Orson Welles had a real feel for Booth Tarkinton, and especially this elegant & elegiac chronicle of a horse-drawn, genteel America drawing to a close, lost to a revolution of speed & the combustible engine. He played the lead on radio, as he had in Tarkinton’s SEVENTEEN (twice*), but stuck to writing, directing & producing this second film, his follow up to CITIZEN KANE/’41. Infamously butchered in his absence (he was in So. America, filming IT’S ALL TRUE to benefit the ‘Good Neighbor’ policy), the film lives as a masterpiece maudit, with his effort standing out the more so in relief against later cuts & the imposition of added footage. The first three reels seem largely intact, and about as good as anything in the American cinema as Welles sets up the last great days of the Amberson family thru a failed courtship for Joseph Cotten & Dolores Costello, the impermanent rise of a spoiled Amberson scion (Tim Holt*) and his immediate attachment to Cotten’s assured daughter (Anne Baxter) upon their return. As one subtly stupendous set piece after another is deployed, the pattern & style for Welles' commentary on what’s been gained & lost in culture & society is crowned with an astonishment: the last great formal ball at the old Amberson mansion. Stunning in its fluid visual orchestration, it would make Max Ophüls swoon. (The Visconti of IL GATTOPARDO/’63 & Coppola of THE GODFATHER/’72, as well.) The middle three reels aren’t far behind (with character acting of legend from Agnes Moorehead & Ray Collins as Aunt & Uncle), but you do notice gaps in narrative continuity before the last act comes along with added footage (three major scenes, including the finale) that neither look nor sound like the rest of the film. Yet these blunders by the studio aren’t enough to spoil the spell cast by Welles & his team. We should all have such ‘failures.’
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Indulged in his first film by the ultra-efficient lensing of Gregg Toland, Welles grew impatient with the meticulous, time-consuming Stanley Cortez. But, oh!, the results.
READ ALL ABOUT IT: *Hard to imagine Welles playing the teenage lead of SEVENTEEN with that voice. But then, that’s the voice Welles had at 17! PENROD is probably Tarkinton’s best known title (the character now seeming more child delinquent than scamp), AMBERSONS, his Pulitzer Prize winner, holds up beautifully and finds Welles adaptation shockingly faithful to the text.
DOUBLE-BILL/SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *Is there another actor with as low a profile as Tim Holt who appeared in so many classic pics? STELLA DALLAS/’37; STAGECOACH/’39; THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS/42; HITLER’S CHILDREN/’43; MY DARLING CLEMENTINE/’46 and THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE/’48. It’s quite a list.
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