Unproduced (non-Welles) Magnificent Ambersons film - Henry Fonda & Olivia deHavilland ??

[RayKelly]

Nearly 20 years ago, I purchased a copy of a script for THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS -- believing it to be the Orson Welles version. It was not.
Although the seller scribbled 1942 on the front page of the 165-page script, it is not even close to the Welles script. I unhappily packed it away and only recently re-discovered it.
The script is credited to Charles Linton Tedford. He wrote several historical dramas in the late 1930s and the 1940s.
The cast of characters lists Olivia deHavilland in the role of Lucy Morgan and Henry Fonda as Georgie Minafer.
Henry O'Neill would play Eugene Morgan and Fay Bainter was to be cast as Fanny.
I have NEVER heard of this project before. Can anyone shed any light on it.

[Tashman]

To start the ball rolling, if de Havilland was to be cast as Lucy her age would likely make this a Warners script. (But one I've likewise never heard of.)

[RayKelly]

Safe bet.. deHavilland, Fonda, and I believe, O'Neill were all under contract to WB in that era

[Le Chiffre]

I've never heard of that Tedford script either. It would be interesting to read. Henry Fonda as George? If the script dates from 1942, Fonda would have been 37!

[Roger Ryan]

Warners did hold the rights to "Ambersons" in the 30s, I believe. I seem to remember the property was sold to R.K.O. fairly inexpensively since Warners never had much enthusiasm for it. I had no idea a screenplay was written with a cast in mind.

[Tashman]

I wonder if that property came to them when they bought Vitagraph, the company that made PAMPERED YOUTH.

[RayKelly]

Olivia deHavilland made her film debut for Warner Bros. in 1935, so this project must have been planned between 1935 and 1942.
Like I stated earlier, I have no doubt that the "1942" written on the first page was written by the dealer. Other scripts I bought from him had a year written on the first page, usually in the same spot. (He thought it was the RKO movie).
The initial pages of the script list the characters with a brief description. Several have specific actors' names mentioned. The final pages are marked "ALTERNATE ENDING" (Ironic isn't it).

[Jeff Wilson]

Per Frank Brady's CITIZEN WELLES, p 313:

"Warners bought the sound rights [to AMBERSONS] in 1929 and proceeded to have a talking script created by Julien Josephson...Unimpressed with the filmic possiblities of Josephson's script, Warner's shelved the project for almost a decade, reviving it in 1938 for another adaptive trial by screenwriter Charles Linton Tedford. The Tedford attempt continued to be uninspiring to the brothers Warner because it failed to capture the somewhat complicated message of a land and a great people in transition; no film was made. When negotiations began to buy the rights for Welles's version, Warner's was so happy to be rid of what was becoming a burden, RKO was granted rights for a small amount of money and Warner's threw in the Josephson and Tedford scripts to boot."

[RayKelly]

Thanks Jeff!
I have Brady's book, but I seldom turn to it as a resource (my mistake).

[Jeff Wilson]

No problem, I remembered reading about the previous rights to the film, and it took me a while to dig up the right source. Most of the books I looked at didn't even mention the Warner attempt to make the film.