Warner- The Magnificent Ambersons (2 Viewers)

[RayG]

Please consider releasing a 2-DVD set of The Magnificent Ambersons for it's 60th anniversary next year. Disc one could include the theatrical cut with Ebert and Bogdanovich commentary. Disc two could contain a reconstructed version of The Magnificent Ambersons with stills filling in for lost scenes, and scenes not shot by Welles removed. This film deserves the same treatment Citizen Kane is getting on DVD, if not better.

 

[Rain]

Well, I'd be down to buy a copy. But...
I'm not sure how feasable reconstruction is, given what might be available. Is there even any reliable record of what Welles wanted in his original concept?
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"People always clap for the wrong things." - J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

 

[Jodee]

Wasn't there a recent miniseries on TV that was supposed to be the entire 4-hour script? I don't recall if it was supposed to be good or not, but apparetly was supposed to use the original, uncut script.
Unfortunately all the extra footage that was shot by Welles for the original was long ago thrown away.
I can't recall if this mini-series was supposed to be any good, but the concept was neat.

 

[Anders Runestad]

This Is Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich's book collection of his interviews with Welles, does contain an appendix which describes the scenes deleted from Ambersons. Bogdanovich could possibly make this extensive proposed DVD happen.

 

[Dick]

During the fifteen or twenty-year interim between now and when Warner considers actually releasing this and hundreds of other classics on DVD, you might consider the CAV Criterion laser discs, which offers terrific insight into the intended version including original script. This turns up regularly on eBay and sells for $75-100.00.

 

[Patrick McCart]

I'm all for a DVD edition!
According to "The History of Narrative Film," the lost footage to Ambersons is somewhere in the Paramount Pictures vaults. They may exist....but they are on nitrate film...so......you know.
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P.S.: There's no P.S.

 

[Brian W.]

Yes, we know exactly what Welles intended it to look like, because as I recall he storyboarded the whole thing -- Criterion did a full reconstruction on laserdisc over a decade ago with the storyboards and photographic stills inserted.
As far as the deleted scenes existing in the Paramount vaults, it seems to me I read a few years ago that Paramount announced that it had done an exhaustive search of its vaults for the missing footage, and was unable to come up with anything. I did read that about SOME studio -- I'm not 100% sure it was Paramount.