Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Magnificent Ambersons has been a favorite of mine ever since I first read it a couple years ago. Since reading it I’ve been wanting to see Orson Welles’ 1942 film adaptation—the movie that is more famous for what it isn’t than for what it is. A couple weeks ago I finally got the chance, when I discovered my library system had added a copy of the DVD, to see for myself exactly what the film is or isn’t.

I went into the plot of the story more in my review of the novel, so I won’t go over it all again here. The thing that initially surprised me about the film was what it isn’t, in a literal sense. Eighty-eight minutes is pretty short even for a feature film. The result is about the same thing you usually get with a feature film adaptation of a thick classic novel: it moves pretty quickly through the story, just touching on the high points. A viewer seeing The Magnificent Ambersons film without having read the book wouldn’t be able to guess at the additional depths the novel contains, in spite of the film’s good qualities.

On the positive side, what there is of the film is very attractive—the filming is beautiful, the acting is fine, and the pivotal scenes from the novel that were chosen for portrayal on screen are often beautifully done: the ball, the sleigh ride, Eugene’s (Joseph Cotten) famous speech on the future that the automobile might bring. I appreciated the fact that a lot of the dialogue and narration comes straight out of the novel. The speech near the beginning by a neighbor woman predicting how and why Isabel (Dolores Costello) and Wilbur will have spoiled children is just perfect. (I did miss the “Riff-raff!” theme, though.) I found it interesting that Welles was attracted to that opening monologue on the fashions and customs of the time period that I found so delightful when I read the book. Usually this type of passage is the last thing that makes its way into a film adaptation. Perhaps Welles realized that the firm grounding in the historical period that it provided was vital to the whole story. It would have been even more effective, though, if he had been able to better portray the gradual industrialization of the Ambersons’ city that is a major theme of the novel. This is one of the film’s weaknesses, I think. We don’t actually get to see the changes—it’s represented mostly by a line of dialogue here and there about how much the town has changed, up until the montage of city streets and buildings near the end.

I think it also diminishes the effect of the ending that we don’t actually get to see George (Tim Holt) and Lucy (Anne Baxter) together and Eugene’s entrance, which forms the closing scene of the novel. Neither Welles’ original ending nor the released version followed the book in this way. I think I can see what Welles was going for here—he wanted to share what Eugene was thinking in this scene as well as what was said, so he adopted the expedient of having him relate it to Fanny (Agnes Moorehead). Personally, though, I wonder why he couldn’t have just said it to George during their conversation.

But you know, after seeing this film and reading a good deal about it, it’s my opinion that whatever weaknesses it has are not all owing to the infamous studio editing job. In my personal opinion, the two “porch scenes” removed by Welles himself would have strengthened it greatly, giving a better idea of the passage of time after Wilbur’s death, and especially making clearer the business of the headlight company, which kind of comes out of the blue later on. The vivid contrast between these two scenes in the novel is also a big part of the industrialization theme. There was also apparently a cut scene showing George’s fury when he discovers his grandfather has sold property near the Amberson Mansion for new buildings, which is also straight out of the novel and would have supported the theme even more.

In a purely visual sense, the movie is artistically beautiful, filmed with unusual camera angles and lighting and some striking use of silhouette shots. The scenes with George and Fanny on the enormous staircase of the Amberson Mansion are quite stunning, showing off an amazing set. Several scenes, I noticed, feature a number of characters all talking at once in a kind of organized chaos, so you take in bits of two or three different conversations simultaneously, something rather unusual for a movie of the time period. I also noticed that in the scene where George and Lucy argue during a carriage ride, the carriage is actually being drawn by a horse and filmed from the side, rather than filmed from a truck pulling a carriage, as you often see in movie behind-the-scenes shots! The costumes are also lovely and quite period-correct, which was also not always the case in older classic films.

In short, my advice to the viewer is the same I’d give for nearly every other film adapted from a classic novel: if you want the whole story, read the book, and then you’ll probably enjoy the movie.

If you’d like to read in detail about The Magnificent Ambersons’ long and chaotic journey to film, I recommend this six-part blog series at Jim Lane’s Cinedrome: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six (caveat: some profanity quoted in the sixth part). For my own article on “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo,” the popular song featured in both novel and film, go here to The Vintage Reader.