Questions about The Magnificent Ambersons

[major pepper]

Hello everybody!

This is my first post here as a new member. I'm glad to join Welles's real fans. I discovered this site one year ago and would like to thank you all for your participation, to share your knowledges and erudition about the "magic world" of Orson!
This message board is a gold mine of information for a beginner like me. I read a lot of topics here with a big pleasure and apologize if I ask questions which has been already asked here before. Please excuse my bad english too. I'm french and do my best to improve it.

I guess very few people had the luck to see the original edit from The Magnificent Ambersons in 1941! I'd like to know where I could read reports from film critics, actors, directors... About it. My question could seem stupid, but I wander which sequences people liked the most and thought they were the best from the movie. Of course the ENTIRE film form a coherent unit about the march of time and should be appreciated as a whole. And which passages would you like to see first if you could? (I know, I dream...)

In a book (Sorry, I forgot the title), I read an account by Bernard Herrmann about the original ending. Do you think he misremembered when he said :
"

After the car accident and George's injury, the picture then goes to what we don't realize until the end has been once the home of the Ambersons. It is now a home for aged gentlefolk." (...) (Fanny) takes Eugene to the door and opens it, and that's when you realize this has been the Ambersons house."

This ending seems coherent, but it seems to me this doesn't appears clearly in the continuity script. Maybe I misunderstood?

« Welles raises Kane » contains two beautiful extracts from Magnificent Ambersons directed by Herrmann. It’s beautiful, so I wonder if another soundtracks from the movie survived in a version recorded and orchestrated by Herrmann himself, but I don't think so, sadly.

Finally, I resarch stills from the fun house sequence in Lady from Shangaï. I already found some in the excellent book written by Peter Bogdanovich "This is Orson Welles". Do you know other books which show other stills from this sequence?

I thank you all in advance for your answers and your kind attention,
Major Pepper

[Roger Ryan]

Welcome Major Pepper!

I believe Herrmann misremembered the original AMBERSONS ending. Per the cutting continuity (and the released film), George and Fanny move to an existing boarding house after leaving the abandoned mansion; it is this particular boarding house that Eugene visits Fanny at the film's end and not one converted from the mansion itself. As proof, the existing production reports list an address on W. Adams street in Los Angeles as the location for the boarding house exterior shots and not the RKO Encino ranch location where the exterior of the mansion had been built. Why did Herrmann misunderstand? There was narration cut from the film where Welles describes the mansion eventually being replaced by cheap housing, but this ties in to the idea that Major Amberson had been selling off portions of his estate for this purpose for years (sadly, all of these references were removed from the released film). It's possible that Herrmann thought that the cheap housing that would eventually replace the mansion was, indeed, the boarding house seen at the end (logically, not enough time has passed in the film for the mansion to be converted and the city to grow around it as shown in the final shot of Welles' original cut - the one George and Fanny live in is closer to the hub of the city than the mansion). Also, I suspect the home used for the boarding house exterior is the same home which appears in Robert Wise's THE CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE two years later (shot, as well, on W. Adams street) - the home seen in Wise's film does resemble the Amberson mansion and it's possible that Herrmann thought it was when scoring the film.

There is a CD release of Herrmann's original score for AMBERSONS...

http://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Amber ... 933&sr=1-1

This is a re-recording obviously, based on Herrmann's manuscript. The CD liner notes include this notation...

The only surviving recordings of Herrmann's original music as recorded in 1942 (apart from what's in the film itself) is known to be a rehearsal of Toujours ou jamais in Waldteufel's orchestration and one take of the cue Second Nocturne. These recordings and Herrmann's complete manuscript are located in the Bernard Herrmann Archives as the University of California, Santa Barbara.

[Glenn Anders]

Major Pepper: Let me add my welcome to others who will stand ready to assist you here at Wellesnet, hopefully, in the years ahead.

You may always trust the knowledge that Roger Ryan affords you. Accept few substitutes!

But I shall be so bold as to offer one:

My understanding is that most, if not all, THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS was originally intended to be CUT TO Bernard Herrmann's score, not the other way about, which was (and mostly is) the conventional practice. You can see how that would have worked if you invest ten or fifteen dollars at Amazon in the Varese edition of Tony Bremmer's restoration of the complete score. The CD box, with its Norman Rockwell poster cover, contains a booklet which lays out schismatically how the tragic arc of the picture would have gone up and come crashing down to Herrmann's music. Following that persuasive logic, it is easy to imagine how the composer, in consultation with Writer-Director Orson Welles, might have gained an impression that the Ambersons' mansion was indeed turned into Fanny's last abode. It would have made such pure sad logic, such tragic sense. The film of course was never entirely pulled together by Welles, and had he edited or supervised the final picture, no doubt additional montages might have been added showing how the City of Indianapolis(?) swiftly incorporated Major Amberson's lands over a period of fifteen years or so, and turned the neighborhood into what would become known later as a seedy urban sprawl. To deny the possibility of such an ending, no matter what settings were photographed, robs us of the arc Hermann's complete score suggests.

In his original work, Welles had a tendency to take meretricious material and elevate it to that of high art. Booth Tarkington's bucolic popular novel is such an example. RKO's destruction of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS left us with a prettily photographed but rather conventional family melodrama of its time. In my regretful opinion, KING'S ROW easily trumps in that department what is left of . . . AMBERSONS.

In Peter Bogdanovich's collaboration with Welles, This Is Orson Welles, you have probably the best overall discussion of Welles' thought on various interests. From the horse's mouth, as it were. Particularly valuable is Jonathan Rosenbaum's timeline of Welles' life and works.

By all accounts, the original "funhouse sequence" from THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI was cut to the brilliant shards of what remains in the picture. The extra footage is gone, and whatever photos you may find from it are probably promotional stills. A collection of these awaits your discovery in the wonderful but jumbled archives of Wellesnet.

Glenn

[Roger Ryan]

Glenn - I believe you may be thinking about CITIZEN KANE when you mention that Welles edited to Herrmann's music instead of Herrmann conducting to Welles' images: this was reported as happening during the celebrated montage of Thatcher growing increasingly agitated as he reads the various Inquirer headlines (I seem to recall that Herrmann may have composed this cue prior to shooting so Welles knew exactly how long each shot should last). I don't think there are any other reports of Herrmann composing cues prior to shooting or editing. As for AMBERSONS, I'm thinking that Herrmann may have prepared some of the waltzes prior to shooting but little else. Studio files and correspondence establish that Herrmann recorded his cues for AMBERSONS in February and, possibly, early March of 1942 after Welles had left for Brazil.

But it is important to understand that Herrmann and Welles worked a lot closer than most Director/Composer pairs on Welles' first two films. Herrmann was a frequent visitor to the KANE set (as was Robert Wise) so he would have a sense of what Welles was trying to achieve prior to seeing the scenes edited together. It's very possible that Herrmann visited during the AMBERSONS shooting as well. Perhaps the idea that Fanny's boarding house was the converted Amberson mansion is one option that Welles discussed with Herrmann prior to shooting...or one he discussed years later as an "improvement" he would consider if he was ever able to redo the film. This is not the case, however, in the 131 min. initial edit Welles controlled which clearly establishes (as does the released version and Tarkington's novel) that Fanny and George are moving to the boarding house directly from the mansion.

[major pepper]

I thank you all very much for this fascinating precisions. Many things appear more clearly now to me.
I agree with you about the strong relationship between Orson Welles and his composer : I trust He said that music count for fifty percent from his films! I bought the CD with Tonny Bremmer's reorchestrations, and was much impressed by the differences between the first themes and the dark themes we hear in the end. Such a pity it wasn't reissued during Herrman's birthday with the missing cues! I mistook the LP "Welles raises Kane" (with two extracts freely adaptated) for the two only surviving's recording.

I think it’s very interesting to know the outdoor’s location shot for Fanny’s pension in the very end, but I think the production made special effects to show elevated railway and smog too. Maybe Herrmann alluded to the transformation of the country during the entire film and around the Ambersons mansion for the first porch scene and George’s walk home. Judging Orson Welles’s narration during George’s walk home, I believed that the Ambersons’s mansion became Fanny’s pension later indeed.

Roger Ryan’s explanations about the end are very useful (I appreciate yours too, Glenn!) I don’t know if Bernard Herrmann was either wrong about the sound of « The two black crows » which get « smaller and smaller, and the sound of traffic getting bigger and bigger, until it smothers the whole screen as the film comes to an end. » Probably we’ll never know. But He certainly was right about Fanny’s coldness and the transformation of the country which become a big town. Sadly all this elements disappeared in the release version.
A friend watched the Magnificent Ambersons one year ago for the first time. She didn’t know it was butchered by the studios, and told me it was mainly about a love affair frustrated by an odious son. According to her, in the end, « Welles made an artificial happy ending ». Maybe Welles’s narration in the end (« I wrote the script and directed it. ») mislead her about his responsibility, but I’m not sure.
The first time I saw it, one year ago too, I was really impressed by the melancholic and human dimension : I found some situations and characters so real! Many look like people I met in my own life!

I try to imagine what really happened in the original version from Lady from Shangaï because I found the dialogues very different in the early draft script titled "Take this woman" and the film we all know : does anybody knows what happen with the monstrous doll which looks like Elsa and smokes? Does Mike abandon Elsa or stay with her at the end of the director's cut?

[Roger Ryan]

The final image in Welles' 131 min. edit of AMBERSONS was a composite shot of the boarding house exterior and street with Eugene leaving in his car (shot on W. Adams in Los Angeles) combined with a matte painting which added the surrounding buildings, an elevated train and smoke. The look was probably similar to the wide shot of Hebert Carter leaving the Inquirer building in CITIZEN KANE where actor Erskine Sanford, the news boy and the street are real, but the rest of the landscape is a painting.

Herrmann's account of the final scene's audio track is probably more trustworthy since this would have involved his expertise. Although, I don't think his description of the "Two Black Crows" recording growing fainter as Eugene leaves the boarding house can be accurate since the scene, as shot, specifically shows Eugene remove the Victrola needle from the "Two Black Crows" record while talking with Fanny. The cutting continuity does not mention the recording being heard again after this action. The cutting continuity does indicate that traffic noises are heard, but does not seem to indicate that they grow louder as Eugene's car pulls away. However, there is a memo Welles sent to Wise where he compliments him on the distorted traffic noises and says it's better than what was used before - it's possible that Welles had the idea for the traffic sounds to grow louder at the film's end at some point after the 131 min. edit was completed, but this idea was discarded when the ending was changed.

There exists a December 1946 cutting continuity for THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI which details all of the assembled footage "as shot" up until the funhouse climax (which had not been filmed yet). It is clear from reading this that many of the scenes in the released version retained the editing scheme that Welles oversaw in this initial assemblage. However, it is also clear that significant portions of the film were removed (at least 30 minutes - some reports claim as much as 60 minutes were removed). Now I doubt that Welles would have allowed SHANGHAI to run longer than two hours (no film under his control was released longer than two hours), but it's heartbreaking to see how many expository and transition scenes were lost in SHANGHAI, scenes that would have significantly clarified the story, action and motivation of the characters. Also, because Columbia president Harry Cohn wanted a more traditional film with glamor close-ups of star Rita Hayworth, Welles was forced to re-shoot many of his location scenes in a studio using less-than-convincing process shots. Much of the film's sloppiness in editing can be attributed to trying to insert these process shots into scenes that Welles had originally played in single long takes. Another thing the cutting continuity establishes is that the initial cut did not feature O'Hara as a first person narrator; so many expository scenes were cut out that Welles was obligated to write narration to help cover over the plot holes.

Since the cutting continuity does not cover the funhouse climax, it's difficult to determine how much is missing from what Welles shot. Certainly there was more of the actual funhouse shown before the mirror maze segment in Welles' version including the monstrous doll which resembles Hayworth (I suspect the doll simply jumps out at O'Hara for shock effect. I doubt that Welles would linger on this, preferring to keep the image as one of many disorientating moments). As to the ending, I have to believe it was Welles' final decision for O'Hara to leave Elsa behind. This is the opposite of the more sympathetic ending the studio would have wanted, so I suspect Welles fought a little bit to include this colder, more downbeat conclusion.

[Michael O'Hara]

There exists a December 1946 cutting continuity for THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI

Roger,

Is there a place where a person such as myself could view said cutting continuity?

[Roger Ryan]

There exists a December 1946 cutting continuity for THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI

Roger,

Is there a place where a person such as myself could view said cutting continuity?

A copy resides at the University of Michigan Special Collections Library under the "Richard Wilson - Orson Welles Papers" section:

The Lady from Shanghai (1948)

Scripts
Box 30
Screenplay as Shot, December 20, 1946 (carbon) (4 folders)

To nudge this thread back on topic, I'll add that the Special Collections library has plenty of AMBERSONS material as well including production stills and actual frame enlargements made from cut footage that was subsequently destroyed.

[major pepper]

Without a complete continuity script, I’m afraid it will be difficult (if not impossible) to create a video reconstitution for The Lady from Shangaï. I think we only could use one second in the theatrical trailer, some stills, and the 1946 « Take this woman » screenplay to fill in the gaps from the script.
Apparently the fun house should have been very traumatic : in the end from the sequence, I was ever striked to see Mike's face when Elsa put her flashlight on him. He seem to go back from hell!

As regards The Magnificent Ambersons, Joseph Cotten complained about the loss of the last shot « in the rain » because, according to him, everybody loved it during the previews. So, he couldn’t understand its deletion. I wonder if the studio was so much worried about the automobile industry because of the pollution and the smog.

Otherwise I’d like to know if the theatrical trailer respect the original frame, especially concerning the beautiful boarding house extract.

[Roger Ryan]

Otherwise I’d like to know if the theatrical trailer respect the original frame, especially concerning the beautiful boarding house extract.

Yes, I believe the two brief boarding house shots which appear in the AMBERSON trailer are an accurate representation of how that footage looked (it matches the frame enlargements from the scene as well). The trailer also features other shots not found in the released film: an alternate angle of George whipping the citizen in the street (I think this one was indeed shot as an alternate that wasn't used by Welles), a brief moment from the original bedroom scene between George and Isabel, a portion of the shot from the ballroom scene after George and Lucy walk down the staircase past Isabel and Eugene (we see Jack approaching) and the original shot of Eugene leaving the Amberson mansion after being turned away by Fanny.