8. The Magnificent Ambersons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L10d2rH2i10 Following the success of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles launched into another project. It was to be a dark, depressing family drama, epic in scale and, if this was even possible, better than his previous film. I am, of course, referring to The Magnificent Ambersons, the classic film... that few have even heard of. Welles aficionados and critics cherish it, of course, but its name is hardly synonymous with greatness in the same way that Kane is. This is because the film envisioned was not the film that was ultimately released. Based on a few bad test screenings,
the studio cut Welles's potential masterpiece to pieces, removing forty minutes of material, re-shooting scenes and changing the ending to a happy one. Lacking the foresight to predict the invention of the DVD special features menu, they later burned the cut footage. The net effect of this editorial rampage was to turn a melancholic family epic into the more easily digestible morality tale that survives today. This change in plot is significant not only in that it robbed us of a great film, but a great director, too. As Welles remarked, They destroyed Ambersons and it destroyed me.