The famously butchered vereion of Orson Welles‘ The Magnificent Ambersons (’42) runs 88 minutes, and that’s the only cut anyone’s ever seen since the film opened on 7.10.42. The legend, of course, is that the fabled longer version (135 minutes) was richer, finer, masterful and certainly more Wellesian.

At least one preview audience in Pomona saw the 135-minute version, and their reaction was mostly thumbs-down. The film was trimmed. re-tested and still didn’t fare well with the plebes. Too gloomy, suffocating, etc. Welles went to Brazil to shoot It’s All True, and in so doing abandoned Ambersons to the wolves. A happier replacement ending was shot, and at the end of the day RKO wound up deleting 47 minutes.

HE-posted on 8.17.18: “The exalted if somewhat tragic reputation of The Magnificent Ambersons (’42) has been so deeply drilled into film-maven culture that even today, no one will admit the plain truth about it.

“I’m referring to the fact that Tim Holt‘s George Amberson Minafer character is such an obnoxious and insufferable asshole that he all but poisons the film.

“I’ve watched Welles’ Citizen Kane 25 or 30 times, but because of Holt I’ve seen The Magnificent Ambersons exactly twice. (And the second viewing was arduous.) Even Anthony Quinn‘s Zampano in Federico Fellini‘s La Strada is more tolerable than Minafer, and Zampano is a bellowing beast.

“Welles admitted decades later that he knew ‘there would be an uproar about a picture which, by any ordinary American standards, was much darker than anybody was making pictures…there was just a built-in dread of the downbeat movie, and I knew I’d have that to face.”

One of those who saw an early two-hour cut was costar Anne Baxter (1923-1985), who was 19 during filming. Yesterday I came upon a Baxter q & a in “Conversations with Classic Film Stars”, a 2016 book by James Bawden and Ron Mille, and came upon the following quote:

I love Manny Farber’s Ambersons review, and particularly this excerpt: “Theater-like is the inability to get the actors or story moving, which gives you a desire to push with your hands. There is really no living, moving or seeing to the movie; it is a series of static episodes connected by narration, as though someone sat you down and said ‘here!’ and gave you some postcards of the 1890s.”

Third posting of HE’s Anne Baxter West Hollywood encounter: “I was driving along Melrose Ave. near Doheny in late 1983. (Or was it early ’84?) I noticed that a new BMW in front of me had a framed license plate that came from a dealer in Westport, Connecticut, where I had lived only five years earlier and which is next to my home town of Wilton.

“I pulled alongside the Beemer and saw right away that the driver was Anne Baxter, who looked pretty good for being 60 or thereabouts. I rolled down my window and said, ‘Hey, Westport…I’m from Wilton!’ Baxter waved and smiled and cried out ‘Hiiiiii!'”

Another response to yesterday’s “Best of 2024” post, written by M–Theory, asked a fairly outrageous question:

To which I replied:

…and wondering if there’s any consensus of opinion among HE regulars? It’s been streaming for two or three weeks.

Variety‘s Tatiana Siegel is reporting thqt Ashlee Margolis, founder of the Beverly Hills firm The A List, recently wrote “an email to her staff about a new mandate to hit ‘pause on working with any celebrity or influencer or tastemaker posting against Israel.”

I’m just kinda wondering who else has been paused or kibboshed over the years for thie or that political or industry-sensitive offense. It happens — I know that much.

Here’s an HE rundown of the 15 best films I’ve seen this year, including some of my Cannes favorites (all unreleased) as well as Steven Zallian‘s Ripley, the knockout Netflix miniseries.

These are the films that I felt truly impressed by, that I liked the most or have thought about hard since seeing them…HE’s creme de la creme.

I’ve listed them in order of preference, and so that makes Sean Baker‘s Anora my #1 favorite, closely followed by Payal Kapadia‘s All We Imagine as Light, Alice Rohrwacher‘s La Chimera, Ripley, Robert Lorenz‘s In the Land of Saints and Sinners and Ali Abassi‘s The Apprentice — these are the top six.

It’s not quite a 2024 half-time (i.e., first six months) list, but we all know that as a rule few June releases qualify as more than passing fancies.

I saw Jeff Nichols‘ The Bikeriders (Focus Features, 6.21) at Telluride last September…bad. Ditto Annie Baker‘e Janet Planet (A24, 6.120)…nope. I haven’t seen Bad Boys 4: Ride or Die but what could that possibly amount to? I saw Yorgos Lanthimos‘s Kinds of Kindness (Searchlight, 6.28) in Cannes…not my cup, and likely to be hated by many if not most ticket-buyers. And I still haven’t seen Christy Hall‘e Daddio (Sony Pictures Classics, 6.28).

Finest 2024 Films (15) in this order…I’ll paste in my review links later today or tonight:

1. Sean Baker‘s Anora (Neon, 10.18)

2. Payal Kapadia‘s All We Imagine as Light

3. Alice Rohrwacher‘s La Chimera

4. Steven Zallian‘s Ripley

5. Robert Lorenz‘s In the Land of Saints and Sinners

6. Ali Abassi‘s The Apprentice

7. Alex Garland‘s Civil War

8. Halfdan Ullmann Tondel‘s Armand.

9. Rose Glass‘s Love Lies Bleeding

10. Jacques Audiard‘s Emilia Perez (very good but calm down)

11. Magnus von Horn’s’s The Girl With the Needle

12. Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune: Part Two

13. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire‘s Asphalt City (formerly Black Flies)

14. Luca Guadagnino‘s Challengers

15. Wes Ball‘s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

I liked Coralie Fergeat‘s The Substance, but not enough to place it among my top 15. Same deal with Tony Goldwyn‘s Ezra.

I still haven’t seen Vera Drew‘s The People’s Joker, the Zellner Bros.’ Sasquatch Sunset or Jane Schoenbrun‘s I Saw the TV Glow.

In other words, four years of authoritarian fascist suppression may be a short-term problem, but have faith, guys! Democracy may go on hiatus for a while, but Trump will die someday.

HE to Hanks: Nice squishy sidestepping, Tom!

My aching left leg joint no longer aches. Cordless Robocop massage pistol arrived a day ago. It makes me feel like a gunslinger. I decided against ordering an optional black leather holster…kidding.

If you know anything about the Sean Connery James Bond films, of which there were seven, you know that the only true-blues were Dr. No (’62) and From Russia With Love (’63) — tough, taut, character-driven, semi-realistic and modestly scaled, at least compared to the installments that followed.

Goldfinger was the first explosively popular Connery, of course, and a huge financial success. But while the first half was relatively lean and engaging, the second half was ludicrously plotted, and it was clear that the Bond producers had decided to weaken the focus on character and double-down on high-tech gadgetry, especially in the case of 007’s Aston Martin.

The opening sequence of Thunderball (’65) made it clear that the silliness was intensifying and that gadgetry was more or less running the show, especially when Connery escaped from a threatening situation with a flying air harness or jetpack, complete with an idiotic-looking crash helmet.

Compare this uninspired intro with the one that opened Goldfinger (planting explosives, white tuxedo under wet suit, bar scene, electrocuting an assailant in a bathtub) or the From Russia With Love opener — a moonlit cat-and-mouse duel between Connery (actually a guy in a Connery mask) and Robert Shaw‘e SPECTRE assassin. The bloom was clearly off the rose, and for purists Thunderball was the beginning of the downturn.

There were three more Connerys — You Only Live Twice (’67) and Diamonds Are Forever (’71), neither being much good. Connery’s final Bond was the relatively decent. Never Say Never Again (’83).

I’m summarizing the Connery-Bond history because three days ago Collider‘s Liam Gaughan, who’s been writing about film for roughly a decade, posted an article and a video essay that insisted the silly Thunderball opener was brilliant. The title was “These Are Hands-Down the Most Intense 10 Minutes in a Sean Connery James Bond Movie.”

“Thunderball is widely remembered as one of Connery’s best Bond films,” Gaughan began, “especially in comparison to its three predecessors.” WHAT??

“Dr. No was a sexy romance that introduced audiences to the character”, he continued. Bullshit. There was some flirting between Connery and Ursulq Andress on Crab Key but not much else, as the film mostly portrayed Bond as an ice-water operative who had the steel to shoot a bad guy in cold blood.

Gaughan then called From Russia With Love “an action-packed Cold War adventure,” an apparent suggestion that it’s too many decades old to be relevant or gripping, and Goldfinger “a culturally redefining classic that introduced recurring elements that would appear within subsequent entries in the series” — gadgetry, he means. An accurate statement.

“However, the thrilling opening sequence of Thunderball set the standard for what the James Bond franchise’s action could look like going forward,” Gaughan wrote. Allow mw to reiterate that the Thunderball openly flirts with self-parody, and that the jetpack flying sequence invites derisive laughter.

Correction: The most intense 10 minutes in a Sean Connery James Bond movie is the train compartment stand-off and slugfest between Connery and Shaw in From Russia With Love.

…when it comes to woke-trans stuff?

I don’t know that he is on my side, so to speak. If he holds opposing views, fine. But something tells me this dude and I park our cars in the same garage.

@the_reasons_i_drink ♬ original sound – the_reasons_i_drink