THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942) All's well that ends Welles

I’ve seen every film with Orson Welles' name attached, whether as actor, writer, director or producer. One of my favorites is THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, which he directed and narrated but did not appear in. Based on the book by Booth Tarkington (whom Welles' family knew), it's about the fall of the wealthy Midwest Amberson family and the rise of auto inventor Eugene Morgan (Joseph Cotton), whose lives intersect in a number of ways. Tarkington’s story is a tragic one, and many of those elements remain intact in the film. But due to studio meddling while Welles was working on another project in South America (IT'S ALL TRUE), its ending was rewritten and reshot to be upbeat. That would be tragic if not for the fact that even still, AMBERSONS is hailed one of the finest American motion pictures ever made.