Such a frustrating disappointment

From my favorite movies..

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I selected this film because of the cast and imdb rating, knowing nothing about it. We watched it on a big (2,5m) home projection system and gave it our undivided attention. We love watching old films from the 30s to the 70s, but this film is one we will not watch again.While the photography was certainly interesting, the story was rather dull. It's a drama with not that much drama in it. It didn't help that the release we watched looked rather greyish, so the clever hazy glow at the beginning of the film got us worried that we were watching a very bad print that was cheaply converted to DVD. Thankfully the picture got better after the beginning. If you want to watch this as timeless entertainment expecting a clever plot, you may get disappointed. Our final verdict is that this was probably entertaining 80 years ago, but unless you watch it for the camera work or to hear Orson Welles' voice, you might want to choose a different classic film.

Booth Tarkington often wrote of boyhood in Indiana. The 1950 and 1951 musicals ON MOONLIGHT BAY and BY THE LIGHT OF THE SILVERY MOON are supposed toinclude anecdotes of his childhood. This film is drama not comedy as are the other two is avaialbe today in a shortened allegedly 88 minute cut not appoved by diector Orson Wells yet the storyboard of the effect a spoiled rotten son who destroys not as in the musicals merely annoys his family is well cast, edited, photographed and directed. Wesley in the two musicals grows up and his family moves on. George in this drama negatively effects his family who separates just when in his adult life he might need them the most. What is edited into the final cut is brilliant and thought provoking though many movie fans would rather it include what the the studio cut after Orson Wells fully prepared it for distribution.

Orson Welles thought his version of The Magnificent Ambersons could had eclipsed Citizen Kane. What we have is a condensed film edited by RKO pictures who got rid off the negatives.The film has an interesting opening by Joseph Cotten which is also the engine of this film, change through the years and how it affects one small town. Cotten's Eugene Morgan becomes wealthy over time because of the automobile.The wealthy Ambersons become poorer due to bad investments, spoilt George Minafer (Tim Holt) behaves badly to those around him thinking his family inheritance will always be there.However despite gaining wealth Eugene Morgan never manages to spark his relationship with George's mother the widowed Isabel Amberson mainly due to George sabotaging the relationship.Welles as director is still experimenting with the art of film, the way scenes are shots, even the closing credits are narrated. The film is rather pacy due to the interference by the film studio.

The spoiled young heir to the decaying Amberson fortune comes between his widowed mother and the man she has always loved.More than 40 minutes of Welles's original footage was deleted, with portions reshot. Welles later said, "They destroyed 'Ambersons,' and 'it' destroyed me." Like the film itself, Bernard Herrmann's score for The Magnificent Ambersons was heavily edited by RKO. When more than half of his score was removed from the soundtrack, Herrmann bitterly severed his ties with the film and promised legal action if his name were not removed from the credits.In 1991, "The Magnificent Ambersons" was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film was included in Sight and Sound's 1972 list of the top ten greatest films ever made, and again in the 1982 list. It's not that great.