Review of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) by Mitchell W — 13 Jul 2007

If you've got a good imagination, you can virtually picture and hear a complete version of this film just by looking at Welles' original shooting script, a wealth of still photographs giving us a glimpse of everything that was cut, and a blueprint of the moving shot that carried much of the party scene (it was originally much longer and unbroken).

Of course, it makes the surviving cut even more frustrating; for example, in one scene, you see Tim Holt look out a kitchen window and discover something important, only to have the scene abruptly dissolve into the next one.

It may have been butchered, but this is still a marvelous production. In some ways Welles' best work, probably his most personal, even in its mutilated form, this picture is worthy of Chekov.