Wellesnet: The Orson Welles Web Resource

Robert Wise

By LAWRENCE FRENCH

Robert Wise sent this detailed report to Welles about the audience reaction at the first two previews of the film. In retrospect, it seems rather incredible that RKO executives would take only two previews as the final word on how AMBERSONS would be received by audiences nationwide. While the majority of the comments in Pomona were  unfavorable, the people who did like it thought it was a brilliant picture! Today, it seems incredibly foolish to have based the wholesale cutting of the film on such a limited response. Just imagine what might have happened if only the film had been previewed in a more upscale market, such as New York or San Francisco, where AMBERSONS opened to good box office returns, or if, like CITIZEN KANE, it hadn't been previewed at all!

ROBERT  WISE TO ORSON WELLES:
March 31, 1942

Dear Orson:

You asked for a detailed report of preview audience reactions and I have never tackled a more difficult chore. (more...)

By LAWRENCE FRENCH

Although Welles still wanted to finish the editing on AMBERSONS by having Robert Wise come to Rio, he also began sending a detailed list of changes he wanted made to the film, only two days after receiving this cable from Jack Moss assuring him that "every effort" was being made for Robert Wise to join Welles in Rio.

JACK MOSS TO ORSON WELLES:
March 25, 1942

Dear Orson:

Every effort being made to secure immediate passage for Bob. (more...)

George Schaeffer and Orson Welles

On March 19, only two day after the Pomona fiasco, RKO held another preview at the United Artists Theatre in Pasadena. This time the film was shown after the Warner Bros. James Cagney film (in Technicolor), CAPTAINS OF THE CLOUDS. For this showing the film was re-edited to a running time of approximately 117 minutes, restoring most of the big cut Welles had ordered, but with both porch scenes and the factory still eliminated. The film was much better received in Pasadena, and in fact 79 out of the 95 comment cards returned were not only positive, but quite glowing about the film. Only 16 cards were unfavorable, with 5 mixed. However it seems as if nothing could change the memory of the bad Pomona preview in Schaefer's mind, and he was determined to shorten the film and remove "the somber music" so it would play better with young audiences, as he pointedly tells Welles in this letter.

GEORGE SCHAEFER TO ORSON WELLES:
March 21, 1942       PERSONAL-CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Orson:

I did not want to cable you with (more...)

By LAWRENCE FRENCH

On March 15 — the ides of March — Welles received the 132 minute rough cut print of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS in Rio. The next day, Welles had the first inkling that something might be terribly amiss with the film when he received a telegram from Robert Wise. As Wise had noted in his previous letter, (more...)

Orson Welles, Tim Holt

RKO executive Charles Koerner assumed Breen’s duties, supposedly on a temporary basis, but as can be seen, one of the first things Koerner did as the “temporary head of the studio” was to write a memo to RKO executives making sure that no commitments were made with Welles or Mercury without his explicit permission. (more...)

Guinea Bissau, 2010

With the approach of the Orson Welles Centenary in 2015, nowhere does the anniversary of his birth seem as special as Woodstock, Illinois, where the young Welles spent his formative years at the Todd School for Boys.

A citizens’ group, Woodstock Celebrates, is planning events in May 2014, marking the 80th anniversary of the Todd Theatre Festival during which Welles made his directorial debut, and on May 6,  2015 to mark the 100th anniversary of  his birth.

To draw further attention to this milestone, Woodstock Celebrates and Wellesnet are petitioning the U.S. Postal Service to issue a stamp in 2015 honoring the Orson Welles Centenary. (more...)

By LAWRENCE FRENCH

I was trapped down there (in Brazil), I couldn't leave, and all I kept getting were those terrible signals about this awful movie I made. My own chums were running frightened — not just RKO...  Even those people who truly had my interests at heart felt that I'd gone too far. I didn't believe I had and I still don't...  They got so spooked because of a bad preview, and there had been no preview of CITIZEN KANE. Think what would have happened to KANE if there had been one... On Pomona on Saturday night—you can imagine what would have happened!

— Orson Welles to Peter Bogdanovich, THIS IS ORSON WELLES (more...)