Le Chiffre wrote:...In the new Rosenbaum/Naremore commentary, Rosenbaum suggests that the later Eugene/Lucy scene in the garden doesn't look like it was directed by Welles. I think he's wrong, but I can't say for sure. That's got to be Bernard Hermann's organ music though, since it is on the CD of the full original music score recorded in Australia.
The Eugene/Lucy "Garden Scene" is definitely Welles' footage - there is a production report noting the shooting of it during principal photography and no records indicating the scene was re-shot later. In one of his telegrams, Welles asked for some nature sounds such as birds tweeting to fill in some of the dead spots when neither Eugene nor Lucy are talking - this obviously was not done.
Another slight error in the Rosenbaum/Naremore commentary: Naremore suggests that Moorehead is not playing the role of "Fanny" when she is first seen as a member of the Greek Chorus during the opening section of the film. At this point, Wilbur has yet to marry into the Ambersons, so Fanny would logically still be among the townsfolk who marvel at the family (she is shown standing next to "Mrs. Johnson", appropriate since Johnson is identified as Fanny's close friend later in the film - theirs is a friendship that continued even after Fanny became a member of the Amberson clan). The commentators also revisit the Bernard Herrmann description of the original ending in which the composer remembers that the boarding house is revealed to be the converted Amberson mansion. There is no indication in the cutting continuity for the 131 min. version that this twist was part of the film. As established by the final scene in the mansion, Fanny and George already have a boarding house in mind they intend to move to. I suspect Herrmann is remembering the deleted narration (which Herrmann provided a music cue for) where Welles comments that the mansion will eventually be torn down and replaced with cheap housing. It's also quite possible that the exterior of the boarding house in the final scene somewhat resembled the Amberson mansion (there's some likelihood that the old house seen in 1944's Curse of the Cat People, co-directed by Robert Wise, had been used as Fanny's boarding house). These two things may have led Herrmann to erroneously claim that the mansion had been converted to the boarding house by the end of the film.
By the way, in addition to the "Amberson Hotel" sign, you can also make out the name "Amberson" on a building during the initial long shot when young George makes his first appearance riding his pony cart. This set dressing reinforces the idea that Major Amberson owns a number of buildings in town (further established in the deleted "Friends of the Ace" clubhouse scene). This attention to detail even extended to street signs: while the "Amberson Boulevard" street sign is visible as Eugene approaches the mansion with his flowers and candy, one of the Criterion supplements includes a behind-the-scenes photo of the George-and-Lucy-riding-through-town scene being shot where you can make out a street sign for "10th Street" - in Tarkington's novel, "Amberson Boulevard" was renamed "10th Street" after the dissolution of the family.
