Hot on the heels of The Criterion Collection’s 4K restoration of The Magnificent Ambersons, movie historian Joseph Egan has unveiled a website totally dedicated to Orson Welles’ sophomore Hollywood release.
A four-month undertaking, The Complete Orson Welles The Magnificent Ambersons seeks to take full advantage of the website format, Egan said.
“I wanted it to show that it could be an art form; in other words do something that can only be done as a website and cannot be done in any other art form, i.e., book, film, documentary, etc.,” Egan said. “I don’t know if I have succeeded but it is an attempt.”
His website has not only the largest online collection of Ambersons stills and storyboards, but also original correspondence, studio memos, the trailer, 1939 Campbell Playhouse radio show with Walter Huston, vintage interviews, thought provoking essays — and the mother-loving seven-reel cutting continuity lavishly illustrated with photos!
It can all be found at www.themagnificentambersons.com
Adapted from the Booth Tarkington novel of the same name, The Magnificent Ambersons details the declining fortunes of a wealthy Midwestern family with the arrival of the automobile age.
Welles lost control of the editing of The Magnificent Ambersons to RKO Pictures while working on a wartime project in South America. The studio cut more than an hour of footage and tacked on an upbeat ending.
Egan, an admitted “walking film encyclopedia,” is the author of The Purple Diaries: Mary Astor and the Most Sensational Hollywood Scandal of the 1930s. He is also a conceptual artist, who has presented installations in New York City, as well as in the Midwest.
(Thanks to Kathleen Spaltro for tipping us off to this website.)
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