skinnybert

Welles' RKO production is regarded as a magnificent if flawed rendering of his screenplay; this one is equally flawed but in different ways. However, it does have many qualities of its own.

First, the casting is far more personable. Welles' production is beautiful to look at, but few of the actors add much personality to their roles -- as if afraid to transgress what the audience might expect, so simply hitting their marks and delivering their lines on cue (*yes, Moorehead and Cotten are exceptions, but the rest aren't so memorable). Tilly is arguably a more correct rendering of the Aunt Fanny character; Meyers may also be for George. If either seem weaker at times (or even often) we might wonder what direction they received.

Secondly, realizing how 'talky' this story was, this version offers more visual variety; for example, transposing George and Lucy's second buggy ride to a rowboat scene.

Thirdly, there is good use of the fact this is a movie and not a novel -- e.g., giving George visions of his younger self, judging his adult self. This doesn't appear in the novel or the earlier movie.

The weaknesses ... well, those are much more numerous :) Although honestly, many of those are more accurately rendered as 'mixed results'. Some background CGI is used, none of which is marvelous -- but still serves the purpose of conveying whatever is meant to be conveyed (e.g., distant shot of the town during winter time). And character behavior seems a rather mixed affair, sometimes dependent on social mores of the time, and other times flagrantly disgarded (e.g., Isabel smoking a cigarette). And having Fanny and George brawl just seemed a desperate, unconvincing desire to put physical action into the story.

Other weaknesses can be simply attributed to budget/time restrictions. Despite this, we still get scenes of actually-built fin-de-siecle downtown streets, with roads changing from mud to pavers. The homes are real homes, though not matching the descriptions in the novel (e.g., two-storey Amberson mansion, when Tarkington specifically states the ballroom is on the third floor).

Finally, the central flaw is having the main character essentially portrayed as a villain: largely eviscerating his end-story redemption, and making him unikeable throughout. This is largely balanced by the remainder of the cast, but we never really understand why Lucy would like him (or he, her). Something evidently got lost along the way, because the director and actors all understood what this story was about. And it shows; it just doesn't really come through.

Ultimately, seeing both Welles version and this one add up to near-misses which strongly hint what The Magnificent Ambersons is really about -- Welles' being the stronger, but both have qualities lacking in the other.

"The Beginning of the End" is a fairly accurate title for this episode -- suggesting that the real achievement is over, and this is just the downhill rollout. There's a good premise here, if rather belabored about getting to it ... and then ... well, halfway through, we just gave up and went to the next episode. Sure, we get it: not every episode can be as winner, but the season opener ?!?!? This just suggests they were definitely NOT out of ideas, but were desperate to maintain relevance and importance, which in the TV world is a capricious place at best. So we skipped, and the next episode was indeed actually worthwhile.

Gosh, I can only assume this episode gets better after the pre-credits opener -- but we didn't make it past that. Partly because the previous episode had already proved disappointing, and when you've got the entire run on DVD, it's easy to pull it and skip to the next disc -- which we did. The evident popularity of this episode may simply point to broadcast television's traditionally low bar: an aidueince of Ameircans who have already decided to sit and watch something, whatever it may be -- as long as there isn't anything "better: on another channel. That's about all this episode accomplished.