The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)

(On Cable TV, April 2019) If Citizen Kane is Orson Welles’s biggest hit, then The Magnificent Ambersons is the one that got away—a favourite of those willing to start digging into the filmography of the famously difficult writer-director and see where, arguably, it all started to go wrong. What’s on screen is easy to admire. There’s something admirably modern in the way the story begins, with directing and editing well in advance of its time with voiceovers, visual segments and droll vignettes combined in order to adapt a novel on-screen in an efficient, dynamic fashion. This is really Orson Welles at his best, immediately following on the success of Citizen Kane. The Magnificent Ambersons rolls on good acting, good themes, exceptional direction and great sets, with the camera moving into them to track the characters in long shots. But there is a catch: the ending really isn’t as satisfying as the beginning, and trying to understand why it is will quickly get you reading about Welles’s clashes with the studio—a pattern that would repeat itself for the rest of his life. Perhaps more has been written on what’s missing from the film than what remains, but what remains is impressive—even though the unsatisfying and rushed ending clearly demonstrates the meddling even to those uninterested in reading about the film’s production.