Author | Booth Tarkington |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Doubleday, Page |
Publication date | 1918 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | |
Pages | 516 |
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington, the second in his Growth trilogy after The Turmoil (1915) and before The Midlander (1923, retitled National Avenue in 1927). It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
In 1925, it was adapted into the silent film Pampered Youth directed by David Smith. In 1942, it was made into The Magnificent Ambersons film written and directed by Orson Welles (though the released version was edited against Welles' wishes). Much later in 2002, came a same-titled TV adaptation based on Welles' screenplay.
The story is set in a largely-fictionalized version of Indianapolis, and much of it was inspired by the neighborhood of Woodruff Place. [1] [2]
The novel and trilogy trace the growth of the United States through the declining fortunes of three generations of the aristocratic Amberson family in an upper-scale Indianapolis neighborhood between the end of the Civil War and the early 20th century, a period of rapid industrialization and socioeconomic change in America. The decline of the Ambersons is contrasted with the rising fortunes of industrial tycoons and other new money families, which derive power not from family names but by "doing things." As George Amberson's unspecified friend says, "Don't you think being things is 'rahthuh bettuh' than doing things?"
The titular family is the most prosperous and powerful in town at the turn of the century. The young George Amberson Minafer, the patriarch's grandson, is spoiled terribly by his mother, Isabel. Growing up arrogant, sure of his own worth and position, and totally oblivious to the lives of others, George falls in love with Lucy Morgan, a young but sensible debutante. However, there is a long history between George's mother and Lucy's father of which George is unaware. As the town grows into a city, industry thrives; the Ambersons' prestige and wealth wanes; and the Morgans, thanks to Lucy's prescient father, grow prosperous. When George sabotages his widowed mother's growing affections for Lucy's father, life as he knows it comes to an end.
The Magnificent Ambersons received the 1919 Pulitzer Prize. [3]
"The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel," said Van Wyck Brooks. "[It is] a typical story of an American family and town—the great family that locally ruled the roost and vanished virtually in a day as the town spread and darkened into a city. This novel no doubt was a permanent page in the social history of the United States, so admirably conceived and written was the tale of the Ambersons, their house, their fate and the growth of the community in which they were submerged in the end."[ citation needed ]
The Campbell Playhouse presented Orson Welles's one-hour radio adaptation of The Magnificent Ambersons on October 29, 1939. The cast included Welles, Walter Huston, Ray Collins, Everett Sloane, Bea Benaderet, Nan Sunderland, and other members of the Mercury Theatre company. [4] [5]
The Magnificent Ambersons was adapted by Jay Pilcher for a Vitagraph Pictures feature film titled Pampered Youth (1925), [6] directed by David Smith and starring Cullen Landis, Ben Alexander, Allan Forrest, Alice Calhoun, Emmett King, Wallace MacDonald, Charlotte Merriam, Katheryn Adams, Aggie Herring and William Irving. [7] [8] After Vitagraph was purchased by Warner Bros., the 70-minute film [9] was reedited to 33 minutes and released with the title Two to One (1927). [10] The original film is considered lost.
Orson Welles adapted the story for his second feature film, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), starring Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins, with Welles providing the narration. Welles lost control of the editing of the film to RKO Pictures, and the final version released to audiences differed significantly from his rough cut of the film. More than an hour of footage was cut by the studio, which also shot and substituted a happier ending. Although Welles's extensive notes for how he wished the film to be cut have survived, the excised footage was destroyed. Composer Bernard Herrmann insisted his credit be removed when, like the film itself, his score was heavily edited by the studio. [11] Even in the released version, The Magnificent Ambersons is often regarded as among the best American films ever made. [12] [13]
In 2002, the A&E Network aired its original film The Magnificent Ambersons , directed by Alfonso Arau and starring Madeleine Stowe, Bruce Greenwood, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Gretchen Mol, Jennifer Tilly, Dina Merrill and James Cromwell. [14]
George Orson Welles was an American director, actor, writer, producer and magician who is remembered for his innovative work in film, radio, and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time.
Newton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921). He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead. In the 1910s and 1920s he was considered the United States' greatest living author. Several of his stories were adapted to film.
The Campbell Playhouse (1938–1940) was a live CBS radio drama series directed by and starring Orson Welles. Produced by Welles and John Houseman, it was a sponsored continuation of The Mercury Theatre on the Air. The series offered hour-long adaptations of classic plays and novels, as well as adaptations of popular motion pictures.
The Mercury Theatre was an independent repertory theatre company founded in New York City in 1937 by Orson Welles and producer John Houseman. The company produced theatrical presentations, radio programs and motion pictures. The Mercury also released promptbooks and phonographic recordings of four Shakespeare works for use in schools.
Ray Bidwell Collins was an American character actor in stock and Broadway theatre, radio, films, and television. With 900 stage roles to his credit, he became one of the most successful actors in the developing field of radio drama. A friend and associate of Orson Welles for many years, Collins went to Hollywood with the Mercury Theatre company and made his feature-film debut in Citizen Kane (1941), as Kane's political rival. Collins appeared in more than 75 films and had one of his best-remembered roles on television, as Los Angeles homicide detective Lieutenant Arthur Tragg in the CBS-TV series Perry Mason.
The following are the Pulitzer Prizes for 1919.
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1942 American period drama written, produced, and directed by Orson Welles. Welles adapted Booth Tarkington's Pulitzer Prize–winning 1918 novel about the declining fortunes of a wealthy Midwestern family and the social changes brought by the automobile age. The film stars Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Agnes Moorehead and Ray Collins, with Welles providing the narration.
Alice Beatrice Calhoun was an American silent film actress.
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The Battle Over Citizen Kane is a 1996 American documentary film directed and produced by Thomas Lennon and Michael Epstein, from a screenplay by Lennon and Richard Ben Cramer, who also narrates. It chronicles the clash between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over the production and release of Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane, which has been considered the greatest film ever made.
Seventeen: A Tale of Youth and Summer Time and the Baxter Family Especially William is a humorous novel by Booth Tarkington that gently satirizes first love, in the person of a callow 17-year-old, William Sylvanus Baxter. Seventeen takes place in a small city in the Midwestern United States shortly before World War I. It was published as sketches in the Metropolitan Magazine in 1915 and 1916, and collected in a single volume by Harper and Brothers in 1916, when it was the bestselling novel in the United States.
Pulitzer Prize Playhouse is an American television anthology drama series which offered adaptations of Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, novels, and stories. The journalist Elmer Davis was the host and narrator of this 1950-1952 ABC series.
Craig's Wife is a 1925 play written by American playwright George Kelly. It won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and has been adapted for three feature films.
"The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo" is a popular British music hall song published in 1891 by Fred Gilbert, a theatrical agent who had begun to write comic songs as a sideline some twenty years previously. The song was popularised by singer and comedian Charles Coborn.
This is a comprehensive listing of the radio programs made by Orson Welles. Welles was often uncredited for his work, particularly in the years 1934–1937, and he apparently kept no record of his broadcasts.
Radio is what I love most of all. The wonderful excitement of what could happen in live radio, when everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I was making a couple of thousand a week, scampering in ambulances from studio to studio, and committing much of what I made to support the Mercury. I wouldn't want to return to those frenetic 20-hour working day years, but I miss them because they are so irredeemably gone.
This is a comprehensive list of all of the commercially released recordings made by Orson Welles. Welles is heard on many recordings that were not intended for commercial release and for which he was not compensated.
While every attempt has been made to provide a complete listing of Welles's commercial recordings in the order of their release, it would be folly to assume that such a list could ever be compiled with certainty.
The Magnificent Ambersons is an A&E Network film for television, inspired by Booth Tarkington's novel The Magnificent Ambersons. It was filmed using Orson Welles's screenplay and editing notes of the original film. Directed by Alfonso Arau, the film stars Madeleine Stowe, Bruce Greenwood, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Gretchen Mol, Jennifer Tilly, Dina Merrill and James Cromwell. This film does not strictly follow Welles's screenplay. It lacks several scenes included in the 1942 version, and contains essentially the same happy ending as Tarkington's novel.
Beau Brummel is a 1913 silent short film directed by and starring James Young in the title role. Presumed now to be lost, it was produced in Brooklyn, New York, by Vitagraph Studios and also featured in its cast Clara Kimball Young, Rex Ingram, Julia Swayne Gordon, and Etienne Girardot. The photoplay's scenario was adapted from the Clyde Fitch novel and play, and upon the film's release Vitagraph listed it as a 1000-foot "one-reeler", which at the time would have had a maximum running time of 15 minutes.
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel written by Booth Tarkington.
Pampered Youth is a 1925 American silent drama film directed by David Smith and starring Cullen Landis, Alice Calhoun, and Allan Forrest. It is an adaption of the 1918 novel The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington. It was one of the final films produced by Vitagraph Studios before the firm was absorbed into Warner Bros.
Woodruff Place in Indianapolis, Indiana can't be found on a tourist map, but it would probably interest anyone who is familiar with Orson Welles's adaptation of Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons
Woodruff Place was the city's first 'suburb' and was the setting for Booth Tarkington's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Magnificent Ambersons
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