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Lost Media, Part 2: The Magnificent Ambersons · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give it up for our own
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Speaker 1: audio a tour Max Williams.
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Speaker 2: Sorry, it's all I got. That's the only or those others.
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Speaker 1: There's a great Frozen Peace commercial.
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Speaker 2: Frozen Pie's is good. Also the wait, maybe it was
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Speaker 2: Animaniacs parodying the Frozen Piece commercial where it was no, no,
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Speaker 2: it was he did a fish he did a fish
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Speaker 2: to commercial where he says crumb crisp coating and he
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Speaker 2: says it like it's like an outtake where it's orson
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Speaker 2: Wells like losing it, you know, talking about how I've
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Speaker 2: done Shakespeare Richard that I think I know I will
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Speaker 2: not say crub crisp coating. He also is the perfect
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Speaker 2: example of one of these like Thespian tour types that
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Speaker 2: is like definitely American, but it's just really drunk their
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Speaker 2: own kool aid enough that they become this sort of
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Speaker 2: like faux British thing. You know, it's it's fantastic.
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Speaker 1: Do you remember that? Do you remember that show? The
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Speaker 1: critic Criminally, Yeah, they've got a great Orson Wells bit
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Speaker 1: that talks to his commercials, And today we are going
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Speaker 1: to explore Orson's work, but maybe not in the way
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Speaker 1: you think. This is part two of our continuing series
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Speaker 1: on lost media. Shout out to our research associate, doctor Z.
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Speaker 3: I actually just want to jump in real quick, and
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Speaker 3: I want to say, I want to meet the guy
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Speaker 3: who does Orson Wells. So this one guy who does
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Speaker 3: basically every impersonation of Orson Wells in like a movie
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Speaker 3: or show or something like that. He's he plays Orson
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Speaker 3: Wells in Edwood tim Byrne movie. He's also the voice
2:10
Speaker 3: of the Brain and Pinky of the Brain of course,
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Speaker 3: and like he's a bunch of things like like whenever
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Speaker 3: whenever you hear his voice, clock him, like he's in
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Speaker 3: an episode of like Rick and Morty. And so I'm like, oh,
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Speaker 3: that's him.
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Speaker 2: The voice of the Brain basically is Orson Wells exactly.
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Speaker 2: You know Orson Wells. He looms large. It makes sense,
2:27
Speaker 2: you know, he really you know he we came from
2:29
Speaker 2: a back background of broadcast, you know, with the was
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Speaker 2: it like the Mercury Theater or I forget exactly. He
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Speaker 2: had like a radio theater players company that he was
2:40
Speaker 2: in charge of I think Mercury is right, but he
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Speaker 2: you know, obviously he had. War of the World was
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Speaker 2: a huge sensation, not necessarily in a good way. It
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Speaker 2: freaked people out. People were like literally kind of there
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Speaker 2: was a hysteria surrounding it, you know, with presenting it
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Speaker 2: as though or a legitimate broadcast of you know, invaders
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Speaker 2: from outer space. Ben, what do you think about that?
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Speaker 2: Is that like opportunistic, get kind of jacked up? Or
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Speaker 2: is it genius?
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Speaker 1: So this is I'm really glad you're bringing this up
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Speaker 1: because there is a lot of speculation about the veracity
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Speaker 1: of that story. It did people genuinely believe that Martians
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Speaker 1: were invading Earth when they heard this guy on the radio?
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Speaker 1: Apparently not Apparently that radio program, which was in nineteen
3:32
Speaker 1: thirty eight, did not touch off nationwide hysteria. But let's
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Speaker 1: not let the facts get in the way of a
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Speaker 1: heck of a story.
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Speaker 2: I was taken in.
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Speaker 1: Also, I don't know about you, guys, I'm super biased.
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Speaker 1: I dig Orson Wells so hard, mainly for the commercials,
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Speaker 1: but also very talented filmmaker. And today's stories not about
3:54
Speaker 1: Citizen King. It's not about war. The Worlds. It is
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Speaker 1: about something called the Magnificet Amberson's which Noel I. I
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Speaker 1: think it's safe to say a lot of our fellow
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Speaker 1: listeners in the crowd today probably never heard of this film.
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Speaker 2: Well I may have included you in that this is
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Speaker 2: part two of our Lost Media series. And you know,
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Speaker 2: Max and I were talking right before you pop back
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Speaker 2: in man about you know a lot of hay being
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Speaker 2: made around certain movies having you know, certain pieces of
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Speaker 2: media having controversies around them. For example, the James Franco
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Speaker 2: Seth Rogan movie I believe it's called The Interview that
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Speaker 2: supposedly made Korea or North Korea really really angry because
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Speaker 2: they depicted you know, Kim Jong il or in it unfavorably.
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Speaker 2: They actually, like, I think, blow him up and it
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Speaker 2: shows his like head exploding like the Nazis and Indiana Jones.
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Speaker 2: But it turns out that it's kind of wasn't a
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Speaker 2: very good movie. And in this story today we're talking
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Speaker 2: about what Orson Wells was hoping would be a masterpiece
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Speaker 2: follow up to his legitimate masterpiece, Citizen Kane, which, by
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Speaker 2: the way, if you haven't Citizen Kane, and to your point,
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Speaker 2: actually you made. On our last episode about Snake Oil,
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Speaker 2: we talked about the book The Jungle, how certain books
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Speaker 2: and films from you know, bygone era kind of get
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Speaker 2: a reputation as being slow or sort of like old fashion.
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Speaker 2: Citizen Kane in so many ways does not feel like
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Speaker 2: a movie of its era. It feels completely modern in
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Speaker 2: a lot of ways, like and how they got these shots.
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Speaker 2: You know, there's so many innovations that he made with cinematography.
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Speaker 2: Really worth your time, so tall order to follow this up?
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, perfect setup for a slump, you know
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Speaker 1: what I mean. Citizen Kane is a hard act to follow,
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Speaker 1: and with the magnificent air persons, Orson feels that he
5:45
Speaker 1: has something to prove to the world. I'm not just
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Speaker 1: some one trick pony. So he tries to make this
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Speaker 1: other film and this studio RKO says, look, we're not
6:00
Speaker 1: going to let this fly. The general audience that we
6:04
Speaker 1: show movies to will find this. The word they used
6:07
Speaker 1: was unpalatable. The test screenings, which were think back then
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Speaker 1: as well. The test screenings did not meet with good reactions,
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Speaker 1: and so the studio went into reshoots. They shot several
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Speaker 1: pivotal scenes again without Orson, Wells there, and then they
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Speaker 1: got another guy, Robert Wise, to oversee a complete re edit.
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Speaker 1: They went under the hood of the film. They changed
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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, and they released what we could
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Speaker 1: call The Magnificent Amberson's Light in July or.
6:42
Speaker 2: Nineteen forty two. Yeah, and by the way, there's some
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Speaker 2: great names in the story, as there always are when
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Speaker 2: we're talking about old Hollywood, the golden age of cinema.
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Speaker 2: This was based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel that
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Speaker 2: came out in nineteen eighteen of the same name, The
6:57
Speaker 2: Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Arkington. I just wish it had
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Speaker 2: the third in there, you know, but we can just
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Speaker 2: insert that in our own imaginations. And I just want
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Speaker 2: to I was sort of starting a point earlier that
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Speaker 2: I sort of like, let fizzle. But the whole thing
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Speaker 2: about the movie, the interview, Yes, they made this whole
7:16
Speaker 2: big to do, but oh my god, it's like it
7:18
Speaker 2: was going to cause World War three, you know which.
7:20
Speaker 2: Kim Jong Oohn was so angry at us for making
7:22
Speaker 2: the It got pulled out of theaters. But ultimately it
7:27
Speaker 2: just wasn't a very funny picture. It just didn't really
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Speaker 2: have the goods and what we're gonna see I think
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Speaker 2: in this discussion here is that the magnificent Amberson's in
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Speaker 2: even in Doris and Wells, you know, director's cut, masterful
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Speaker 2: version maybe just wasn't nearly as good a movie as
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Speaker 2: as Citizen Kane. And I think the story of like, Oh,
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Speaker 2: It's Lost Forever is somehow more intriguing than the actual
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Speaker 2: film might be.
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Speaker 1: I think that's a I think that's a good perspective,
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Speaker 1: and I think that's quite va. You know. Also, putting
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Speaker 1: magnificent in the title of anything is promising a lot.
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Speaker 1: It's making it a tall milkshake. At this time in
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Speaker 1: nineteen forty two or so, Wells is a big, big deal.
8:17
Speaker 1: Everybody's talking about him in Hollywood. So he knows there's
8:21
Speaker 1: a lot writing on his next film. And he finds
8:25
Speaker 1: the story by Booth Tarkenton thanks to a nineteen twenty
8:29
Speaker 1: five film called Pampered Youth. He's so impressed. He's over
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Speaker 1: the moon, he's inspired. He's just like knocking back frozen
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Speaker 1: peas and fish sticks and saying, I'm gonna adapt this story.
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Speaker 1: I'm gonna make it a radio drama on CBS. The
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Speaker 1: RKO studio chief at the time, a guy named George
8:51
Speaker 1: Schaeffer said, you know, well, if you're looking for your
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Speaker 1: next project, why don't you adopt this spy novel I
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Speaker 1: like Journey inter Fear by Eric Ambler. But Well said, nah,
9:04
Speaker 1: not special enough. They went not They actually went through
9:07
Speaker 1: a couple of different conversations about what his dex project
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Speaker 1: should be.
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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, he's sort of in this
9:14
Speaker 2: blank check kind of situation where like Citizen King was
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Speaker 2: such a runaway success, it won you know, Best Picture
9:19
Speaker 2: and all this stuff like it was it was huge,
9:22
Speaker 2: it was odd, It is a difficult it's not. It was.
9:25
Speaker 2: It was a very like ahead of its time film.
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Speaker 2: So I think it was more of maybe more of
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Speaker 2: a critical success than it was a financial success. So
9:33
Speaker 2: he was definitely in this like a tour position. But
9:36
Speaker 2: that's not the same as like having like a mega
9:39
Speaker 2: mega mega mega mega runaway blockbuster smash where you can
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Speaker 2: literally do whatever you want for your next picture because
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Speaker 2: they want to retain you. He's already kind of got
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Speaker 2: this reputation for being a little bit tricky to work with,
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Speaker 2: a little bit willful, maybe not the best partner for
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Speaker 2: a studio, and he is not hearing this, they're pitching
9:57
Speaker 2: him movies that they think would be you know, hits
10:01
Speaker 2: like The Way to Santiago, right, the one you mentioned,
10:04
Speaker 2: Journey into Fear. But he wants to do more of
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Speaker 2: a kind of a dramatic tale of manners and kind
10:14
Speaker 2: of you know, like like a like what do you
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Speaker 2: call it, Like a familial drama kind of you know,
10:20
Speaker 2: it sort of points to you know, flaws and cracks
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Speaker 2: in the American Dream and all of this stuff. You know,
10:27
Speaker 2: Heady's ish stuff like but for the time, not super sexy,
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Speaker 2: not the stuff of blockbusters at all.
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Speaker 1: Right, And he's also we already see he's having some
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Speaker 1: difficulties negotiating stuff with the studios, with the holders of
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Speaker 1: the purse. But he does this radio adaptation runs about
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Speaker 1: an hour log. He loves it, and he wants to
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Speaker 1: do a video or film version of this. So he
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Speaker 1: gets his cast together and I think he has one
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Speaker 1: actor from the radio version, Ray Collins, returned for the
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Speaker 1: film version. And he starts gathering his crew just like
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Speaker 1: he's playing in a heist. He can't get his cinematographer
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Speaker 1: from Citizen Kane, a guy named Greg Toland, so he
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Speaker 1: hires a dude named Stanley Cortes, and he gets his
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Speaker 1: old composer from Citizen Kane, Bernard Herman, to help out.
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Speaker 1: And funny story this slight spoiler. When the studio approved
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Speaker 1: version of The Magnificent Amberson's comes out, our buddy Bernard
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Speaker 1: Herman is pissed. He contacts them and insists that the
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Speaker 1: studio take his name off of the credits. He says,
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Speaker 1: you have butchered my work. Remove me from this debacle.
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Speaker 2: I think it's so interesting. I guess I think of
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Speaker 2: Bernard Herman is being more associated with like Alfred Hitchcock,
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Speaker 2: and you know a lot of that like Psycho for example.
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Speaker 2: That's like a quintessential the vibe that you think of
12:03
Speaker 2: when you think of Bernard Herman's work. But I guess
12:05
Speaker 2: he must have just been like super already active like
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Speaker 2: in Hollywood, like before, you know, for for several decades
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Speaker 2: before the Hitchcock stuff that really hit. So super seasoned
12:15
Speaker 2: guy already at this point. Who would command that kind
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Speaker 2: of you know, ask like listen, not just take my
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Speaker 2: name off of it. I wonder what they did. I
12:23
Speaker 2: just I'm so intrigued, like how do you like? I
12:25
Speaker 2: guess maybe it was with editing, or maybe they supplemented
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Speaker 2: it with other stuff for something to do with the
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Speaker 2: audio mix. I just I've got to wonder, you know,
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Speaker 2: with with the music. How they they they pissed him
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Speaker 2: off to that degree.
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Speaker 3: So I was looking up Bernard Herman just to get
12:40
Speaker 3: his like, see what his career started. But I found this.
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Speaker 3: He was born maximillion Herman. Come on, now, you gotta
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Speaker 3: rock the maximillion.
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Speaker 2: That's all I want to say. I don't care about
12:50
Speaker 2: the rest anymore.
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Speaker 1: Actually, fair as a bettiest, I support you.
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Speaker 2: Next.
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Speaker 1: So the the film itself is shot from two nineteen
13:00
Speaker 1: forty one to January of nineteen forty two. It goes
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Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars over budget.
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Speaker 2: That's like you know, inflation calculator, that's millions. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 2: and y at least maybe two millions. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And shout out to Vin Mikolek over at Sinophilia Beyond
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Speaker 1: where we're pulling a lot of this information. So things
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Speaker 1: were already kind of looking bad for the Magnificent Amberson's
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Speaker 1: and Noel had earlier mentioned that the test screenings were
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Speaker 1: not super auspicious. How much do we know about that?
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Speaker 2: Something in the neighborhood of I think seventy two negative
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Speaker 2: to fifty three positive cards, you know, I mean it's
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Speaker 2: basically like a focus group, you know, for a product
13:53
Speaker 2: or for you know whatever. You fill out your little card,
13:56
Speaker 2: you know, your exit interview kind of and that's actually
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Speaker 2: a lot more of us of an even relatively even
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Speaker 2: split than I would have expected. Like seventy two to
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Speaker 2: fifty three negative to positive doesn't indicate that it was
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Speaker 2: an outright failure. It's just the kind of thing like now,
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Speaker 2: of course, we have like Rotten Tomatoes where you can
14:16
Speaker 2: truly see kind of where the split happens. And a
14:19
Speaker 2: lot of times there will be movies that I love
14:21
Speaker 2: that are just like divisive and they're like fifty to
14:23
Speaker 2: fifty sometimes, you know, really great reviews to negative reviews,
14:27
Speaker 2: and that was the case here. The people that liked
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Speaker 2: it that were positive were pretty overwhelmingly positive, and the
14:33
Speaker 2: people that were you know, negative about it were absolutely
14:38
Speaker 2: just hated it, thought it was trash. It reminds me
14:40
Speaker 2: of a a really good clip of folks in I
14:43
Speaker 2: guess La walking out of some of the early screenings
14:46
Speaker 2: of David Lynch's eraser Head, where someone just like asked
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Speaker 2: them what you thought, and people either thought it was
14:52
Speaker 2: brilliant and evocative and strange and just thrilling, or people
14:56
Speaker 2: just didn't get it and thought it was trash.
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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you can't make a film for everybody. Right,
15:03
Speaker 1: that's bad news for studios, but it is true. And
15:07
Speaker 1: the issue was that the studio, the studio machine itself,
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Speaker 1: is not oriented toward creativity and art for art's sake.
15:18
Speaker 1: They're bottom line kind of people, and they exercised their
15:23
Speaker 1: legal rights to save their money. Back to that article
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Speaker 1: we mentioned just a second ago, there are three big
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Speaker 1: reasons why the studio took the magnificent Amberson's away from
15:36
Speaker 1: orson Wells. First, he agreed that they would get the
15:40
Speaker 1: last say on the final cut, so he thought this
15:45
Speaker 1: was kind of like a gentleman's agreement, you know. He
15:48
Speaker 1: thought this was just an olive branch and he was
15:50
Speaker 1: being nice. He was convinced that he could stay in
15:54
Speaker 1: control all the way from post production to the debut.
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Speaker 1: But after shooting, he was asked to go to Brazil
16:02
Speaker 1: to make a documentary for what is it called the
16:08
Speaker 1: good neighbor Policy of Uncle Sam during wartime, and he
16:13
Speaker 1: thought his buddy Robert Wise would come with him and
16:17
Speaker 1: that while he was in Brazil they could still be
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Speaker 1: working on The Magnificent Amberson's and editing. Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
16:27
Speaker 1: Wise had to stay in the US, and pretty soon
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Speaker 1: Orson Wells was sidelined. He lost all creative control of
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Speaker 1: the film. The studio was terrified by those negative test
16:40
Speaker 1: screenings you mentioned, and they went to Robert Wise and
16:44
Speaker 1: they said, look, our boy is in Brazil. We need
16:48
Speaker 1: someone at the helm of this ship. You need to
16:50
Speaker 1: save us from this disaster.
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Speaker 2: Right, But wasn't it like, wasn't he intended to be
16:55
Speaker 2: there with him or something like he was, but then
16:58
Speaker 2: he couldn't because of the travel restrictions around war time. Yeah,
17:02
Speaker 2: so that would have made it easier for for Wells
17:04
Speaker 2: to continue to exert, you know, supremacy over the process
17:09
Speaker 2: of the editing, because I mean, like you know, typically
17:11
Speaker 2: an editing process of a film, the director, you know,
17:14
Speaker 2: the right, maybe not the writer always, but if the
17:16
Speaker 2: writer and the director of the same person, they're going
17:18
Speaker 2: to be in the room with the editor. It's part
17:20
Speaker 2: of it. Like they're doing this kind of as a collaboration,
17:23
Speaker 2: and this separation of the two of them, you know,
17:27
Speaker 2: by literal you know, thousands of miles, and not to
17:31
Speaker 2: mention a lack of like the immediacy of the kind
17:35
Speaker 2: of communication that we have today with things like zoom
17:37
Speaker 2: and screen sharing and all of that. Like working collaboratively
17:40
Speaker 2: is obviously a lot easier. Supposedly there would be cables,
17:44
Speaker 2: scents or wires sent by Wells with just pages and
17:49
Speaker 2: pages and pages of editing suggestions, but it was a
17:51
Speaker 2: whole lot easier for them to kind of ignore them.
17:54
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, sorry, sorry, bud?
17:57
Speaker 2: Sorry, have you we got out? You're breaking up there, buddy?
17:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't, I can't hear.
18:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
18:04
Speaker 1: This is crazy because the studio ends up cutting forty
18:09
Speaker 1: minutes from the film and they put in a pretty blase,
18:15
Speaker 1: happy ending just to just to put a bow on
18:18
Speaker 1: it and to help the audience walk away satisfied. The
18:22
Speaker 1: problem is the ending does not fit the rest of
18:25
Speaker 1: the film. It's as if the it's as if the
18:30
Speaker 1: sci fi film Dark City, you guys remember that one,
18:32
Speaker 1: of course, I love Dark City. It's as if Dark
18:35
Speaker 1: City all of a sudden ended as a buddy comedy.
18:39
Speaker 2: Well, speaking of Brazil, it reminds me of the incredible
18:44
Speaker 2: Terry Gilliam film Brazil that has a director's cut ending
18:48
Speaker 2: that is mega bleak and left up, and the one
18:52
Speaker 2: that with the studio insisted on for the theatrical version
18:55
Speaker 2: is completely different. And you know, I mean Gillium has
18:59
Speaker 2: a history of clashing with studios in a very similar way,
19:04
Speaker 2: you know, where his his like movies are re edited,
19:07
Speaker 2: and you know, for example, he was also trying to
19:08
Speaker 2: make like don Quixote for you know who else was
19:11
Speaker 2: trying to make don Quixote for years? Orson well, you
19:14
Speaker 2: know Orison Well's kind of eventually we'll get to this,
19:16
Speaker 2: but he ends up getting a reputation for being like
19:19
Speaker 2: someone that can't really see things through. He can't really
19:22
Speaker 2: let go of projects. But he does finish this one,
19:25
Speaker 2: and even with the medaling and all the stuff that
19:27
Speaker 2: we're talking about, the movie makes a decent amount of
19:31
Speaker 2: money on its opening and does get nominated for quite
19:34
Speaker 2: a few Academy Awards. And I guess this is the time.
19:39
Speaker 2: Let maybe I'm wrong, Right, when did Wizard of Oz
19:41
Speaker 2: come out? That was like in the thirties, right, Yeah,
19:44
Speaker 2: So this is the time where I guess it was
19:46
Speaker 2: sort of like Dealer's choice as to whether your movie
19:49
Speaker 2: was going to be in color or black and white,
19:51
Speaker 2: because this was nominated for Best Black and White Cinematography,
19:55
Speaker 2: and I guess I never really thought about that or
19:57
Speaker 2: better sorry best Yes, both Best black and White Cinema
20:00
Speaker 2: Zography and Best Black and White Art Direction. So this
20:03
Speaker 2: would have been a time where I guess it was
20:04
Speaker 2: up to the kind of creatives and probably the studio
20:07
Speaker 2: as to whether you did your film and color. Obviously
20:10
Speaker 2: cost would be part of it too, because to develop
20:13
Speaker 2: color film would be more expensive.
20:14
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oscar they've done thirty nine.
20:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, August twenty fifth, nineteen thirty nine, except for in
20:20
Speaker 3: Green Bay, of all places, where it came out of
20:22
Speaker 3: August tenth.
20:23
Speaker 1: They know what they did anyway. So this thing also
20:29
Speaker 1: doesn't vibe with the zeitgeist of the US at the time,
20:33
Speaker 1: in the war years. This is not upbeat, it's not
20:38
Speaker 1: very Hey, we can do it working together, you know.
20:41
Speaker 1: It thematically clashes. So the studio exerts their influence and
20:47
Speaker 1: releases it pretty quietly as a double billing. The other
20:54
Speaker 1: film that gets released with the Magnificent Amberson's is a
20:57
Speaker 1: comedy called Mexican Spitfire. Sees a ghost.
21:01
Speaker 2: I just think that's the most like procedurally titled thing ever.
21:05
Speaker 2: It just sounds like stock character description of a thing
21:08
Speaker 2: that happens, you know what I mean.
21:10
Speaker 1: It's like the new film from leam Neeson. Leam Neeson
21:12
Speaker 1: gets into a.
21:13
Speaker 2: Fight, gets angry and.
21:17
Speaker 3: Like GBT probably looks at that and it's like, wow,
21:20
Speaker 3: that's corny.
21:22
Speaker 2: Mexican spitfire sees a ghost. I really want to see this,
21:24
Speaker 2: and I also do want to. I want to point
21:26
Speaker 2: out I don't think any of the three of us
21:28
Speaker 2: have seen the magnificent Amberson's. You know, we're talking about
21:32
Speaker 2: lost media. We'll get to which part of this is
21:34
Speaker 2: actually lost. You can see this. There are ways to
21:38
Speaker 2: see it. I'm not quite sure if it's in its
21:40
Speaker 2: original form or if it's like in you know, some
21:42
Speaker 2: sort of like you know, kind of compromised version. We'll
21:45
Speaker 2: get to that. But again, it does Okay, it gets nominated.
21:49
Speaker 2: I don't believe it won any of those awards.
21:51
Speaker 1: No, it's an honor to be nominated though. So we
21:55
Speaker 1: also want to shout out excellent article that doctor Z
21:59
Speaker 1: found by Haskell over on Criterion, and they have some
22:03
Speaker 1: great writing on Criterion dot com. This is the Magnificent Amberson's.
22:06
Speaker 2: What is and what.
22:08
Speaker 1: Might have been?
22:09
Speaker 2: Okay?
22:10
Speaker 1: All right, so the Magnificent Amberson's doesn't work out the
22:15
Speaker 1: way that everybody wanted it to. They need a scapegoat
22:19
Speaker 1: because that's how studios work. So Robert Wise kind of
22:24
Speaker 1: becomes the fall guy. Even though he was super great
22:27
Speaker 1: at editing Citizen Kane. Overnight people turned against him and
22:33
Speaker 1: they said, we know Orson Wells is the business and
22:38
Speaker 1: this Robbie wise guy, Robbie wise guy nice, This guy
22:43
Speaker 1: has ruined a brilliant creative endeavor and a lot of
22:51
Speaker 1: folks will also argue that Wells was betrayed by the
22:56
Speaker 1: people he trusted. But if we're being objective, you know,
23:00
Speaker 1: ultimately the audience is the arbiter of what they do
23:05
Speaker 1: or don't enjoy, and we'll we'll never know right what
23:10
Speaker 1: Orson Well's final vision for The Magnificent Amberson's would have been,
23:15
Speaker 1: because we weren't old enough to be in the test screenings.
23:18
Speaker 3: Also to point out, Mexican Spitfire turned out to be
23:21
Speaker 3: a series of eight movies, so it is kind of
23:24
Speaker 3: like they're like our plus movies comedies that they would
23:27
Speaker 3: just kind of spit out.
23:29
Speaker 2: Mexican Spitfire, sees Mongoose, Mexican spitfire in Space.
23:34
Speaker 3: Yes, we got the Girl from Mexico, Mexican Spitfire, Mexican
23:38
Speaker 3: Spitfire out West, the Mexican Spitfire's Baby, Mexican Spitfire at Sea,
23:45
Speaker 3: Mexican Spitfire Season Ghost, Mexican Spitfires Elephant, and Mexican Spitfires,
23:51
Speaker 3: Blessed Event and these were all all these came out
23:54
Speaker 3: between nineteen thirty nine in nineteen forty three.
23:57
Speaker 2: This is amazing. I want to see some of these.
23:59
Speaker 3: It really does remind me by the entire collection for
24:01
Speaker 3: thirteen dollars.
24:02
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm on it. It reminds me of like, you know,
24:04
Speaker 2: what they did with the Leprechaun movies. You know, they
24:06
Speaker 2: obviously were highly highly inspired by Mexican Spitfire.
24:10
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, and if you look at the
24:12
Speaker 1: Criterion collection of the Leprechaun franchise, you can see that
24:16
Speaker 1: they're pretty upfront about that Mexican spitfire. Amazing American cinema,
24:21
Speaker 1: it's up there with the Police Academy series and of
24:24
Speaker 1: course Vibes.
24:26
Speaker 2: But there is you know, there is a Criterion release
24:29
Speaker 2: of The Magnificent Amber Sam's but it's it's missed, it's
24:32
Speaker 2: conspicuously missing some footage. We're not talking about an entire
24:36
Speaker 2: film that was lost history. We're talking about a portion
24:39
Speaker 2: of the director's original vision. And then we're going to
24:44
Speaker 2: get into what happened. And also there's a couple of
24:47
Speaker 2: different versions of the story because one version sort of
24:50
Speaker 2: leans on like studio malice, like the studio was angry
24:54
Speaker 2: at Orson Well so they did him dirty and destroyed
24:57
Speaker 2: his beautiful masterpiece. The other version, it's probably a little
25:00
Speaker 2: closer to the truth. It was just sort of a
25:02
Speaker 2: procedural thing studios would do when they were done with
25:07
Speaker 2: footage outtakes. They actually, you know, there was a lot
25:10
Speaker 2: of silver in you know, the celluloid, that's what they
25:13
Speaker 2: call it, the silver screen. They would you know, sell
25:16
Speaker 2: the footage and reclaim the silver.
25:19
Speaker 1: And the ending of the Ambersons that you mentioned there,
25:22
Speaker 1: Nol that physical media was sold for silver, along with
25:28
Speaker 1: all the other unused RKO footage. Their system was to
25:32
Speaker 1: sell leftover film after a movie had been out for
25:37
Speaker 1: six months, so it was just another income stream for them.
25:40
Speaker 1: And we know that Wells had his own print of
25:43
Speaker 1: the film on thirty five millimeter. He gave it away
25:46
Speaker 1: to someone in while he was in Brazil. So right now,
25:50
Speaker 1: as far as cinophiles and historians know, there are no
25:55
Speaker 1: copies of the original one hundred and thirty two minute
26:00
Speaker 1: but there's a bit of a conspiracy. There's a bit
26:09
Speaker 1: of speculation that's somewhere out there in the hinterlands of
26:12
Speaker 1: Brazil there's one copy and there's like one guy who
26:17
Speaker 1: somehow hasn't sold it for silver.
26:19
Speaker 2: Which isn't too far out of precedents, you know, Like
26:24
Speaker 2: I believe it was Fritz Lang's Metropolis that was found
26:28
Speaker 2: in some obscure museum in South America, like the original
26:32
Speaker 2: print of that. So I mean, these things have been
26:34
Speaker 2: known to happen, you know. But again this is where
26:37
Speaker 2: we're talking about the version that has the kind of
26:40
Speaker 2: more dire ending that that the you know, was in
26:44
Speaker 2: keeping with Wells vision as opposed to the recut and
26:47
Speaker 2: reshot you know, ending that the studio insisted upon to
26:50
Speaker 2: kind of more appease the general audiences and maybe would
26:54
Speaker 2: not have gone for the dour kind of ending.
26:57
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and people were speculating about this for quite a
27:01
Speaker 1: long time. How can we find this original cut of
27:05
Speaker 1: this film? The search continued, the speculation continued, until a
27:10
Speaker 1: guy named Robert Carringer hits the scene. He has reconstructed
27:16
Speaker 1: the Amberson.
27:17
Speaker 2: This is cool.
27:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. He releases this on Criterion LaserDisc in nineteen eighty six,
27:24
Speaker 1: and the package when you buy it includes the script
27:28
Speaker 1: with the writing out of the ending. You can see
27:32
Speaker 1: some of the deleted scenes courtesy of included storyboards, and
27:36
Speaker 1: then you can also they did some really cool They
27:39
Speaker 1: include fragments of that earlier film that inspired Orson Wells.
27:44
Speaker 1: It's not the whole thing, but you can see snippets
27:47
Speaker 1: of the silent version of Pampered Youth.
27:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty cool he was using the I guess
27:55
Speaker 2: you call it like a continuity script, or maybe it's
27:59
Speaker 2: just a really detailed shooting script, you know that has
28:03
Speaker 2: descriptions of every shot, every frame. A truly good screenwriter
28:07
Speaker 2: will literally describe what you are seeing in the end product.
28:11
Speaker 2: If you've never had a chance to like read a
28:14
Speaker 2: script for a film that you've enjoyed, it's worth it.
28:16
Speaker 2: Like a really good example is you can find this
28:19
Speaker 2: online if anyone's seen the film uncut Gems there's an
28:23
Speaker 2: excellent sequence at the end do almost give anything away,
28:25
Speaker 2: but that involves like sort of this like spacey kind
28:28
Speaker 2: of like you know, journey through a bullet hole into
28:32
Speaker 2: like you know, this crazy starry night sky thing. And
28:36
Speaker 2: it's described verbatim, word for word, exactly what you see.
28:40
Speaker 2: And it's really cool because that's another example of the
28:42
Speaker 2: softie brothers wrote the script and they're also the director,
28:46
Speaker 2: so they're thinking about all of this. So a truly
28:49
Speaker 2: expertly written screenplay is going to have all this. And
28:51
Speaker 2: that's what carring Jury used in The Magnificent Ambersen's a reconstruction,
28:56
Speaker 2: and so he's able to use that detail to reconstruct
29:01
Speaker 2: it with I guess Ben, you maybe describe it off
29:03
Speaker 2: Mike when we were talking about that as sort of
29:04
Speaker 2: like a moving thumbnails, a moving thumbnail. Right.
29:08
Speaker 1: It gives you, It gives you the gist. Still, people
29:12
Speaker 1: don't think, and this is not to denigrate Kringer's excellent work.
29:16
Speaker 1: People don't think this is the final cut as Orson
29:19
Speaker 1: Wells envisioned it, because he was still continually sending those
29:24
Speaker 1: editing notes and cuts from Brazil, right, so we don't
29:30
Speaker 1: know how far along he got. We just know that
29:33
Speaker 1: Kringer as of today has the most comprehensive understanding of
29:40
Speaker 1: what the Magnificent Amberson's could have been. And Caringer also
29:47
Speaker 1: has some opinions on those multiple versions of the story
29:50
Speaker 1: that we mentioned earlier. Caringer's book argues that Wells participated
29:56
Speaker 1: in this drastic re editing of the Ambersons and proposes
30:02
Speaker 1: that orson Wells had ordered even more drastic cuts than
30:08
Speaker 1: the studio.
30:09
Speaker 2: That's right, and that you know, again kind of goes
30:11
Speaker 2: to what we were talking about earlier, is how maybe
30:15
Speaker 2: Wells wanted to spin it as the studio was sort
30:18
Speaker 2: of taking away his agency and the you know, stealing
30:21
Speaker 2: his movie from him. But ultimately I think he was
30:23
Speaker 2: just as in the weeds with like you know, edits
30:25
Speaker 2: and stuff as they were. Though granted, maybe his edits
30:28
Speaker 2: were like more for an artistic reasons than theirs, which
30:32
Speaker 2: were probably more for like general audience kind of viewership reasons.
30:37
Speaker 2: So he apparently, you know, we're talking about those cables
30:39
Speaker 2: that he was sending for Rio. Some of them were
30:42
Speaker 2: like in the thirty five page range of cables, just
30:46
Speaker 2: like absolutely jam packed with these editing notes.
30:49
Speaker 1: And then there's another controversial charge from Carringer. He seems
30:55
Speaker 1: to imply that Orson Wells sabotage the film before it
31:01
Speaker 1: ever had an audience due to something called the big cut.
31:05
Speaker 1: He proposed some drastic cuts before previews even took place.
31:11
Speaker 1: If these cuts ordered by Wells were implemented in the
31:14
Speaker 1: print that the audience saw, then Kringer says it could
31:19
Speaker 1: explain why the picture performed so badly. But he also
31:24
Speaker 1: says if this is true, then we need to completely
31:27
Speaker 1: reassess our understanding of the entire history of the film.
31:33
Speaker 1: But if you go back to Robert Wise, he says,
31:36
Speaker 1: I don't remember any big cut being made. I think
31:40
Speaker 1: what those folks saw at that first preview was exactly
31:43
Speaker 1: what Orson had greenlit. And so we see that there's
31:48
Speaker 1: a lot of different opinions. A lot of people took
31:51
Speaker 1: this personally, but regardless of what the ultimate truth is,
31:55
Speaker 1: we know that Wells himself was thoroughly shaken by the
32:00
Speaker 1: experience of making this film or working with the studio,
32:04
Speaker 1: and he was haunted by for the rest of his
32:07
Speaker 1: life wondering what could have been.
32:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it makes sense because he kind of didn't
32:14
Speaker 2: really work in the typical Hollywood system at all after this,
32:19
Speaker 2: and like he you know RKAO pictures severed ties with him,
32:24
Speaker 2: this was kind of seen as the beginnings of his reputation,
32:27
Speaker 2: you know, that would kind of follow him for the
32:29
Speaker 2: rest of his life as this sort of like neurotic
32:33
Speaker 2: auteur who maybe couldn't always finish what he started, like
32:37
Speaker 2: I was talking about. You know, he did make some
32:40
Speaker 2: other films, like Touch of Evil, which is I haven't seen,
32:43
Speaker 2: I've heard it's I've heard it's good. Though. One of
32:46
Speaker 2: his is later in life projects that I think probably
32:50
Speaker 2: if you guys haven't seen it, and I know you'd
32:51
Speaker 2: love it's called Fis for Fake. It's a documentary kind
32:55
Speaker 2: of about like illusionists and art forgery, and he himself
33:02
Speaker 2: stars in it as this sort of unreliable narrator. And
33:06
Speaker 2: there's a fabulous Criterion release of Fis for Fake. I
33:10
Speaker 2: highly recommend anybody that wants to get a sense of
33:12
Speaker 2: like what Orson's deal was, you can see that because
33:15
Speaker 2: it really shows his fascination with illusion his fascination with
33:20
Speaker 2: like being able to kind of like trick people, and
33:22
Speaker 2: like cinema is trickery at the end of the day,
33:24
Speaker 2: like you're being lied to. But you're being lied to
33:28
Speaker 2: with your own permission given. You know, like I want
33:30
Speaker 2: you to take me on a ride, that's literally signing
33:33
Speaker 2: up to be lied to. I mean, it's a weird
33:35
Speaker 2: way of putting it.
33:36
Speaker 1: Well, it's valid when I've always thought that when someone
33:40
Speaker 1: is lying, and when both people in the conversation know
33:45
Speaker 1: that someone is lying, then what happens often is pretty
33:50
Speaker 1: close to the truth. Right, that's when you are aware
33:53
Speaker 1: of the deceit. Speaking of pretentious quotes and philosophies, here's
33:59
Speaker 1: what Well had to say when he was asked about
34:02
Speaker 1: RKO and the Ambersons. He says, they destroyed Amberson's and
34:06
Speaker 1: the picture itself destroyed me. It's a little melodramatic, sure,
34:12
Speaker 1: but the film did lose money. It lost six hundred
34:15
Speaker 1: and twenty five thousand dollars it all, and it just
34:19
Speaker 1: added to earlier controversy and problems RKO had. You know,
34:25
Speaker 1: Citizen Kane is somewhat inspired by a guy named William
34:29
Speaker 1: Randolph Hurst in a way that William randolph Hurst was
34:33
Speaker 1: very not happy about, and so he was beefed up
34:37
Speaker 1: with the RKO studio already and again because of this,
34:44
Speaker 1: Hollywood started to resent orson Wells, the Golden Child was
34:51
Speaker 1: less and less golden. Eventually, RKO severs their relationship with
34:57
Speaker 1: Wells as a result of the Ambersons. And and like
35:00
Speaker 1: you said, he never works in the mainstream movie industry.
35:04
Speaker 2: Again.
35:05
Speaker 1: He would go on to make a lot of other
35:07
Speaker 1: cool films, but if you look at his career, this
35:12
Speaker 1: was the deciding factor here, and it set Wells on
35:17
Speaker 1: the path to becoming the character he is known as
35:22
Speaker 1: an American society today, the guy on the Paul and
35:25
Speaker 1: the saw wine commercials, the fish sticks and frozen peas
35:29
Speaker 1: were talking about. He became sort of a caricature.
35:33
Speaker 2: That's right. It's interesting, isn't it, because you know, this
35:37
Speaker 2: is the last kind of guy who you would ever
35:39
Speaker 2: think would resort to doing fish stick commercials. I mean,
35:42
Speaker 2: it's just like he obviously he had to eat, you know,
35:45
Speaker 2: and he seemed to enjoy doing so that's too high
35:49
Speaker 2: I can relate. But he it seems like another kind
35:53
Speaker 2: of like you know, fall from grace, you know, like
35:56
Speaker 2: to have to resort to that. Maybe he didn't care,
35:59
Speaker 2: maybe he does want to be comfortable in a whole
36:01
Speaker 2: court and you know, you know, there there's actually a
36:04
Speaker 2: really interesting quote here from a director named Henry Jaglam,
36:08
Speaker 2: who is actually one of Wells's you know, closest personal
36:13
Speaker 2: friends in those days, and he says, referring to Amberson's
36:16
Speaker 2: he said to me repeatedly that anything bad that happened
36:18
Speaker 2: to him in the next thirty forty years derived from Amberson's.
36:22
Speaker 1: And I mean, you say that all the time.
36:24
Speaker 2: I do say that. But Henry Jaglam is really interesting
36:28
Speaker 2: director in his own right. And his daughter, Sabrina, is
36:32
Speaker 2: someone that I work with. I've worked with on a
36:34
Speaker 2: couple of podcasts. He's been a showrunner for a show
36:37
Speaker 2: called a wheel Woman about like this incredible story of
36:42
Speaker 2: a real life, you know, getaway driver for the mob
36:44
Speaker 2: who used to be a Kodak girl like in the sixties,
36:48
Speaker 2: and it is her incredible story and also a show
36:51
Speaker 2: that we're working on right now. But Sabrina mentioned to
36:54
Speaker 2: me once that her father kind of like hung out
36:56
Speaker 2: with with Orson Wells a lot in his latter days.
36:59
Speaker 2: And this is then I saw this come up in
37:01
Speaker 2: some of the research and I was like, that's cool.
37:04
Speaker 1: Also, while we're talking about other podcasts, if you want
37:06
Speaker 1: to learn more about that seth Rogan film and the
37:09
Speaker 1: pandemonium that followed geopolitically. Check out our Stuff They Don't
37:14
Speaker 1: Want you know episode on that from a few years ago.
37:16
Speaker 1: It gets really weird. There's hacking involved, there's speculation about biodiversity,
37:22
Speaker 1: the DMZ, it's it's got everything.
37:25
Speaker 2: But for now, there's a big leak right somber.
37:32
Speaker 3: And so interesting that when Sony got hacked.
37:34
Speaker 1: Yes, it's when Sony got hacked, So do check that out.
37:39
Speaker 1: We can't wait to dive into more obscure, ridiculous film history.
37:46
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoy today's episode. Big big thanks to
37:50
Speaker 1: Max Kubrick, Williams, Big big thanks to our own William
37:55
Speaker 1: Randolph Hurst, Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister, and Noel Big
38:00
Speaker 1: big thanks to you man. I'm really excited about the
38:03
Speaker 1: ridiculous history cinematic universe. Ben Thompson from Badass of the Week.
38:09
Speaker 1: I just re listened to that episode.
38:11
Speaker 2: He vibes with us.
38:12
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love that action montage of Max. Just
38:15
Speaker 1: you know, I know, I love bombing you a little,
38:17
Speaker 1: but it's such a great job on that montage to Thanks.
38:21
Speaker 2: Very fun and speaking of vibes, you can also check
38:24
Speaker 2: out a recent episode of our sister podcast that Ben
38:26
Speaker 2: and I do with our buddy Matt Frederick about Vibes.
38:30
Speaker 2: Not the genius nineteen eighties film I Got It, Ben,
38:34
Speaker 2: thank you, but just about the concept of like what
38:37
Speaker 2: is intuition? You know? Can we read body language? Can
38:41
Speaker 2: we perceive these things? Is it some form of precognition
38:45
Speaker 2: or is it just survival instinct? Check out the stuff
38:48
Speaker 2: that I want you to an episode on Vibes.
38:51
Speaker 1: And while you're checking out all these things, we have
38:55
Speaker 1: a couple of just very very light spoilers for you
38:59
Speaker 1: to in when we explore the stories of pirates having
39:04
Speaker 1: a government. Tune in as we get further into the
39:08
Speaker 1: weeds of etymology.
39:10
Speaker 2: And of course no food history. I can't wait. We'll
39:13
Speaker 2: see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
39:23
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
39:26
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.