on the streetcar. Faintly, the soundtrack plays Bernard Herrmann's version of Emil Waldteufel's ' 1878 waltz Toujours ou jamais.'

DESCRIPTION OF FILM ACTION: Fashions and customs of the day are rapidly being changed, in this fashion montage sequence. In a crowded saloon bar with swinging doors, men in stovepipe hats drink heartily. (Protagonists in the drama to follow - but now presented anonymously - model the older and newer styles.) Wilbur Minafer [unrealistically, this is in fact George Minafer, the only child of Wilbur] in a stovepipe hat and frock-coat sits in a boat and rows his pretty sweetheart Isabel with a parasol over her shoulder out onto a lake. A stovepipe hat is knocked off a man's head - Major Amberson's head - by a snowball, symbolic of their replacement by new, more democratic styles. Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotten), a young representative of the new industrial bourgeoisie who narcissistically values the latest modern clothing, stands before an oval mirror and tries on two new styles of derby/bowler hats. He also uses a bootjack to try on new styles of shoes. High-top boots are soon superceded by shoes and Congress gaiters. Humorously, a vain-minded Morgan tries on more new fashions in front of a long, ornately-framed mirror - two kinds of shoes, two changes of pants (he balances on one leg as he struggles to put them on), and he models two fashionable evening overcoats (with accompanying baggy trousers). Morgan leaves his front door, bearing a smartly-wrapped gift package under his arm.

NARRATION: In those days, they had time for everything: Time for sleigh rides, and balls, and assemblies, and cotillions, and open house on New Years, and all-day picnics in the woods, and even that prettiest of all vanished customs: the serenade.

DESCRIPTION OF FILM ACTION: It is now wintertime as the seasons pass by very rapidly - a counterpoint to the notion that "they had time for everything." The house is pictured with snow on its roof. Horse-drawn sleighs pass the front gates from left to right. Boys throw snowballs at each other. As the serenade is mentioned, the season dissolves and is transformed into the season of spring and then summer and then to twilight on a moon-lit summer night. The house is strung with pretty lanterns. Then, the image turns dark, the moon disappears, and the only light that glows is on the left of the frame. DESCRIPTION OF FILM ACTION: One summer evening, Eugene runs with his bass fiddle and a group of other youthful musicians with their instruments into the foreground to serenade Isabel Amberson under her window. But he is a little drunk and tipsy - he trips and rolls over backwards, making a clown of himself as he crunches and splinters his bass viol beneath him (in obvious contradiction, the narration speaks of the release of melodies to the dulcet stars). At the upstairs window behind lace curtains, Isabel witnesses the spectacle when he disgraces himself and is sprawled before her. The young man looks up to appeal to the woman at the window with lace curtains - she is amused, but because she is an Amberson, she is displeased by the awkward display. She frowns and turns away reprovingly, withdrawing and spurning Eugene. (Visually, Eugene's disappointing collapse outside the house speaks volumes about the nature of his courtship for Isabel and his long-term relationship with her for the next generation.)

NARRATION: On a summer night, young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window, and flute, harp, fiddle, cello, cornet, bass viol would presently release their melodies to the dulcet stars.

[This next scene should have immediately followed the men's fashion montage in the prologue, with Eugene dressing himself up - and leaving his front door - to look good and call for Isabel after the embarrassing incident on her front lawn.] Against so homespun a background, the magnificence of the Ambersons was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral. Eugene Morgan walks along the street (Amberson Blvd.) in daylight. He bears a smartly-wrapped gift package under his arm for a lady. At the Amberson gate, he doffs his hat toward "us" and toward various townsfolk. Like a Greek chorus [one of whom is Agnes Moorehead who plays Aunt Fanny], they narratively comment on the many splendors of the Amberson dwelling, inhabited by the richest family in the town: There it is, the Amberson mansion. The pride of the town...Sixty thousands dollars worth of woodwork alone. Hot and cold running water, upstairs and down. And stationary washstands in every last bedroom in the place. Eugene approaches the Amberson's front door with a frosted panel and rings the bell. He has come to call on the beautiful Isabel Amberson (Dolores Costello, wife of John Barrymore) again, the only daughter of Major Amberson. Sam (J. Louis Johnson), the black butler who answers the door informs him that Isabel is "not home." On a second attempt with a bouquet of flowers, he is again rejected and told: "No sir. Miss Amberson ain't at home to you, Mr. Morgan." The group of anonymous bystanders, again functioning like a Greek chorus outside the house that gossips about the public and private lives of the Ambersons, describe how the proud, powerful Amberson family disapproves of Eugene's antics and awkward courtship (and his non-aristocratic status): I guess she's still mad at him...Isabel. Major Amberson's daughter. Eugene Morgan's her best beau. Took a bit too much to drink the other night right out here and stepped clean through the bass fiddle serenadin' her. Isabel is described as "a delightful-looking young lady"- she is also being courted a dependable and respectable, but dull, pallid, colorless and passionless gentleman named Wilbur Minafer (Don Dillaway). At the wheel of his new experimental "horseless carriage," Eugene - an industrial pioneer, sputters the machine into view, bringing another bouquet of flowers for

his sweetheart, but he again suffers rejection and disappointment from her outside an ice cream shop. [After his frustrated but hopeful attempt to win Isabel's love, Eugene disappears from the film for awhile, as the story follows instead the life of Isabel's adored progeny - George.] Within a barber shop (a typical site for male gossip), Uncle Jack (Ray Collins) turns around toward the camera from the barber's chair and describes Wilbur to the audience: "Wilbur? Wilbur Minafer? I never thought he'd get her. Well, what do ya know? Well, Wilbur may not be any Apollo, as it were, but he's a steady young business man." A neighbor of the Ambersons, an underwear-dressed Mrs. Foster (Anne O'Neal) gossips to a group of women in a dressmaker's shop (a typical site for female gossip) about the planned Amberson-Minafer marriage - a love-less marriage of convenience after Eugene's disgraceful and clumsy courtship: What she minds is his (Eugene) makin' a clown of himself in her own front yard. Made her think he didn't care much about her. She's probably mistaken but it's too late for her to think anything else now. The wedding will be a big Amberson-style thing. Raw oysters floating in scooped-out blocks of ice. The band from out of town. And then Wilbur will take Isabel on the carefulest little wedding trip he can manage. And she'll be a good wife to him. But they'll have the worst-spoiled lot of children this town will ever see...She couldn't love Wilbur, could she? Well, it'll all go to her children, and she'll ruin them. As time passes, her prophetic prediction about Isabel's marriage (and child) is close to the truth: (Welles' voice in narration) The prophetess proved to be mistaken in a single detail merely...Wilbur and Isabel did not have children; they had only one. (Mrs. Foster's voice intones) Only one! But I'd like to know if he isn't spoiled enough for a whole carload. (Welles' continues) Again, she found none to challenge her. George Amberson Minafer, the Major's one grandchild, was a princely terror. Although there is "only one" child - he is a spoiled, insufferable, hateful, daredevil brat dressed in velveteen and with golden ringlets in his hair. Young George Minafer (Bobby Cooper) - [he is not an Amberson] is introduced while riding recklessly through town in a tiny carriage, whipping his buggy pony. Careening by, he upsets a gardener with a hoe. Although indulged and adored by his mother, everyone in town longs to see George receive his ultimate "come-uppance": There were people, grown people they were, who expressed themselves longingly. They did hope to live to see the day, they said, when that boy would get his come-uppance. The words of the off-screen narrator are questioned by a married couple in the street: Wife: His what? Husband: His come-uppance! Something's bound to take him down someday. I only want to be there. When derisively called "girlie curlie" by the son of the local lawyer Benson (Erskine Sanford), the pair fight and wrestle on the lawyer's front lawn. Benson views the scrappy fight from a window, exasperatedly rapping on the glass: "Boy! Boy!" After he comes out and drags the two boys apart, George rebelliously punches him in the stomach when Benson calls him a "disgrace" and a "bad little boy." As the scene cuts, he loudly and angrily tells the parent to "Go to ..." [The word 'Hell' is blatantly censored as Benson shouts back "What?!"] In the garden of the Amberson mansion after the fight, George (wearing a kilt and tam-o'-shanter) is reprimanded by his parents and aged patriarch Major Amberson (Richard Bennett) as he stands formally in front of them. [The characters in the scene look like tableaux figures posed before an artistic backdrop of an old painting.] George, positioned in the foreground, dominates the scene and shows total disregard for his accusers or family behind him. Wilbur, squeezed to the right side of the frame, reads only a sentence from a letter written by a concerned citizen about George's foul use of language: "This was heard not only by myself but by my wife and the lady who lives next door." Taking center stage in a lordly manner, George conceitedly and haughtily denounces the neighbor as a "liar," "story-teller" and as "riff-raff." After inaccurately referring to himself as an Amberson, he causes his grandfather to laugh boisterously: "Grandpa wouldn't wipe his shoe on that old storyteller...I mean, none of us Ambersons wouldn't have anything to do with them. I'll bet if he wanted to see any of us, he'd have to go around to the side door." Although his doting, sheltering mother requests that he never use bad language again, George half-heartedly assents to her wishes - with a mischievous last word: Isabel (to George): You must promise me never to use those bad words again. George: I promise not to... (pause) unless I get mad at somebody.

During the holidays, George Minafer (Tim Holt) returns at age twenty as a sophomore from his schooling without any change in his arrogant personality and air of superiority - he passes through town again like a charioteer in a horse and buggy, whipping one of the bystanders: "...nothing about him encouraged any hope that he had received his come-uppance." A ball is held at the Amberson mansion in George's honor and as an old friend of the family, Eugene is invited to the winter's social function - the last magnificent Amberson occasion: Cards were out for a ball in his honor, and this pageant of the tenantry was the last of the great long-remembered dances that everybody talked about. [From this point on until much later in the film, the voice-over narration ceases.] Eugene Morgan returns to his hometown after eighteen years' absence as a widower, bringing his now-grown, attractive daughter Lucy Morgan (Anne Baxter in her film debut) back to the town where he was born and to the place where he was previously denied admission. In a long, flowing dolly/tracking shot, Eugene and Lucy enter from the snowy outside into the two front doors of the exquisite, splendid mansion the night of the lavish party - winddraft-swept and with the sound of tinkling crystal chandeliers and Christmas tree ornaments. When Eugene is reunited with Isabel in the hallway, he obviously still retains his love for her, and she with him.

The Story (continued)

In the large lobby of the front hall as a orchestra plays a minuet in the background, George (with white gloves and a carnation in his buttonhole) stands with his mother (dressed in a gorgeous ball gown) in the reception line and greets everyone assuredly (but falsely): "I remember you very well indeed." He is quickly attracted to Lucy and instantly falls for her - carrying on the tradition of an attraction between a Morgan and an Amberson. George leaves the reception line and takes her arm-inarm for a long stroll through the richly-decorated mansion toward the upstairs dancing hall in a long, gliding tracking shot (with deep focus perspective). The marvelously fluid tracking shot follows them across the entrance hall, up the oak stairs, past stained-glass windows, and down the long corridor of the second story. On their way as they gracefully glide through the mansion elegantly enriched with Edwardian craftsmanship, George is unconscious of her father's identity. With characteristic stupidity, he foolishly insults Eugene, calling him "the queer looking guy" as Ludy's father talks to one of Major Amberson's two grown-up children, Hon. Uncle Jack Amberson, a Congressman. To impress Lucy, he tells her: "The family always liked to have someone in Congress." George is quickly offended by all the men who are friendly and greet Lucy, rudely remarking: "How'd all these ducks get to know you so quick?" He is slightly annoyed that his mother invited them: George: I really don't see why my mother invited them. Lucy: Maybe she didn't want to offend their fathers and mothers. George: I hardly think that my mother need worry about offending anybody in this old town. Lucy: It must be wonderful, Mr. Amberson, Mr. Minafer, I mean. George: What must be wonderful? Lucy: To be so important as that. George: Oh, that isn't important...Anybody that really is anybody ought to be able to go about as they like in their own town, I should think. George is again repulsed by the "freshness" of her father - the "queer-looking duck" waving at them while he is dancing with Aunt Fanny (Agnes Moorehead), Wilbur Minafer's unmarried, shrill-voiced sister who moved in with the Ambersons following Isabel's marriage. George immediately takes a dislike for Eugene - unaware of who the gentleman is. Lucy shows great maturity and sound judgment and refuses to be drawn into George's criticism of her male acquaintances or her father. She tells George that her father, a widower, is a successful inventor "working on a new kind of horseless carriage." George shows a bit of disapproving contempt for her father's interests: "Horseless Carriage! Automobile!" As they sit and talk on the stairway, Lucy expresses how she now understands "what it means to be a real Amberson in this town." George has a disdainful feeling about most females: "Most girls are usually pretty fresh. They ought to go to a man's college for about a year. They'd get taught a few things about freshness." As Eugene walks forward and calls up to ask Lucy for a dance (with Aunt Fanny on his arm), George is taken aback when he learns that the flowers Lucy carries were given to her by the same man - her father, the man he was derisively calling "a queer looking duck." Simultaneously, Fanny moves out of the frame as Isabel moves in and asks her son: "George dear, are you enjoying the party?" Around a gleaming punch bowl, the family members recall family relationships, including Eugene's incident with the bass viol that ultimately led to Wilbur's marriage to Isabel. The elderly Major Amberson teases Isabel about her rejection of Eugene when he was drunk: "Isabel, I remember the last drink Gene ever had." His remark causes Isabel to blush. Fanny reacts with

a cheerful deduction as she compliments her brother Wilbur - and attempts to slyly remind Eugene that Isabel is permanently married but that she is available: "The important thing is that Wilbur did get her, and not only got her, but kept her." With a loving look at his daughter as she passes by from his left and crosses into the foreground, Eugene refers to another important result of his loss of Isabel: There's another important thing, that is, for me. In fact, it's the only thing that makes me forgive that bass viol for getting in my way...Lucy. In a scene that begins with the older generation dancing, and ends with the children of their separate marriages dancing, Eugene stands with Uncle Jack in front of a fireplace (with mantel and mirror) before he takes Isabel for a dance. They wistfully refer to "old times" (when he used to court her) and the hopeful, optimistic dawn of "new times" for further romance: Jack: Eighteen years have passed, but have they?...By gosh, old times certainly are starting all over again. Eugene: Old times. Not a bit. There aren't any old times. When times are gone, they're not old, they're dead. There aren't any times but new times. To the accompaniment of an upbeat, ragtime-style rhythm, the camera moves backward in a long, unedited, continuous take as they exuberantly dance forward toward the camera - until it picks up the younger couple of Lucy and George who enter from the left. Before the young pair themselves dance backward and fade away into a group of other dancers behind them on the dance floor, Lucy questions George about what he studies in school and what he wants to become in life, but he condemns the lives of businessmen - expecting to never enter a profession but live on his family's fortune: Lucy: What are you studying at school? George: College. Lucy: College. George: Oh, lots of useless guff. Lucy: Why don't you study some useful guff? George: What do you mean, useful? Lucy: Something you'd use later in your business or profession. George: I don't intend to go into any business or profession. Lucy: No? George: No. Lucy: Why not? George: Well, just look at them. That's a fine career for a man, isn't it? Lawyers, bankers, politicians. What do they ever get out of life, I'd like to know. What do they know about real things? What do they ever get? Lucy: What do you want to be? George (fatuously): A yachtsman! (Lucy reacts with astonishment) When the ball is near its end, the older lovers Eugene and Isabel are still gracefully gliding together on the darkened, deserted dance floor, waltzing to a plaintive violin tune amid the shadows. Running down from an upper stairs landing, the youthful pair of George and Lucy sit in a lighted space at the foot of the staircase closeby and watch their parents. [It is a symbolic representation of the two generations, one reclaiming its love, the other looking into the future for love.] George tells Lucy that he finds the automobile repulsive and Eugene's line of work worthless: Horseless Carriages! Automobiles!...People aren't gonna spend their lives lying on their backs in the road letting grease drip in their faces. No, I think your father better forget about 'em. During the leavetaking, Eugene and Isabel say a hushed, simple goodnight to each other, amid many other overlapping voices: "Goodnight Isabel. Goodnight Eugene." After exerting his forceful will over Lucy during the goodbyes, George invites Lucy for an afternoon sleigh ride the next day. Profiles are silhouetted against a window thickly framed in ice and frost. As Lucy and her father depart in their open-air horseless carriage, she cheerfully asks above the noisy clattering of the automobile engine: "Do you think George is terribly arrogant and domineering?" Eugene replies: "Oh, he's still only a boy. Plenty of fine stuff in him. Can't help but be. He's Isabel Amberson's son." Lucy smiles back, realizing how much her father once loved Isabel: "You liked her pretty well once, I guess, Papa." He admits that she is right: "Yep. Do still." Meanwhile, in a conversation around the great upstairs landing of the darkened Amberson's staircase, one that forebodes family rivalry, Isabel expresses her worry to George about Wilbur's health and his bad investments: "It seems to me he looks so badly...He's been worried about some investments he made last year. I think the worry's affected his health." George is very forthright: "What investments? He isn't going into Morgan's automobile concern, is he?," determined that Amberson financing not be used for Eugene's horseless carriage venture.

Wilbur appears in the doorway of his bedroom in a dressing gown, looking harried, overworked, and worried. The spinsterish Fanny, who has always been infatuated with Eugene, appears in the background of the corridor with Jack. She defends Eugene's business affairs, arguing that he is not out to woo Amberson money: George: Look here, father, about this man Morgan and his old sewing machine. Don't they want to get grandfather to put some money into it? Isn't that what he's up to? Fanny: You little silly! What on earth are you talking about? Eugene Morgan's perfectly able to finance his own inventions these days. George: I'll bet he borrows money from Uncle Jack. Isabel: Georgie. Why do you say such a thing? George: He just strikes me as that sort of a man. Isn't he father? Wilbur: He was a fairly wild fellow twenty years ago. He's like you in one thing, Georgie. He spent too much money. Only he didn't have any mother to get money out of her grandfather for it. But I believe he's done fairly well of late years, and I doubt if he needs anybody else's money to back his horseless carriage. George: Oh, what's he brought the old thing here for, then? Wilbur: I'm sure I don't know. You'll want to ask him. On the way to Fanny's room in a shadowy tense scene [a grotesque shadow of a peacock is behind Fanny's profile], George is convinced that the Ambersons are treating Eugene too cordially. He mercilessly teases Fanny about her interest and fondness for the widower Eugene. Her retaliatory mocking of George is ineffective - she betrays some self-pity and jealousy of Eugene's love for Isabel: Fanny: Eugene Morgan isn't in your father's thoughts at all one way or the other. Why should he be?... Uncle Jack: Are you two at it again? George: What makes you and everybody so excited over this man Morgan? Uncle Jack: This man Morgan. Fanny: Excited! Uncle Jack: Oh, shut up. Fanny (in an hysterical, off-pitch outburst): Can't...can't people be glad to see an old friend without silly children like you having to make a to-do about it? I've just been suggesting to your mother that she might give a little dinner for him. George: For who? Fanny (correcting): For whom, Georgie. George (mocking her): For whom, Georgie. Fanny: For Mr. Morgan and his daughter. George: Oh look here. Don't do that. Mother mustn't do that. Fanny (repeating the phrase to mock him): Mother mustn't do that. George: Wouldn't look well. Fanny (repeating the phrase to mock him, and then turning nervously hysterical): Wouldn't look...See here Georgie Minafer! I suggest that you just march straight on into your room. Sometimes you say things that show you have a pretty mean little mind. George: What upsets you this much? Uncle Jack: Shut up! Fanny: I know what you mean. You're trying to insinuate that I get your mother to invite Eugene Morgan here on my account... Uncle Jack (protesting off camera): I'm gonna move to a hotel. Fanny: ...because he's a widower. George: What? Fanny: What? George: Ha, ha, ha. (Fanny cackles back in mock laughter at him) I'm trying to insinuate that you're setting your cap for him and getting mother to help you? Fanny: OH! (Fanny slams her door on him) George: Is that what you mean? In the next, joyous, much-celebrated, memorable winter scene in the film, George and Lucy are seen whirling along in a horse-drawn sleigh, luminously reflected in a frozen pool of water. Their gay, sparkling ride is accompanied by the tinkling of bells incorporated into the soundtrack. The juxtaposition of two time periods is beautifully contrasted: the silent, graceful movement of the horse and sleigh speeds past Eugene's new but stalled motor carriage (with passengers Isabel, Fanny, and Uncle Jack - Wilbur is conspicuously absent), [an authentic 1905 Model Sears] decorated with a tasseled canopy. It has become bogged down in the snow and Eugene struggles to crank the sputtering Morgan Motor and set it free. Suddenly, George and Lucy pass the horseless carriage, and George calls out: Get a horse! Get a horse! George is humiliated when their sleigh overturns and tips over, and the sled spills the couple over and down a mound into a drift of snow. But they are unhurt and steal a kiss from each other. Eugene is relieved that Lucy isn't injured: "The snow bank's

a featherbed." George is obsessively fussed over by his mother as she continues to brush snow off him, although he appears embarrassed by her attention in front of the others: "Don't make a fuss, mother...Please mother, please. I'm all right." They are led back to the horseless carriage through the bare branches of the wooded area for the rest of their trip. Their horse Pendennis gallops away. Eugene compliments Isabel: "You're the same Isabel I used to know - you're a divinely ridiculous woman," although Isabel thinks the two words are exact opposites: Isabel: Divinely ridiculous just counterbalance each other, don't they? Plus one and minus one equal nothing. So you mean I'm nothing in particular? Eugene: No, that doesn't seem to be precisely what I meant. When the 'Morgan Invincible' stalls again, Eugene asks George to "push" and he must breathe in smelly exhaust fumes from the detestable horseless carriage. Tormented by Eugene's regard for Isabel, Fanny shrewdly tries to talk above the noise of the engine to Lucy in order to get Eugene's attention and impress him with her comments - it is "so like old times" in the past to have a second opportunity to catch Eugene: Your father wanted to prove that his horseless carriage would run even in the snow. It really does too...It's so interesting. He says he's going to have wheels all made of rubber and blown up with air. I should think they'd explode...Eugene seems very confident. Oh, it seems so like old times to hear him talk. Everyone happily sings: "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" - a song about money as an entertaining plaything as the camera focuses on the beautiful faces of the singing occupants (even Fanny) in close-up. At the end of the entire sequence, as the car with merry singers moves up to the horizon in the lower right hand side of the frame, the camera slowly irises-out on the car [a tribute to older silent films], turning the screen black. In the next scene, one with considerable narrative economy and restraint, Eugene's shadow falls onto the frosted panels on the outside of the wooden oak doors of the Amberson mansion as sinister musical chords play on the soundtrack. A black, circular funeral wreath, in contrast to the circular halo of the dark iris that closed the previous scene, conveys the fact that a death has occurred: a major turning point in the film. After ring the bell, mourners (Eugene and Lucy) are let into the house by the black butler - an entrance mirroring their earlier entrance into the ball scene. In ominous fashion, Eugene's shadow enters the doorway before his own body - it will be the final time that he will ever enter the Amberson doorway. Wilbur Minafer's body, never identified explicitly, is laid out in the Amberson library. With the camera shooting from the vantage point of the interior of the coffin, somber, respectfully-silent family members pass by during the reception in a fluid take, paying their last respects. [The coffin is never shown.] Fanny observes as Eugene takes Isabel's arm and they go out of the frame. The scene ends on a particularly striking but ambiguous close-up of Aunt Fanny's anguished face with tears streaking down. She is the one family member most affected by the death - of her brother. Her tears may also reflect her worry or fury about the possibility of a future romance between widower Eugene and widowed Isabel. Later, townspeople discuss the death of Wilbur Minafer: "Wilbur Minafer. A quiet man. The town will hardly know he's gone." [The decline of the Ambersons' fortune begins with the death of Wilbur Minafer.] At the start of the next scene, a lightning bolt strikes as rain sweeps across the Amberson mansion at nighttime. [It is wrong to assume that this is the day of Wilbur's funeral. In fact, because of the harsh editing, a considerable amount of time has passed and it leaves the viewer confused. George has just graduated from college and received his diploma at commencement.] In the huge Amberson kitchen, the camera never moves as Fanny brings a large piece of fresh strawberry shortcake to her nephew George, and then reinforces Isabel's maternally protective attitude toward him: "It's the first of the season," she describes it. "Hope it's big enough...Sweet enough?...Don't eat so fast, George." With a napkin tucked into his collar, George eats gluttonously. Uncle Jack enters the kitchen behind them as George makes passing, teasing comments about Fanny's infatuation for Eugene Morgan. They both torment Fanny unmercilessly, telling her that Eugene is dressing up specially to impress her. Sensitive to their criticism, Aunt Fanny becomes increasingly agitated and distressed, cries, rises from the table, and slams the door as she leaves the kitchen: George: Well it struck me that Mr. Morgan was looking pretty absent-minded most of the time. And he certainly is dressing better than he used to. Uncle Jack: Oh, he isn't dressing better, he's dressing up. Fanny, you ought to be a little encouraging when a prized bachelor begins to show by his haberdashery what he wants you to think about him. George: Well, Jack tells me the fact he's been doing quite well. Uncle Jack: Quite well. George: Listen Aunt Fanny. I shouldn't be a bit surprised to have him request an interview and declare that his intentions are honorable. (Fanny begins to break down and runs from the room)

[In the process of re-editing, virtually all of the material that deals specifically and directly with the causes and nature of the economic decline of the Ambersons was eliminated.] George tries to explain away Aunt Fanny's deep hurt by complaining about her inability to be teased - and he grieves about the loss of another victim for his own entertainment: It's getting so that you can't joke with her about anything anymore. With all the gambling, we found out that father's estate was all washed up and he didn't leave anything. I thought she'd feel better when he turned over his insurance to her. With greater concern for his sister, Uncle Jack regrets his cruelty: I think we've been teasing her about the wrong things. Fanny hasn't got much in her life. You know George, just being an Aunt isn't really the great career it sometimes seemed to be. Really don't know of anything much Fanny has got, except her feeling about Eugene. As Uncle Jack speaks, George abstractedly walks toward the window. [Here, a key scene was cut from the original version of the film. George is startled and surprised by what he sees outside the window - the immense grounds surrounding the Amberson mansion are being dug up to build houses. There are concrete blocks and bricks all around - Major Amberson has had to sell off parcels of land around the house in order to raise money for the estate. This property is, in turn, subdivided and sold by the new owners. As the city spreads to the suburbs, the new houses become run-down and dirty.]

The Story (continued)

Two clangs of a blacksmith working at an anvil are heard to anticipate the next scene - sparks fly during a visit to the noisy Morgan Motor factory. As the Ambersons' fortunes decline, Eugene's fortunes begin to rise. Escorting an excited Isabel and Aunt Fanny along with Lucy and George, Eugene introduces his first Morgan auto, displayed museum style with a canopy hood: "Remember this. Our first machine. The original Morgan Invincible." [It is an original 1893 Steam Motor Car.] Isabel: I remember. Aunt Fanny: How quaint! Next to it, to convey the passage of time, is a more recent Morgan Motor Car. Lucy realizes how proud her father is, as he is carried away by the delighted guests, especially Isabel: "Did you ever see anything so lovely...as your mother [Isabel] - she's a darling, and Papa looks as if he were going to either explode or utter loud sounds." Eugene stands between Isabel and Fanny, paying attention only to Isabel and ignoring Fanny. As Fanny looks adoringly at Eugene, he tells Isabel that he is considering reviving his writing of poetry, and then he thanks them: Isabel: It makes us all happy Eugene. Give him your hand, Fanny. There. If brother Jack were here, Eugene would have his three oldest and best friends congratulating him all at once. We know what brother Jack thinks about it, though. Eugene: I used to write verse about twenty years ago. (To Isabel) Remember that? Isabel: I remember that too. Eugene: I'm almost thinking I could do it again. To thank you for making a factory visit into such a kind celebration. [The next beautiful scene appeared much later in the original film where it was much more appropriate.] After the death of Wilbur, Eugene is now free to pursue Isabel, and she is freer to respond to his love. In the garden of the Ambersons' mansion, Eugene and Isabel sit under a tree, where he takes her hand and encourages her to tell Georgie of their love: Eugene: Isabel, dear. Isabel: Yes, Eugene. Eugene: Don't you think you should tell George? Isabel: About us? Eugene: Yes. Isabel: There's still time. Eugene: I think he should hear it from you. Isabel (lovingly): He will, dearest. Soon. Soon. [The following scene appeared directly after the scene of the automobile factory visit in the original film.] In one of his horseless carriages, Eugene takes Isabel and Aunt Fanny for a ride down the main street of town. They are followed, with a very long tracking shot, of George in his run-about, horse-drawn carriage with Lucy as they travel along (signboards behind them identify "Middletown Hardware Co.," "Elite Cleaners and Dyers," "Telegraph Office," "Perkis Construction Co.," a "Pool and Billiard Hall," and "Barber Shop: Tony Gentry, Prop."). George, who has been smitten by Lucy, proposes to her, but she rejects him because he boastfully refuses to go into a business or profession, settle down, and earn a livelihood:

Lucy: I know when you make him (the horse) walk, it's so you can give all your attention to proposing to me again... George: Lucy, if you aren't the prettiest thing in this world. When are you going to say we're really engaged? Lucy: Not for years, so there's the answer. George: Lucy dear, what's the matter? You look as if you're gonna cry. You always do that whenever I can get you to talk about marrying me. Lucy: I know it. George: Well why do you? Lucy: One reason is because I have a feeling it's never gonna be. George: You haven't any reason? Lucy: It's just a feeling. I don't know. Everything's so unsettled. George: ...What's unsettled? Lucy: Well for one thing, George, you haven't decided on anything to do yet. Or at least if you have, you've never spoken of it. George: Lucy, haven't you perfectly well understood that I don't intend to go into a business or adopt a profession? Lucy: Then, what are you going to do George? George: Why, I expect to lead an honorable life. I expect to contribute my share to charities, and take part in, well, in movements. Lucy: What kind? George: Whatever appeals to me. George blames Lucy's rejection of him on the ideals of her father Eugene that have adversely influenced her views toward him: "Isn't it your father's idea that I have to go into a business, and you oughtn't to be engaged to me until I do?" Independent-minded Lucy denies ever having spoken to Eugene about the issue. Vindictive toward her successful entrepreneurial father, he asserts: Do you think I'd be very much of a man if I let another man dictate to me my own way of life?...I don't believe in the whole world scrubbing dishes, selling potatoes, or trying law cases. No, I dare say I don't care any more for your father's ideals than he does for mine. To carry forward the symmetry, George's carriage passes a shabby, dark coach carrying Uncle Jack and Major Amberson. [The scene appears to come out of nowhere, hanging in mid-air without any reference point, because of heavy editing.] With dark lighting evoking a death-like hearse, they are discussing George's flamboyant spending of money, obliquely referring to the financial difficulties of the Major and the effect the town is having on him: Uncle Jack: Your grandson. Last night, he seemed inclined to melancholy. Major Amberson: What about? Not getting remorseful about all the money he spent at college, is he? I wonder what he thinks I'm made of. Uncle Jack: Gold, and he's right about that part of you, father. Major Amberson: What part? Uncle Jack: Heart. Major Amberson: I suppose that may account for how heavy it feels nowadays, sometimes. This town seems to be rolling right over that old heart you mentioned just now, Jack. Rolling over us and burying us under. At a dinner party held at the Ambersons in a visually striking scene [the dining room scene is cinematographically superb dramatically filmed with a wide-angle lens that creates an extreme depth-of-field, and filled with images containing contrasting areas of light and dark], Eugene has been invited as a guest of the Ambersons - the six characters are seated on the ends and sides of the table. The scene, with quickly-cut shots, begins when George suffers embarrassment over his relationship with Lucy: Isabel: Lucy's on a visit, Father. She's spending a week with a school friend. Eugene: She'll be back Monday. Aunt Fanny: (Aunt Fanny leans out from behind George and goads him about Lucy) George, how does it happen you didn't tell us before? He never said a word to us about Lucy going away! Major Amberson: Probably afraid to. Didn't know that he might break down and cry if we tried to speak of it, isn't that so, Georgie? (He laughs at George) Aunt Fanny (to George): Or didn't Lucy tell you that she was going? George: She told me! Major Amberson: At any rate, Georgie didn't approve. I suppose you two [George and Lucy] aren't speaking again. Ha, ha, ha, ha. As the scene continues, Jack asks Eugene about talk that someone else is competitively opening up a horseless carriage shop somewhere out in the suburbs. Eugene, who has spurred the development of the automobile industry through his life's work, responds that an automobile revolution has begun that will change life in the growing city. The "devilish machines" would not, as thought, bring more commerce to the center of the industrial cities, but instead establish suburbs in the outlying areas where those who could afford it would move. During after-dinner conversation, George (embarrassed and angered over

the topic of Lucy) becomes deliberately rude, discourteous, critical, and offensive toward Eugene, whom he believes disapproves of his marriage to Lucy: Eugene: Automobiles will carry our streets clear out to the county line. Uncle Jack: Oh, I hope you're wrong. Because if people go to moving that far, real estate values here in the old residence part of town will be stretched pretty thin. Major Amberson: So your devilish machines are gonna ruin all your old friends, eh Gene? Do you really think they're gonna change the face of the land? Eugene: They're already doing it, Major. It can't be stopped. Automobiles... George: Automobiles are a useless nuisance. Major Amberson (reprimanding): What did you say George? George: I said, 'Automobiles are a useless nuisance.' Never amount to anything but a nuisance. They had no business to be invented. BR> Uncle Jack (rebuking): Of course you forget Mr. Morgan makes them. Also did his share in inventing them. If you weren't so thoughtless, he might think you're rather offensive. The individuals around the table struggle with their bewildered reactions to the attack that George has perpetrated upon Eugene's enterprise. Remarkably tolerant, gentle, restrained, and non-vindictive, industrialist/entrepreneur Eugene is uncharacteristically kind toward George's self-centered, conceited, crass, bad-mannered, antagonistic insult. With composure and reflection as he strokes a spoon, he elegantly and beautifully delivers a very significant speech, philosophising about the growth of the new invention: the automobile, admitting that there may be dangers inherent in progress: I'm not sure George is wrong about automobiles. With all their speed forward, they may be a step backward in civilization. It may be that they won't add to the beauty of the world or the life of men's souls. I'm not sure. But automobiles have come. And almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They're going to alter war and they're going to alter peace. And I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles. And it may be that George is right. It may be that in ten or twenty years from now, if we can see the inward change in men by that time, I shouldn't be able to defend the gasoline engine but would have to agree with George: that automobiles had no business to be invented. (The sound of the dropping of the spoon in his hand to the table signals the end to his thoughts.) After a pause, Eugene excuses himself from the table and departs for his automobile shop. Feeling empathetic to Eugene, Isabel mildly rebukes her son with deeply felt emotion: Isabel: Georgie dear, what did you mean? George: Just what I said. Isabel: He was hurt. George: I don't see why he should be. I didn't say anything about him. He didn't seem to me to be hurt. He seemed perfectly cheerful. What makes you think he was hurt? Isabel: I know him. Uncle Jack believes George is an enigmatic "puzzle" for his style of courtship of Eugene's daughter. [Indeed, throughout the film, troubling questions are continually raised - why is Eugene such a vile threat for George, and why doesn't Isabel really stand up to George and insist on a union with Eugene?]: Well, it's a new style of courting a pretty girl, I must say, for a young fellow to go deliberately out of his way to try to make an enemy of her father by attacking his business. By jove, that's a new way of winning a woman. Following the dinner party, in the hall of the Amberson mansion, Fanny, who has witnessed George's behavior, speaks to him, at first approving of him for his outrageous behavior at the dinner table. [This is the first of two scenes between George and Fanny on the staircase.] The camera - in a long, single take of almost three minutes, follows them as they climb to each of the successive landings of the staircase where stained-glass windows are labeled "Faith," "Hope," "Charity," "Music," and "Poetry." A self-pitying Fanny confesses her loneliness following her brother Wilbur's death, and then reveals that Isabel never really cared for any other man in her life but Eugene. She strategically lets slip the idea that the romance between Eugene and Isabel caused gossip throughout the entire town. Over-reacting, George becomes infuriated and suspicious: Fanny: George! You've struck just the right treatment to adopt. You're doing just the right thing. George: (He turns his back on her and tries to walk away.) Oh, what do you want? Fanny: Your father would thank you if he could see what you're doing. George: Why the mysterious detective business? You make me dizzy! Fanny: You don't care to hear that I approve of what you're doing? George: For the gosh sakes, what in the world is wrong with you? (Fanny starts climbing the stairs.) Fanny (bitterly): Oh, you're always picking on me, always! (George pursues her up the stairs.) Ever since you were a little boy! George (scornfully): Oh, my gosh! Fanny: You wouldn't treat anybody in the world like this, except old Fanny! 'Old Fanny,' you say, 'It's nobody but old Fanny, so

I'll kick her. Nobody'll resent it. I'll kick her all I want to!' And you're right. I haven't got anything in the world since my brother died. Nobody. Nothing! George: Oh, my gosh! Fanny: I never, never in the world would have told you about it or even made the faintest reference to it...(She moves out of the frame, still talking) if I hadn't seen that somebody else had told you, or you'd have found out for yourself in some way. George: Somebody else had told me what? Fanny: How people are talking about your mother. (George climbs the stairs to the next landing and stops in front of Fanny.) George (severely): What did you say?! Fanny: Of course, I understood what you were doing when you started being rude to Eugene. (Fanny starts ascending the next flight of stairs with George following.) I knew you'd give Lucy up in a minute if it came to a question of your mother's reputation. George: Look here! (She stops, turns around, and watches George from above.) Fanny: ...because you said... George: Look here! Just what do you mean? Fanny: I only wanted to say that I'm sorry for you, George, that's all. But it's only old Fanny, (Fanny turns and continues up the stairs with George following up to the next landing.) so whatever she says, pick on her for it. Hammer her! Hammer her! George: Jack said...(They stop in front of the balustrade.) Fanny (hysterically): It's only poor old lonely Fanny! George (furiously): Jack said that if there was any gossip, it was about you! He said people might be laughing about the way you ran after Morgan, but that was all. Fanny: Oh yes, it's always Fanny, ridiculous old Fanny, always, always! [Earlier in the snowy ride in the snow scene, Eugene had called Isabel 'divinelyridiculous', although the meaning of the word in these two contexts is quite different.] George: Listen. You said mother let him come here just on your account, and now you say... Fanny: He did. Anyhow, he liked to dance with me. He danced with me as much as he did with her... George: You told me mother never saw him except when she was chaperoning you. Fanny: Well, you don't suppose that stops people from talking, do you? They just thought I didn't count! 'It's only Fanny Minafer,' I suppose they'd say. Besides, everybody knew he'd been engaged to her. George: What's that? Fanny: Everybody knows it. Everybody in this town knows that Isabel never really cared for any other man in her life. George: I believe I'm going crazy. You mean you lied when you told me there wasn't any talk? Fanny: It never would have amounted to anything if Wilbur had lived. George: You mean Morgan might have married you? Fanny: No, because I don't know that I'd have accepted him. George: Are you trying to tell me that because he comes here and they see her with him, driving and all that, they think that they were right in saying that she was, she was in love with him before, before my father died? Fanny: Why, George! Don't you know that's what they say? You must know that everybody in town... With convincing theatricality and cunning, self-pitying and gossipy Fanny successfully plants suspicions in George's head, convincing him of her manufactured version of reality. George is forcefully incensed that Isabel had once been engaged to Eugene, and that gossips in the town talk of Eugene's love for his widowed mother. Fanny also manipulates his jealousy toward Morgan. (George didn't know that Eugene had been calling for Isabel's romantic attention, not Fanny's, or that his mother may have loved Eugene while Wilbur was alive.) Thinking that one of Fanny's friends, Tully Johnson, is the source of the malicious gossip about his mother, George impulsively feels he must defend his mother's honor/reputation and rise to action. He hysterically rushes out to confront the neighbor. He slams the door as Fanny screams in a panic from the top landing: "What are you going to do, George?" Mrs. Johnson, a straight-laced old woman, opens up her parlor door to her living room and welcomes George in, incorrectly identifying him for the second time in the film [at the ball, Lucy called him Mr. Amberson]: "Mr. Amberson, ha, ha, I mean Mr. Minafer." As the camera glides through the door and into her cluttered living room, George begins to assail her, charging her with spreading gossip with other neighbors about "a scandal" that involved his mother's name. At first agreeing that the issue is "a topic of comment about town," she then defends herself: "Really, this isn't a courtroom, and I'm not a defendant in a libel suit!" She orders him out of her house ("Please to leave my house"). In the next scene, introduced with a spitting tap in a bath tub (to aurally accentuate the folly of George's behavior), Jack bathes in an Amberson bathroom. George, who is positioned in front of a mirror (with a reflection of Jack in the tub seen in the mirror) is criticized by Jack: "Oh, now you have done it!" George is astounded that Jack can "speak so calmly" of a possible marriage between Eugene and Isabel: "That you can sit there and speak of it! Your own sister!" When Eugene arrives on his motorcar and walks up the front walk to the Amberson house to call on Isabel for a drive, George watches his approach with a pugnacious look from the upstairs, lace-curtained window. At the door, George - playing the role of Sam the butler - refuses to allow him to enter and turns him away from the house: My mother will have no interest in knowing that you came here today or any other day...You're not wanted in this house, Mr. Morgan, now or at any other time. Perhaps you'll understand this. (He slams the door.)

[George's words that forbid Eugene's entrance echo and repeat what the butler had twice told Eugene at the beginning of the film - "Miss Amberson ain't at home to you, Mr. Morgan."] After slamming the door in Eugene's face (shot from within the mansion), George stands watching a mute and stunned Eugene behind the frosted window pane. In not accepting Eugene's passion for his mother, George simultaneously causes two tragedies to befall his own life. He hastens the declining state of his own mother's health and her eventual death, and severs his own ties with Lucy, for she remains faithful to her father. A marvelous crane shot rises up the interior of the Amberson staircase, as George and Fanny, on different landings, overhear Uncle Jack in the hallway tell Isabel that he has just come from Eugene. Fanny whispers loudly to George and then condemns him: I can just guess what that was about. He's telling her what you did to Eugene...You're not going in there!...You keep away from here...Go on to the top of the stairs. Go on! It's indecent, like squabbling outside the door of an operating room. The idea of you going in there now. Just telling Isabel the whole thing. Now you stay here and let him tell her. He's got some consideration for her... And then Aunt Fanny expresses her role in troubling and stirring up George, and thereby hurting Isabel: I thought you already knew everything I did. I was just suffering...Oh, I was a fool. Eugene never would have looked at me, even if he'd never seen Isabel. And they haven't done any harm! She made Wilbur happy. She was a true wife to him as long as he lived. Here I go, not doing myself a bit of good by him, I'm just ruining them. When Uncle Jack leaves Isabel, Fanny warns George: "Leave her alone." Eugene sits at a desk on which rests a model of a motorcar to the right, and dogs on the left. He writes a letter to Isabel, asking if she will choose her oedipal son or stand up against him ("Will you live your life your way, or George's way?"). And he begs Isabel to not symbolically strike him dead a second time. He looks over the paper as his voice-over reads its contents: Dearest One Yesterday, I thought the time had come when I could ask you to marry me and you were dear enough to tell me, 'Sometime it might come to that.' Now, we are faced, not with slander, not with our own fear of it, because we haven't any, but someone else's fear of it, your son's. Oh dearest woman in the world, I know what your son is to you and it frightens me. Let me explain a little. I don't think he'll change. At twenty-one or twenty-two, so many things appear solid, permanent, and terrible, which forty sees as nothing but disappearing miasma. Forty can't tell twenty about this. Twenty can find out only by getting to be forty. And so we come to this, dear. Will you live your life your way, or George's way? Dear, it breaks my heart for you, but what you have to oppose now is your own selfless and perfect motherhood. Are you strong enough, Isabel? Can you make a fight? I promise you that if you will take heart for it, you will find so quickly that it's all amounted to nothing. You shall have happiness and only happiness. I'm saying too much for wisdom, I fear. And oh my dear, won't you be strong? Such a little short strength it would need. Don't strike my life down twice, dear. This time I've not deserved it.

The Story (continued)

Midway through the voice-over, the scene dissolves to the room where Isabel is reading the letter. Obviously, the letter is deeply affecting her - her face is saddened, and her eyes are luminous with tears. She rises and moves in the darkness toward the camera and small shafts of light. Her eyes reflect light in a difficult-to-achieve effect - a marvelous example of Stanley Cortez' cinematography. [The following scene, in which George speaks with Isabel about Eugene's letter, is the first time in the film that original footage is mixed with re-shot and re-written material.] After reading Eugene's letter, George enters his mother's room and taunts her with his reaction to it, mocking Eugene's reassuring feeling that they shouldn't care about gossip and what cruel tongues say: "Fair! Fair when he says that he and you don't care what people say?" He also can't fathom gossips speaking the obvious truth that she has always loved Eugene. As an aspiring "Amberson" himself, he is appalled by her acceptance of Eugene's love: But you're my mother. You're an Amberson. With tenderness and compassion, Isabel responds with her motherly nature, comforting and forgiving George's arrogance and contemptuousness. In a momentous decision, she postpones any further romance with Eugene by renouncing him and siding with her oedipal son. She tells George as she cradles his head in her hands that they will take an extended European tour to forget their troubles: "We'll go away for a while, you and I." The next day, as George is about to leave for the trip with his mother, he accidentally meets Lucy, by chance, on the street. At this point, Lucy is unaware of the conflict between George and Eugene, although she reminds him of their previous quarrel

about the direction of their lives during a buggy ride. While they promenade along the main boardwalk of the town in another of the film's long takes, [they stroll in front of many shops, and also by the Bijou movie house marquee where Jack Holt, Tim Holt's father, is starring in a western titled The Revenge], he bluntly and hesitantly tells her that he is imminently departing for a world trip. As they step into the sunlight at a street corner, he hints that their relationship might die right there with his breakaway - he hopes that she will show some emotion for him - but his theatricality doesn't affect her: This is our last walk together, Lucy...This is the last time I'll see you ever, ever in my life. Mother and I are starting on a trip around the world tomorrow. We've made no plans at all for coming back...Lucy. I can't stand this...It's quite a shock, Lucy...to find out just how deeply you care, to see how much difference this makes to you...Can't stand this any longer. I can't Lucy. Good-bye, Lucy. It's good-bye. I think it's good-bye for good, Lucy. Although she has faced his goodbye with a fixed smile unbetrayed by sadness, and she has wished him well: "I do hope you have the most splendid trip," once George has left, her face reveals a deep sadness and her eyes fill with tears [the shot of her face, in soft-focus closeup, was inserted inappropriately by RKO]. She faints in a nearby chemist's shop after asking for a glass of water and a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia. [A major scene involving the decline of the Ambersons has been removed at this point. In other excised film footage, Jack had warned George of the peril to Isabel's health if she traveled, but he ignored it and went abroad anyway.] Several months later in a reception room at Eugene's mansion, in a scene that now illustrates Eugene's prosperous ascendancy (the room is lit by electricity), Jack pays a visit to Lucy and her father after a trip abroad to visit Isabel and George. During the after-dinner conversation, Eugene sits prominently in a high-backed, wing chair, as a fire burns behind him in the chimney's fireplace. Lucy sits to the right with her facial expression turned away from the camera. In a long continuous and fixed-camera take with deep focus typical of Welles, Jack reveals - to the differing perspectives of father and daughter that he saw Isabel, who "isn't particularly well" and "ought to be in a wheelchair." In his account, she seemed cheerful but was "short of breath" and her health was deteriorating. Jack expresses his view about Isabel returning home: "I told her I thought she ought to make Georgie let her come home," but "she doesn't urge it" since George appears to be enjoying life in Europe: "George seems to like the life there in his grand, gloomy and peculiar way." Wasting away, Isabel should come home, but George doesn't let it happen: Eugene: And you say he won't let her come home. Jack: I don't think he uses force. He's very gentle with her. I doubt that the subject is mentioned between them yet - (he turns toward Eugene rather than Lucy) - knowing my interesting nephew as you do, wouldn't you think 'that' was about the way to put it? Eugene: Knowing him as I do, yes. And then Isabel returns from abroad, but she is so frail and ill that she has to be assisted from the railway station into a waiting carriage. As the horse-drawn carriage moves toward town, and diagonal shadows flash across her, Jack and George strain to hear her withdrawn voice: Isabel: It's changed. It's so changed. Jack: You mean, you mean the town? You mean the old place has changed, don't you dear? Isabel: Yes. Jack: It will change to a happier place, old dear, now that you're back. You're going to get well here. [Another scene was cut in which the Amberson family is upstairs discussing the state of Isabel's health.] Eugene comes calling to see Isabel, [another scene re-shot and re-written] and again, the insensitive George immediately refuses entrance. Although Eugene insists on seeing her, both Fanny (in tears) and Jack gently reinforce the doctor's recommendation that she be visited later. It is ultimately a great injustice to Eugene - he is prevented from seeing her just as she is about to die. In a beautifully-captured close-up image, George watches as Eugene departs the mansion for the last time. His determined face is reflected in the window pane from Isabel's familiar vantage point - he replaces her image and imposes his own will. [It is one of the most famous shots in the original film.] A nurse hovers in the background between dark pillars and ominous music plays. In Isabel's death-bed farewell scene, George enters his mother's dimly-lit room. Her face is covered with a complex spider-web pattern of lighting from the window's lace curtain - another superb cinematographic effect. The web is symbolically one of frustration, pride, and conflicting loves from which she was never able to free herself. Delirious, she shows tender concern for her son, even though she is the one who is dying: Darling, did you get something to eat?...Are you sure you didn't catch cold coming home?

And then she inquires whether Eugene and Lucy know that they have returned from their trip abroad. She pointedly asks: "Has he asked about me?" Learning that Eugene was there and left, she sighs poignantly: "I would have liked to have seen him. Just once." To symbolize the darkness of death taking her, the shade is pulled down over the lace curtain and the web patterns becomes dark over Isabel's face. Nearby, Major Amberson restlessly reclines fully clothed in a near-death stupor himself in George's bed. (George's Harvard banner is above it.) Isabel's death occurs off-screen in a simple, emotionally-effective scene. In desperate anguish after the death, Fanny rushes in and embraces George tightly: "She loved you. She loved you." An abrupt transition moves into the haunting scene of Major Amberson's own death. [It is not immediately after Isabel's death, but at some unspecified time in the future when affairs of the estate are being decided.] A dying fire flickers on a close-up of his pensive, staring face (toward the camera) as he ponders his own death and the here-after - in a long camera take. Welles softly narrates from Booth Tarkington's words: And now, Major Amberson was engaged in the profoundest thinking of his life. And he realized that everything which had worried him or delighted him during this lifetime, all his buying and building and trading and banking, that it was all trifling and waste beside what concerned him now. For the Major knew now that he had to plan how to enter an unknown country where he was not even sure of being recognized as an Amberson. The Major is too far senile to answer Jack's (off-screen) complex probate and estate questions concerning the deed to the house. [The Major leaves no deeds to his remaining property, and the mansion itself is sold off, and later subdivided into a boarding house.] In a rambling, incoherent speech (again from Tarkington), the old Major disjointedly muses on the source of life: It must be in the sun. There wasn't anything here but the sun in the first place...The Earth came out o' the sun, and we came out of the Earth. So whatever we are... When the light fades, his voice grows silent, the screen turns slowly to black, and his life ends. [The next scene is also some time in the future. Footage is missing of Jack borrowing money from George to make his trip. He will use his past Congressional position to secure a consulship somewhere overseas.] In a farewell scene at the railroad station before a column and a railroad bench and in front of the great inside dome, Uncle Jack leaves George to seek a new job, attempting to earn some money to bolster the sagging Amberson finances - now busted. Jack identifies them as "two gentlemen of elegant appearance in a state of bustitude." In a very economical scene, he both manages to reminisce about a goodbye to a young girl he once knew (in Tarkington's words), and to ambivalently praise and blame George with chastening words: Once I stood where we're standing now to say goodbye to a pretty girl. Only it was in the old station before this was built. We called it the depot. We knew we wouldn't see each other again for almost a year. I thought I couldn't live through it. She stood there crying - don't even know where she lives now. Or if she is living. If she ever thinks of me she probably imagines I'm still dancing in the ballroom of the Amberson mansion. She probably thinks of the mansion as still beautiful. Still the finest house in town. Ah, life and money both behave like loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks. When they're gone, you can't tell where, or what the devil you did with them. I've always been fond of you, Georgie. I can't say I've always liked ya. But we all spoiled you terribly when you were a boy....There have been times when I thought you ought to be hanged. And just for a last word, there may be somebody else in this town (Lucy Morgan) who's always felt about you like that. Fond of you, I mean, no matter how much it seems you ought to be hanged. [The following garden scene was originally intended to come after the scene of Fanny's final hysteria.] In a lyrical garden scene [faithful to Tarkington's novel], Lucy (with Eugene) recounts an Indian folk tale (fabricated by her?) about a detestable Indian chief sent into exile - the legend obviously parallels the story of the life of George Amberson. As they walk toward the camera between tall weeping willow trees, and orchestral garden music plays, Eugene knocks his pipe against the palm of his hand. She has resigned herself to not marrying George because of his vindictiveness. Instead, she will remain in her garden and see to her father's every wish, forgetting the name of the Indian chief and George's name as well: Lucy: Ever hear the Indian name for that little grove of beech trees? Eugene: No, and you never did either. Well? (They stop. Lucy laughs.) Lucy: The name was Loma-Nashah. It means: 'They-couldn't-help-it.' Eugene: Doesn't sound like it. Lucy: Indian names don't. There was a bad Indian chief, the worst Indian that ever lived, and his name was...it was Vendonah. Means: 'Rides-Down-Everything.' Eugene: What?

Lucy: His name was Vendonah, same thing as: 'Rides-Down-Everything.' Eugene: I see. (She laughs.) Go on. Lucy: Vendonah was unspeakable. He was so proud he wore iron shoes and walked over people's faces. So at last, the tribe decided that it wasn't a good enough excuse for him that he was young and inexperienced. He'd have to go. So they took him down to the river, put him in a canoe, and pushed him out from shore. The current carried him on down to the ocean. And he never got back. They didn't want him back, of course. They hated Vendonah, but they weren't able to discover any other warrior they wanted to make chief in his place. They couldn't help feeling that way. Eugene: I see. So that's why they named the place: 'They-couldn't help-it.' Lucy: Must have been. (They start walking again and then stop.) Eugene: So you're going to stay in your garden. You think it's better just to keep walking about among your flower beds and get old like a pensive garden lady in a Victorian engraving? Huh? Lucy: I suppose I'm like that tribe that lived here, Papa. I had too much unpleasant excitement. I don't want any more. In fact, I don't want anything but you. Eugene: You don't? What was the name of that grove? Lucy: 'They-could...' Eugene: No, the Indian name, I mean. Lucy: Oh. Mola-Haha. (They laugh together.) Eugene: Mola-Haha. That wasn't the name you said. Lucy: Oh, I've forgotten. Eugene: So you have. Perhaps you remember the chief's name better? Lucy: I don't. (Eugene puts his arm around his daughter) Eugene: I hope some day you can forget it. In the now dim, deserted and changed Amberson house in the empty kitchen [in a scene partially re-shot to replace the original film and spliced together with the original Cortez/Welles film], George and Fanny discuss the sorry state of their finances and how much they'll need to live: George: I'm only going to be getting $8 a week at the law office. You'd be paying more of the expenses than I would. Fanny: I'd be paying? I'd be paying? George: Certainly you would. We'd be using more of your money than mine. Fanny: My money. My money. (She makes a desperate laugh) I've got $28, that's all. George: $28? Fanny: That's all. I know I told you I didn't put everything in the Headlight Company, but I did. Every cent, and it's gone. After admitting her foolish investment of her small inheritance from Wilbur in an auto headlight factory, she worries whether Georgie will abandon her, and then slumps helplessly against the boiler and slides to the floor: Oh, I know what you're gonna do. (Sobbing) You're, you're gonna leave me in the lurch! Knowing that both of them are equally destitute and penniless, George demands that she get up from her defeated, child-like position. Tormented and grief-stricken, she remains down and complains about how her own penny-pinching efforts to provide have failed miserably: I knew your mother wanted me to watch over you, and try and make something like a home for you, and I tried. I tried to make things as nice for you as I could...I walked my heels down looking for a place for us to live. I-I walked and walked over this town. I didn't ride one block on a streetcar. Again, George commands her to get up and not sit there with her back against the boiler, but she becomes hysterical: It's not hot, it's cold. The plumber's disconnected it. I wouldn't mind if they hadn't...I wouldn't mind if it burned me George! And then in a brilliantly-choreographed, elaborate tracking dolly shot moving through four rooms, they continue to argue. They move backward from the cold boiler out the kitchen door and through the reception hall (past the circular staircase) and into the boarded-up front parlor - where sheets shroud the furniture in the otherwise empty living room. As George shakes her to end her maniacal, hysterical laughter, he learns she has picked out boarding house accommodations for them that cost $36 a month and $22.50 for dinner. Sacrificially, George must abandon not only the Amberson mansion but also his law-firm position and his law career to earn money - something unthinkable years earlier - so that he can support himself and his spinster aunt. In the offices of his employer Benson, George decides on a desperate alternative - he will take a higher-paying position as a dynamiter: Benson: A real flair for the law. That's right. Couldn't wait till tomorrow to begin. The law's a jealous mistress and a stern mistress.

George: I can't do it. I can't take up the law. Benson: What? George: I've come to tell you that I've got to find something quicker. Something that pays from the start...Well sir, I've heard that they pay very high wages to people in dangerous trades, people that handle touchy chemicals, high explosives. Men in the dynamite factories. Thought I'd see if I couldn't get a job like that. I want to get started tomorrow if I could. Benson: Georgie. Your grandfather and I were boys together. Don't you think I ought to know what's the trouble? George: Well sir, it's Aunt Fanny. She set her mind on this particular boardinghouse. It seems she put everything in the Headlight Company. Well, she got some old cronies, and I guess she's been looking forward to the games of bridge and the harmless kind of gossip that goes on in such places. Really, it's the life she'd like better than anything else. It struck me that she's just about got to have it. Feeling some of the responsibility, Benson promises to help George find a suitable job as a dynamiter: "You certainly are the most practical young man I ever met." As George walks home for the last time, images of the new machine age and the changed way of life in the growing industrialized city are seen from George's perspective. As the town grows, it also dies, "befouled" with large buildings, telegraph poles and lines, pipelines, electric streetcar wires, steel girders, factory windows, deserted homes in the central part of the city, and "New Hope Apartment For Rent" signs. Welles' voice-over narrates and then the screen goes black: George Amberson Minafer walked homeward slowly through what seemed to be the strange streets of a strange city. The town was growing and changing. It was heaving up in the middle, incredibly. It was spreading, incredibly. And as it heaved and spread, it befouled itself, and darkened its sky. This was the last walk home he was ever to take up National Avenue to Amberson addition, and the big old house at the foot of Amberson Boulevard. Tomorrow, they were to move out. Tomorrow, everything would be gone. At the foot of the bed where his mother died, in a bedroom now dark and depressing, George kneels to say a final prayer and farewell to his long-departed mother: "God, forgive me." The narration begins again, quietly. The eagerly-awaited fall (when he gets his 'come-uppance') of Georgie Amberson Minafer passes almost unnoticed, as his mother dies after he has suffered the loss of Lucy's love. The Ambersons (and most definitely the Minafers) are already a forgotten family: Something had happened, a thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. And now it came at last: George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance. He'd got it three times filled and running over. But those who had longed for it were not there to see it. And they never knew it, those who were still living had forgotten all about it, and all about him. A clanging bell presages an automobile accident shortly afterwards - a third tragedy. George is almost killed - literally and physically run over by an automobile (made by Eugene's company?) - a machine that he had earlier called "a useless nuisance." At the accident scene, as George's form is carried away on a stretcher [never to be seen again in the film], one of the policemen remarks: "It's wonderful the damage one of these little machines can do. You'd never believe it." A headline in the city's newspaper, The Indianapolis Daily Inquirer announces a bold headline: "AUTO CASUALTIES MOUNT." [Two 'inside' jokes refer to Citizen Kane (1941) - the paper is a Kane Empire newspaper, and the left column article entitled "Stage Views" is written by Jed Leland, a character played by Joseph Cotten in the film.] Another newspaper column titled TODAY'S TOLL describes George's crippling accident - abbreviating his name to mere initials: "Serious Accident - G. A. Minafer, Akers Chemical Co., both legs broken." In his study, Eugene reads about the accident in the paper and then contemplates whether he will respond to the notice. He doesn't answer Lucy's question: "What are you going to do, Papa?" She decides to visit the pauperized George in the hospital after he was brought down by the street accident: "I'm going to him. You coming, father?" and then she strides out of the frame. Eugene is resigned to join her and rises after he hears the door shut. Eugene, Lucy and George are ultimately reconciled in the hospital. At last, outside George's hospital room and as they walk down the corridor in a long traveling shot, Eugene [a representative of the machine age] is able to confide to Fanny that George had asked for forgiveness from him. You know what he said to me when we went in that room? He said, 'You must have known my mother wanted you to come here today, so that I could ask you to forgive me.' We shook hands. Despite George's own character faults, it is understood that he will be redeemed. Eugene will take care of the disabled George. Through Eugene, Isabel would love her own son, enabling Eugene to feel close and remain faithful to the memory of his true love, Isabel. Fanny will have nothing to fear, now that Isabel is dead, and she smiles indulgently as they both look straight ahead and walk toward the camera. Fulfilled, Eugene tells Fanny of his conviction that he is "true at last" to his true love - Isabel:

I never noticed before how much like Isabel Georgie looks. (Tears sparkle on Fanny's cheeks.) You know something, Fanny? I wouldn't tell this to anybody but you. But it seemed to me as if someone else was in that room. And that through me, she brought her boy under shelter again, and that I'd been true at last to my true love. The reconciliation scene ends on a close-up of Fanny's face wearing a beatific, rejoicing smile and looking upward toward heaven [toward Isabel in the spiritual world], before it fades to black from a view of the empty, barren hospital corridor. Violins swell with sentimentality on the soundtrack. [The last sugar-coated scene in the hospital in the film's happy, uplifting conclusion has been much criticized as the ultimate insult toward Welles and the original film. The scene was re-written and re-directed, and then tacked onto the film. In the original film's ending (footage that was destroyed), Eugene visited an aging, bitter Fanny in her sparse boarding room house/old folks' home and told her about his hospital visit to George and their reconciliation, as she rocked back and forth in a creaking chair and listened to a phonograph record playing in the background.] In the final, imaginative credits sequence, Orson Welles returns in voice-over, off-stage. In the darkness and then with a display of the book, his voice has the final words: Ladies and gentlemen, The Magnificent Ambersons was based on Booth Tarkington's novel. He re-introduces the various major contributors of the crew (and then cast) by their names (and trademarks): Stanley Cortez was the photographer (A movie camera symbolizes the Cinematographer) Mark-Lee Kirk designed the sets (Set sketches symbolize the Art Director) Al Fields dressed them (An ornate chair, drapery, and statuary symbolize the Set Designer) Robert Wise was the film editor (A rotating movie reel in front of a strip of film stock moving through a projector) Freddie Fleck was the assistant director (The top of a typewritten page of the screenplay, a conversation between Lucy and George) Edward Stevenson designed the ladies' wardrobe (A piece of fabric being cut and fashioned for one of the ladies' dresses symbolizes the Costumes Designer) The special effects were by Vernon L. Walker (An elaborate camera set-up films a special effect) The sound recording was by Bailey Fessler and James G. Stewart (Two hands turn round instrument dials to adjust sound volume) Here's the cast: [all filmed in cameos against a black backdrop] Eugene - Joseph Cotten Isabel - Dolores Costello Lucy - Anne Baxter George - Tim Holt Fanny - Agnes Moorehead Jack - Ray Collins Roger Benson - Erskine Sanford Major Amberson - Richard Bennett

The final image of the film is a closeup of a microphone that hangs from a boom in space - as Welles intones about his own triple contribution (as screenwriter, director, and producer): I wrote the script and directed it. My name is Orson Welles. This is a Mercury Production. The boom and microphone swing up and away into a shaft of light coming through a skylight in the ceiling. Also Worth Your Attention... AMC Filmcritic's Review of The Magnificent Ambersons