Sep 4th  
The Magnificent Ambersons***     
(US 1942)                                
RKO. 88m. bw

In the mid-to-late 19th century a Midwestern American family is unable to adapt to the new age of the automobile.
The second of the much vaunted films of Orson Welles, stylishly made again, where the characters resemble pieces in a melodramatic jigsaw puzzle;  abruptly brought to a halt in its later modern sections by the studio together with a happy ending not in the original. What remains is interesting and occasionally moving, although hardly exhilarating (as maybe the original version was too.)

Written, Produced and Directed by: Orson Welles, based on the novel by Booth Tarkington.
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Tim Holt, Anne Baxter, Dolores Costello, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Richard Bennett, Donald Dillaway.
Photography: Stanley Cortez.
Music: Bernard Herrmann.
Editor: Robert Wise.

THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. After the hoopla surrounding Citizen Kane, Orson Welles chose to make another American melodrama more akin to his Mercury Theatre style productions, together with cheeky boom microphone to keep his own face discreetly out the picture for his distinctive narration.

Preceded by:
The Elephant Will Never Forget**
(GB 1953. British Transport Films. 11m. bw; Heartfelt and only occasionally insensitive covering of the last trams to run through London towards Elephant and Castle.; w, d: John Krish; p: Edgar Anstey; narr: Brewster Mason; ph: Bob Paynter.)