The Magnificent Ambersons

The magnificence of the Ambersons began in 1873

Their splendour lasted throughout all the years that saw their

midland town spread and darken into a city.

In that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet

knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet

and everybody knew everybody else's family horse and carriage.

The only public conveyance was the street car.

A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window

and the car would hold at once and wait for her

while she shut her window, put on her hat and coat, went downstairs, found an umbrella

told the girl what to have for dinner

and came forth from the house.

Too slow for us nowadays, because the faster we are carried

the less time we have to spare.

During the earlier years of this period

while bangs and bustles were having their way with women,

there were seen men of all ages to whom a hat

meant only that rigid tall silk thing

known to impudents as a "stove pipe."

But the long contagion of the derby had arrived:

one season the crown of this hat would be a bucket,

next it would be a spoon.

Every house still kept its bootjack, but high top boots

gave way to shoes and congress gaiters

and these were played through fashions that shaped them now with

toes like box ends, and now with toes like the prows of racing shells.

Trousers with a crease were considered plebeian; the

crease proved that the garment had lain upon a shelf,

and hence was ready-made.

With evening dress, a gentleman wore a tan overcoat...so short that

his black coattails hung visible 5 inches below the overcoat.

But after a season or two he lengthened his overcoat till it touched his heels.

And he passed out of his tight trousers

into trousers like great bags.

In those days,

they had time for everything:

time for sleigh rides, and balls,

and assemblies, and cotillions.

And open house on New Year's, and all-day picnics in the woods.

And even that prettiest of all vanished customs,

the serenade.

Of a summer night,

young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window

a flute, harp, fiddle, cello, coronet, bass viole,

would presently release their melodies to the dulcet stars.

Against so home-spun a backdrop,

the magnificence of the Ambersons

was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral.

There it is!

The Amberson mansion!

- The pride of the town! - Well, well...

$60,000 for the woodwork alone!

- Hot and cold running water... - Upstairs and down.

And stationary washstands in every last bedroom in the place.

Is Miss Amberson at home?

No sir, Mr Morgan. Miss Amberson's not home.

Well, thanks Sam...

No sir, Miss Amberson ain't home for you, Mr Morgan.

Thanks.

- I guess she's still mad at him. - Who?

- Isabel. - Major Amberson's daughter.

Eugene Morgan's her best beau!

Took a bit too much to drink the other night right out here,

and stepped clean through the bass fiddle that was serenadin' her!

Well, well.

I haven't seen her since she got back from abroad.

Isabel? Well sir, I don't know as I know just how to put it,

but she's, she's kind of a,

delightful-looking young lady.

Wilbur? Wilbur Minafer?

I never thought he'd get her.

Well, whaddya know!

Well, Wilbur may not be any Apollo, as it were,

but he's a steady young businessman.

Wilbur Minafer!

Looks like Isabel's pretty sensible for such a showy girl.

- To think of her takin' him! - Yes, just because a man any

woman would like a thousand times better was a little wild one night at a serenade.

What she minds was him makin' a clown of himself in her own front yard.

Made her think he didn't care much about her!

She's probably mistaken, but it's too late for her to think anything else now.

The wedding will be a big Amberson style thing...

Raw oysters floating in scooped-out blocks of ice,

a band, from out of town, and then Wilbur will take

Isabel on the carefullest little wedding trip he can manage.

And she'll be a good wife to him, but they'll have

the worst-spoiled lot of children this town will ever see.

How on earth do you figure that out, Mrs Foster?

She couldn't love Wilbur, could she?

Well! It'll all go to her children.

And she'll ruin them.

The prophetess proved to be mistaken in a single detail merely,

Wilbur and Isabel did not have "children," they had only one.

Only one,

But I'd like to know if he isn't spoiled enough for a whole carload!

Again, she found none to challenge her

and George Amberson Minafer, the Major's one grandchild,

was a princely terror.

Hey! Go, I guess you think you own this town?

There were people... grown people they were,

who expressed themselves longingly.

They did hope to live to see the day, they said,

when that boy would get his comeuppance.

- His... what? - His comeuppance.

Something's bound to take him down some day.

I only want to be there!

Nah, the little girly-curly,

Nah, the little girly-curly,

Say Bob, where'd you steal your mother's old sash?

Your sister stole it for me!

She stole it off our old clothesline and gave it to me!

You go get your hair cut! You and I haven't got any sister!

Yeah, I know you haven't at home. I mean the one that's in jail!

I dare you to get out of that pony cart!

I dare you outside that gate!

I dare ya half way here I dare ya!

Here I come, you...

Little boy!

Little boy!

That'll be enough of that!

You stop that, you!

I guess you don't know who I am!

Yes I do, and you're a disgrace to your mother!

You shut up about my mother!

She outta be ashamed of a bad little boy like you!

Be silent you billy goat, you!

Pull down your vest, and wipe off your chin,

and go to hell!

What!

This was heard not only by myself,

but by my wife, and the lady who lives next door.

He's an old liar.

Georgie... you mustn't say "liar."

Dear, did you say what he says you did?

Well, first I wouldn't wipe a shoe on that old storyteller...

Georgie, you mustn't!

I mean none of us Amberson's wouldn't have anything to do with him.

That's not what we're talking about.

I'll bet if he wanted to see any of us, he'd have to go around to the side door.

- No, you shouldn't say... - Please, father!

Forgive me, he doesn't see a very tactful person, but...

He's just...riff-raff!

Oh, you mustn't say so!

And you must promise me never to use those bad words again.

I promise not to...

unless I get mad at somebody.

Wait'll they send him away to school.

Then he'll get it!

They'll knock the stuffin' out of him!

But George returned with the same stuffing.

Bloody siz! See here Bub, does your mother know that you're out!

Turn down your pants, you would-be dude!

When Mr George Amberson Minafer came home for the holidays in his sophomore year,

Nothing about him encouraged any hope

that he had received his comeuppance.

Cards were out for a ball in his honour.

And this pageant of the tenantry

was the last of the great long-remembered dances

that everybody talked about.

Hello there...

...that big bow window... that's where they'll put the Major when his time comes...

Now don't you look at me like that, Major!

- Georgie! You look fine! - Sam.

There was a time though in your fourth month that you were so

puny, nobody thought you'd live!

- Where's Fanny? - Know me very well indeed!

Isabel...

Eugene!

This your boy, Isabel?

- George, this is Mr Morgan. - Remember you very well indeed.

George, you never saw me before in your life.

But from now on, you're going to see a lot of me.

- I hope. - I hope so too, Eugene.

Where's Wilbur?

You'll find him in the game room

with some of the others.

He never was much for parties, remember?

Yes, I remember.

I'll come back for a dance.

Please do.

- Eugene Morgan, Major Amberson. - Well, well, well...

Remember you very well indeed. Remember you very well indeed.

Miss Morgan.

Jeeve!

Remember you very well indeed!

You don't remember her either, Georgie. But of course you will.

Miss Morgan's from out of town.

You might take her up to the dancing, I think you've pretty well done your duty here.

Be delighted.

- What did you say your name was? - Morgan.

Oh, well, I'm certainly glad you're back.

It's nice to be back too, Jack. It's been a long time.

Who's that?

Oh, I didn't catch his name when my mother presented him to me.

You mean the queer-looking duck?

- The who? - The queer-looking duck.

Oh, I wouldn't say that.

The one with him is my Uncle Jack.

Honourable Jack Amberson.

I thought everybody knew him.