THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

Details

• Release Year: 1942
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Plot: Orson Welles’s beautiful, nostalgia-suffused second feature—the subject of one of cinema’s greatest missing-footage tragedies—harks back to turn-of-the-twentieth-century Indianapolis, chronicling the inexorable decline of the fortunes of an affluent family. Adapted from an acclaimed Booth Tarkington novel and featuring restlessly inventive camera work and powerful performances from a cast including Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, and Agnes Moorehead, the film traces the rifts deepening within the Amberson clan—at the same time as the forces of progress begin to transform the city they once ruled. Though RKO excised over forty minutes of footage, now lost to history, and added an incongruously upbeat ending, The Magnificent Ambersons is an emotionally rich family saga and a masterful elegy for a bygone chapter of American life.
• Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Richard Bennett, Orson Welles, Edwin August, Georgia Backus, Harry A. Bailey, Olive Ball, Jack Baxley, William Blees, Lyle Clement, Bobby Cooper, Don Dillaway, Heenan Elliott, John Elliott, William Elmer, James Fawcett, Mel Ford, Nancy Gates, Nina Guilbert, Maynard Holmes, Edward Howard, Harry Humphrey, Elmer Jerome, J. Louis Johnson, Lew Kelly, Del Lawrence, Bert LeBaron, John McGuire, Philip Morris, Anne O'Neal, Gil Perkins, Charles R. Phipps, Hilda Plowright, Drew Roddy, Henry Roquemore, Jack Santoro, Gus Schilling, Kathryn Sheldon, Sada Simmons, Dorothy Vaughan, James Westerfield, Joe Whitehead, Fred Fleck, Robert Wise, Booth Tarkington, Jack Moss
• Director: Orson Welles
• Runtime: 1:28
• Company: RKO Radio Pictures, Mercury Productions, The Criterion Collection, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
• Media Format: Movie