Vanity Fair Amberson's article

[Lee Gordon]

The current issue of "Vanity Fair" magazine has a lengthy article on the destruction of Welles's Ambersons, along with extensive photo coverage of the lost footage.

[Harvey Chartrand]

If the Ambersons story is half as good as previous film production histories carried in Vanity Fair's annual special movie issue (All About Eve, Sweet Smell of Success), it will be a humdinger. The magazine spares no expense and researchers usually uncover fresh new information. The Sweet Smell of Success story had some very interesting material on Susan Harrison, the gorgeous and promising female lead who disappeared from movies altogether and was subsequently revealed to be the mother of Darva Conger.

[Jeff Wilson]

Thanks to Lee for pointing this article out. It's an excellent piece, as Harvey suggested it might be. Much longer than I was expecting, and with some good photos, particularly the two page spread that opens the article. It's nice to read a mainstream article by Welles that doesn't heap all the blame for Ambersons upon him, and even dismisses Carringer's Freudian theory about Welles and the film. Pick it up, by all means. It's the January issue, with Tom Cruise on the cover.

[jaime marzol]

went to 3 stores, finally found a vanity fair, and no ambersons story. december issue has a picture of i think brad pit on the cover. no ambersons story. are you guys looking at a jan issue? or dec? it's not in the dec issue

[Jeff Wilson]

It's the January issue, and I found it at a local supermarket. Went to a Borders book store first, but they still had the old one with Pitt on the cover. Some places may not have gotten it in yet, I guess.

[jaime marzol]

yeap, that was my third stop, Borders. first two stops were eckerds and wallgreens. they might have had it and i looked over it; i looked over it at borders and didn't find it till the pimply faced kid from the moron help counter come over and pointed it out. i never imagined that such a 'trendy' rag would have a story about ambersons.

while i was at borders i looked over the latest issue on FilmFax. it looks great, but the writers still suck. they write as bad as i do. and that mag has such high esteem in the eyes of a lot of film fans. if Film Comment came out with a sister mag that did retro, they would knock FilmFax out of business.

the last issue of FilmFax i purchased had a story about welles' don q, and i was surprised at how shabby it was written. i've seen better reporting here.

[dmolson]

Up here at the north pole, we're still stuck with the Pitt edition. Really eager to see the Ambersons' story. As far as filmfax goes, I've only found it once but I appreciated its retro look while not being too high falutin' like some other Film magazines. I'm not just saying that because we have a writer for filmfax on this site... but there's a real lack of old-time movie theaters and interest (apparently) here in my town. Even though we're called Hollywood North, and I've got a friend who in the last year worked on Spy Games, and movies with Tom Arnold (there goes his credibility!), Minnie Driver & Colin Fearth and Arnold... But talk old, quality cinema of the good old days and plenty of people's eyes glaze over. More likely to find some young 20-something ready to make his mark in a skiing/snowboarding/mountain biking adventure film.
Oh, and thanks to Jaime and the mr. moderator for helping me get back into the loop

[jaime marzol]

oops, i didn't know we had a filmfax writer on this site. i'm sure i wasn't commenting on his work.

the mag has a great look. it tackles great films and actors that most other mags won't touch. the problem with most of the film mags is that they don't pay squat. Cineaste is in every major mag outlet, and they pay $25 for your article. Micro-Film is in every Tower Records, and countless bookstores, and they pay you in issues; no cash. Vintage Film, and Classic Film don't pay anything either.

the film mag writing experience:
you send the mag your article. they send you hearty thank you note, telling you it's been accepted. 2 or 3 months later their package arrives. all excited you open it and see a bunch of copies of the issue you are in (in my case i had a choice, 25 smackers or a bunch of copies of the issues; i took the issues). you think, great, i have enough copies of the mag to send to relatives and friends. then you flip to your article to find it has been gouged, tortured, and mutilated. so you toss their package in the garbage.

so i retract my statement. i missspoke myself (as i often do). you can't expect most film mag writers to put themselves through the process that a Film Comment, or American Cinematographer writer puts himself through to deliver his product.

so what i meant to say was that the mags are cheap bartards; they get what they pay for.

nice to see you back on the site dan. that avatar you are using looks like a happy face wired on coke. i've been thinking of making one for me. if i do, i'll make one for you too.

[Harvey Chartrand]

I just read the Vanity Fair piece and it's great. Very moving. Terribly sad to read about Welles breaking down in 1984, when told that an exhaustive search of film archives uncovered no traces of missing Ambersons footage. For his youthful "arrogance" (the belief that he could do it all), Welles certainly got his comeuppance three times over — in a strange parallel to the fate of the Tim Holt character in Ambersons. I had no idea that an intrepid film scholar searched in vain for the master copy in Rio de Janeiro a few years ago. After reading this well-researched article, seeing the marvelous photos of a youthful and confident Welles directing a dream cast, I feel the usual sense of tragic waste and the reluctant conviction that — yes, the 45 minutes of cut footage was all burned and/or dumped in the Pacific.
As for Filmfax, it's an absolutely marvelous magazine that I'm proud to be associated with. Being an occasional contributor, I will naturally differ with Mr. Marzol on his estimation of the quality of the writing. Now and again, Filmfax and its sister publication Outré will feature stories by such renowned writers as William F. Nolan and Harlan Ellison.

[jaime marzol]

lately, going over the ambersons reconstructed tapes mike teal has been sending me, and i felt the same thing years ago when i did a few reconstructions myself, you get this feeling of a terrible loss. the loss of this wonderfull motion picture, and what we lost with reversal of welles' fortunes. it's terrible, sad, it angers you.

harvey:
i had no idea you contributed to filmfax when i attacked the writer's talent. for the sake of peace on the board i certainly didn't want to say anything else that was going to piss you off, but it's too late now.

my opinion stands; filmfax, and it's sister mag, outre, are wonderful mags. the layouts, the topics they tackle, they get an A. the writing talent is C+. they get what they pay for. one thing is certain though, some one is laughing all the way to the bank and it's not the writers.

[Le Chiffre]

Picked up the article this morning, it's very good, and very comprehensive. That's an interesting scenario he presents for the possibility of a full-length Ambersons print in Brazil. It's hard to believe that guy down there would have followed RKO's orders to destroy the print. If it does still exist tho, it's doubtful it will ever be shown publicly. I would think Ted Turner and company would be all over them if they even admitted to it's existence.

One thing they neglected to mention tho, that I think is key to understanding what happened to the film, is the differences between the complete 132-minute version of the film, and Welles's original script (the basis for the new mini-series). In the script, the order of scenes following the Major's death is as follows:
1. Fanny's breakdown at the boiler
2. Scene at Bronson's office where George asks for a job carrying dynamite
3. George and Jack at the railroad station
4. George's walk home and repentance (capped off by a shot of the Amberson mansion in ruins)
5. Eugene and Lucy in the garden
6. George hit by the automobile.
7. Eugene writing a letter to the dead Isabel telling of his reconciliation with George.

By the time Welles and Wise finished the 132-minute version of the film, the order had changed thus:
1. George and Jack at the railroad station
2. George's walk home and repentance
3. Fanny's breakdown at the boiler
4. Bronson's office scene
5. Eugene and Lucy in the garden
6. George hit by automobile
7. New boardinghouse ending (Eugene visiting Fanny)

In the script, George's walk home and repentance was the climax of the film, and with the shot of the mansion in ruins (complete with "For Sale" sign) followed by Lucy and Eugene in the garden, I think it would have been stunningly dramatic. In the complete 132-minute film, George's walk home comes much earlier, diminishing it's dramatic impact. As a result, there was really no climax to the film - instead it was more like a prolonged and tragic fading away. This scheme left both audience members and RKO studio heads complaining that the film was too long and drawn out. Had Welles stuck with his original, more dramatic order of scenes towards the end, who knows what might have happened?

[Fredric]

I don't know. I think I understand the switcheroonie. To me, the dramatic implications lie in the fact that he repents and yet things still continue to get worse, signifying that his repentance is too late. With a repentance/car accident/reconciliation ending, it almost seems that his repentance works and that the accident was a means for reconciliation. With the repentance/fanny cracking up/begging for job/car accident, it seems more like his repentance is too little too late. He's got a lot more owning up to do before it's over. It works for me, and I'm not merely attempting to justify Welles' intentions.

[Le Chiffre]

Yes, that's possible. Another possibility is that Welles thought George should get more of his comeuppance as part of his repentance - or more specifically, his desire to help Fanny to live in the boardinghouse, which is the first time in the film he thinks of anyone other then himself. Perhaps the spiritual idea here is that one cannot start paying off the grocery bill of sin until one acknowledges that there is a bill to be paid. However, we can only guess at what was going thru Welles's mind at the time. His religious/spiritual beliefs, like his art, seemed to be in a constant state of evolution. And maybe that's the way it should be. Who knows?

[Le Chiffre]

In the complete 132-minute "continuity cut" version of the film (I'll just call it the "CC"), Welles has George repent earlier (WITHOUT the climactic shot of the mansion in ruins, I should add). Then, apparently to show his repentance has some substance to it, has him try to help Fanny in Bronson's office. Then George gets hit by the car, but gets Lucy back. Then Eugene rejects Fanny at the shabby boardinghouse that George has risked his life to get her.

Now that I think of it, tho, I still like the original script version better. George learns of Fanny's financial ruin, and then asks Bronson for the dynamite job. Then, tightlipped, he lets Jack go at the railroad station, apparently without letting him know of their desperate condition. Then he walks home and repents, with his iron will not only broken, but drifting indifferently towards self-destruction.

So where is Lucy and Eugene's garden scene in all this? After viewing the CC, Welles requested that it and the car accident be eliminated for the first, "Pamona" preview, so the order at Pamona was:
1. George and Jack at the station
2. Walk home and repentance
3. Fanny's breakdown
4. Bronson's office
5. Newspaper insert telling of accident.
6. Boardinghouse

As we all know, the Pamona preview was a complete disaster. Subsequently, the order was changed yet again for the second, "Pasadena" preview and the two scenes Welles ordered cut were reinstated. The Pasadena order:
1. George and Jack at the station
2. Fanny's breakdown
3. Bronson's office scene
4. Walk home and repentance (without mansion in ruins)
5. Lucy and Eugene in the garden
6. Accident
7. Boardinghouse

This is the order they should have left it in, but for the final studio release they changed it yet again, with Eugene and Lucy's garden scene plopped down in the middle of it arbitrarily:
1. George and Jack at the station
2. garden scene
3. Fanny's breakdown
4. Bronson's office
5. Walk home and repentance
6. Accident
7. New Hospital ending with Fanny and Eugene that Welles had nothing to do with.

I think the Vanity Fair article is right when it says that, by this time, probably everyone - including Welles - was just tired of the whole thing.

[joel]

I've always read it as:
Georgie had old money, and lost it. When new money came knocking on his door, he slammed the door in new money's face. Georgie is a creature that falls victim to the proverb Welles expressed in Lady From Shanghai, about people's basic inabilty to alter the path where their character leads them.

This is my first post. Nice site.

Jaime Marzol, glad to find you here. I'm a fan. I used to find your posts in Deja.com. The few months that whole thing with Rick Schmidlin, and the Gaffers in yellow dresses was going, you had me rivited. Rick Schmidlin, and Peter Bogdanovich out all night snorting coke and beating you with garbage can lids, you had me rolling with laughter. You gave me some of the best intellectual laughs i've gotten on the web.

Joel Stein.