8 Classic Movies That Were Released Unfinished

5. The Magnificent Ambersons

Well, of course, it was going to be on here at some point. I didn't actually want to include The Magnificent Ambersons, because it is such an obvious case of this and has a rather bitter ending, but it's too interesting to not discuss.

Orson Welles follow-up to his moderately-liked Citizen Kane was a drama charting the decline of an aristocratic family in the early 20th Century that reveals a horror behind the phrase "we'll get it in the edit". The film original ran about 140 minutes, but kept getting mixed responses from test audiences. Welles kept reigning it in, but was eventually overpowered by RKO, who chopped it down to a lean 88 minutes.

That's almost a third of the film exorcised with a single snip. And it's not like it was just filler either - the entire third act is different, with the story's resolution a little less intense.

Which Version Is Better? Well, the point of it is we don't know. I'm willing to bet that Welles' complete vision was a sight to behold, although that may be the most curious thing about all this - watched in isolation from the troubled production, the cut of Ambersons we have works. The ending the studio forced isn't bad and there's still the great family dynamic and troubled subtext.