[beeping]
[man narrating] The magnificence of the Ambersons
began in 1873.
Their splendor 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 streetcar.
Yoo-hoo!
A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window,
and the car would halt at once and wait for her
while she shut the 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're 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 impudence as a stovepipe.
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 boot jack,
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 five 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.
Come a summer night,
young men would bring an orchestra under a pretty girl's window,
and flute, harp, fiddle, cello, cornet, and bass viol
would presently release their melodies to the dulcet stars.
Against so homespun a background,
the magnificence of the Ambersons
was as conspicuous as a brass band at a funeral.
- [woman] There it is! - [man] The Amberson mansion!
- The pride of the town. - Well, well.
[man] $60,000 for the woodwork alone.
- Hot and cold running water. - Upstairs and down.
And stationary washstands in every last bedroom in the place.
[doorbell clangs]
- Is Miss Amberson at home? - No, sir, Mr. Morgan.
Miss Amberson's not home.
Well, thanks, Sam.
[doorbell clangs]
No, sir. Miss Amberson ain't at home to you, Mr. Morgan.
Thanks.
- I guess she's still mad at him. - Who?
- Isabel. - Major Amberson's daughter.
[man] 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 serenadin' her.
- [men, women laughing] - [man] Well, well.
[man 2] 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.
[steam engine chugging]
[whistles]
[man] Wilbur? Wilbur Minafer?
I never thought he'd get her. Well, what do you 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 taking 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 his making 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.
[narrator] The prophetess proved to be mistaken in a single detail merely.
Wilbur and Isabel did not have "children."
They had only one.
[Mrs. Foster] "Only one."
But I'd like to know if he isn't spoiled enough for a whole carload!
[narrator] Again, she found none to challenge her.
George Amberson Minafer, the major's one grandchild,
was a princely terror.
Hey!
By golly, I guess you think you own this town!
[narrator] 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 someday.
I only want to be there.
[singsongy] Eh, look at the girly-curlies! Eh, look at the girly-curlies!
Say, bub, where'd you steal your mother's old sash?
[George] Your sister stole it for me!
She stole it off our old clothesline and gave it to me!
[boy] You go get your hair cut! Yeah, and I haven't got any sister!
[George] 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! - Dare ya halfway here, I dare ya!
Here I come, you dirty... rat!
[both grunting]
- Boy! Boy! - Father! Father!
[George] Why don't you pick on someone your own size, you big bully!
- [grunting continues] - Hey, boy!
- Father! - Boy!
That'll ‒ That'll be enough of that!
- [groans] - You stop that, you!
- Ow! - 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! - Ow!
She oughta be ashamed of a bad little boy like you!
Pull down your vest, you old billy goat, you!
Pull down your vest, and wipe off your chin, and ‒
- and go to ‒ - 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, Grandpa wouldn't wipe his shoe on that old storyteller.
[Isabel] Georgie, you mustn't.
I mean, none of us Ambersons 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.
- [Grandpa laughing] - Please, Father!
From his letter he doesn't seem a very tactful person, but ‒
- He's just riffraff. - 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.
[narrator] But George returned with the same stuffing.
- [whip cracks] - Ow!
Got any sense? See here, bub. Does your mother know you're out?
Turn down your pants, you would-be dude!
[narrator] 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 honor,
and this pageant of the tenantry
was the last of the great long-remembered dances
that everybody talked about.
[wind whistling]
- [guests chattering] - [chandelier tinkling]
Hello there!
[man talking, indistinct]
They had her in a good place in my big bow window.
Suppose that's where they'll put the major when his time comes.
Now, don't you look at me like that, Major!
- Georgie! - [Major] Sam.
You look fine! [laughs]
There was a time though, in your fourth month,
that you were so puny nobody thought you'd live.
- Where's Fanny? - Remember you 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.
- [Eugene] Jack! - Gene!
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.
[chamber orchestra playing classical music]
What did you say your name was?
- Morgan. - Oh.
- [Jack] Well, I'm certainly glad you're back. - [Eugene] 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.
Honorable Jack Amberson. I thought everybody knew him.
He looks as though everybody ought to know him.
Seems to run in your family.
I suppose most everybody does know him, out in this part of the country especially.
Uncle Jack's pretty well-known.
- He's a congressman, you know. - Oh, really?
Oh, yes. The family always liked to have someone in Congress.
It's sort of a good thing, in one way.
- [man] Hello, Lucy. - Hello!
- Lucy! - Hello, Garland.
- Hello, Lucy. - Hello.
How did all these ducks get to know you so quick?
- Oh, I've been here a week. - Seems to me you've been pretty busy.
Most of these ‒
- Hello, Lucy. - Hello.
Most of these ducks, I don't know what my mother wanted to invite 'em here for anyway.
Don't you like them?
I used to be president of a club we had here and some of them belonged to it.
But I don't care much for that sort of thing anymore.
I really don't see why my mother invited 'em.
Maybe she didn't want to offend their fathers and mothers.
I hardly think that my mother need worry about offending anybody in this old town.
Must be wonderful, Mr. Amberson. Mr. Minafer, I mean.
What must be wonderful?
- To be so important as that. - Oh, that isn't important.
- Good evening. - Good evening.
Anybody that really is anybody
oughta be able to do about as they like in their own town, I should think.
- [full orchestra playing waltz] - Hello!
Well.
- How's that for a bit of freshness. - What was?
That queer-looking duck waving his hand at me like that.
He meant me.
Oh, he did?
Everybody seems to mean you.
See here. Are you engaged to anybody?
No.
You certainly seem to know a good many people.
Papa does. He used to live here in this town before I was born.
- Where do you live now? - We've lived all over.
What do you keep moving around so for?
- Is he a promoter? - No, he's an inventor.
Oh? What's he invented?
- Georgie. - Grandfather.
Just lately he's been working on a new kind of horseless carriage.
Horseless carri ‒ Automobile?
Well, well.
Don't you approve of them, Mr. Minafer?
Oh, yes, they're all right.
You know, I'm just beginning to understand.
Understand what?
What?
What it means to be a real Amberson in this town.
Papa told me something about it before we came, but I see he didn't say half enough.
Did your father say he knew the family before he left here?
I don't think he meant to boast of it. He spoke of it quite calmly.
- Most girls are usually pretty fresh. - [waltz ends]
They oughta go to a man's college for about a year.
[applause]
They'd get taught a few things about freshness.
Look here. Who sent you those flowers you keep making such a fuss over?
- Lucy. - He did.
- Who's he? - The queer-looking duck.
- I've come for that dance. - [orchestra: new waltz]
Oh, him. I suppose he's some old widower.
[chuckles] Some old widower.
Yes, he is a widower. I ought to have told you before.
- He's my father. - Oh.
Well, that's a horse on me. If I'd known he was your father ‒
This is our dance. But I guess I won't insist on it.
George, dear, are you enjoying the party?
Yes, Mother, very much.
Will you please excuse us? Miss Morgan.
[orchestra continues playing waltz]
- Eggnog, anybody? - Not for me, sir.
I see you kept your promise, Gene.
Isabel, I remember the last drink Gene ever had.
Fact is, I believe if he hadn't broken that bass fiddle,
Isabel never would have taken Wilbur.
- [chuckles] What do you think, Wilbur? - I shouldn't be surprised.
If your notion's right, I'm glad Gene broke the fiddle.
What do you say about it, Isabel?
[chuckling] By Jingo, she's blushing.
- [laughing] - [Isabel] Who wouldn't blush?
[woman] The important thing is that Wilbur did get her, and not only got her, but kept her.
There's another important thing. That is, for me.
In fact, it's the only thing that makes me forgive that bass viol for getting in my way.
Well, what's that?
Lucy.
You havin' a good time?
- I don't suppose you ever gave up smoking. - No, sir.
Well, I've got some Havanas.
- Do your ears burn, young lady? - [Lucy chuckles]
Would you care for some refreshments, Miss Morgan?
Yes, thanks.
What did you say your name was?
- Morgan. - Funny name.
Everybody else's name always is.
I didn't mean it was really funny.
That's just one of the crowd's bits of horsing in college.
I knew your last name was Morgan. I meant your first name.
Lucy.
- [Lucy chuckles] - Well!
Is Lucy a funny name too?
No.
- Lucy's very much all right. - Thanks.
- Here they are. Here they are, Henry! - Are they?
- Thanks for what? - Thanks about letting my name be Lucy.
[orchestra: waltz ends, upbeat song begins]
Good-bye. I've got this dance with her.
- With who? - With Isabel, of course.
Eighteen years have passed. But have they?
Tell me, have you danced with poor old Fanny too this evening?
Twice. Wilbur.
By gosh, old times certainly are starting all over again.
"Old times." Not a bit. There aren't any old times.
When times have gone they aren't old, they're dead.
There aren't any times but new times.
[orchestra continues playing upbeat song]
What are you studying in school?
- I beg your pardon? - What are you studying in school?
- College. - College.
Oh, lots of useless guff.
- Why don't you study some useful guff? - What do you mean, "useful?"
Something you could use later in your business or profession.
I don't intend to go into any business or profession.
- No? - No.
- Why not? - Well, just look at them.
That's a fine career for a man, isn't it?
Lawyers, bankers, politicians.
What do they ever get out of life, I'd like to know.
What they know about real things?
Where do they ever get?
What do you want to be?
A yachtsman.
[orchestra continues playing upbeat song]
[chamber orchestra playing slow waltz]
[Lucy laughs]
[George] What good are they? They always break down.
- They do not always break down. - Oh, of course they do.
[scoffs] Horseless carriages.
- Automobiles. - Hmm?
People aren't going to spend their lives lying on their backs in the road,
letting grease drip on their faces.
No, I think your father better forget about 'em.
Papa would be so grateful if he could have your advice.
I don't know that I've done anything to be insulted for.
You know, I don't mind your being such a lofty person at all.
I think it's ever so interesting.
- But Papa's a great man. - Is he?
Well, let us hope so.
I hope so, I'm sure.
How lovely your mother is.
I think she is.
She's the gracefullest woman. She dances like a girl of 16.
Most girls of 16 are pretty bad dancers.
Anyhow...
I wouldn't dance with one of them unless I had to.
Uh, the snow's fine for sleighing.
I'll be by for you in a cutter at ten minutes after 2:00.
- Tomorrow? - [Eugene] Thank you, Isabel.
- I can't possibly go ‒ - [clapping]
Bravo! Bravissimo!
Papa.
Lucy.
I'll get your things.
If you don't, I'm going to sit in a cutter at your front gate,
and if you try to go out with anybody else he has to whip me before he gets to you.
[Jack] Hey, you two, I think you oughta take this,
in case you break down in that horseless carriage.
- Uncle Jack. - Take a scarf, Lucy dear.
- [Eugene] Good night, Isabel. - Come here.
- Fanny, where are you going? - Oh, just out to look.
[Isabel] Do you think you'll be warm enough, Lucy?
- Well? - Oh, nothing.
- Here. Hold this. - [women chattering]
Who is this fellow, Morgan?
[chuckling] Why, he's a man with a pretty daughter, Georgie.
Certainly seems to be awfully at home here,
the way he was dancing with Mother and Aunt Fanny.
Well, I'm afraid your Aunt Fanny's heart
was stirred by... ancient recollections, Georgie.
You mean, she used to be silly about him?
She wasn't considered, uh... singular.
He was, uh ‒ He was popular.
Oh.
Do you take the same passionate interest in the parents of every girl you dance with?
Oh, dry up. I only wanted to know ‒
- [chattering continues] - Lucy, about that sleigh ride.
[Jack] I want to look at that, uh, automobile carriage of yours, Gene.
- Fanny, you'll catch cold. - Want to ride in that thing, see if it's safe.
- Good night, Isabel. - Good night, Eugene.
- You be ready at ten minutes after 2:00. - No, I won't.
Yes, you will. Ten minutes after 2:00.
- [Jack] Look at that, Fanny! - [Fanny] Oh, goodness!
- Yes, I will. - Come on, Gene! Show us how it works!
- [Eugene] If it does work! - [Isabel laughs]
- [Fanny] Suppose you break down. - [Eugene] Come on, Lucy!
- [Lucy] I'm coming, Papa! - I hope you're going to be warm enough.
- [engine starts] - Got a blanket for you, Gene. Catch!
[Jack] Good night! Bye! Bye!
[Lucy gasping]
- [Jack] Bye! - [Fanny] Good night!
[engine chugging, sputtering]
- Papa? - Huh?
Papa, do you think George is terribly arrogant and domineering?
Uh, oh, he's still only a boy.
Plenty of fine stuff in him.
Can't help but be. He's... Isabel Amberson's son.
You liked her pretty well once, I guess, Papa.
Yes. Do still.
[George] I know that isn't all that's worrying you.
[Isabel] Well, several things.
I've been a little bothered about your father too.
Why?
It seems to me he looks so badly.
He isn't any different than the way he's looked all his life that I can see.
He's been worried about some investments he made last year.
I think the worry's affected his health.
What investments?
See here, he isn't going into Morgan's automobile concern, is he?
Oh, no. The automobile concern is all Eugene's.
- No, your father's rolling mills ‒ - [door opens]
Hello, dear. Have you had trouble sleeping?
Look here, Father.
About this man Morgan and his old sewing machine.
Doesn't he want to get Grandfather to put some money into it? Isn't that what he's up to?
[Fanny] You little silly. What on earth are you talking about?
Eugene Morgan's perfectly able to finance his own inventions these days.
I'll bet he borrows money from Uncle Jack.
Georgie, why do you say such a thing?
Just strikes me as that sort of a man. Isn't he, Father?
He was a fairly wild young fellow 20 years ago.
He's like you in one thing, Georgie. He spent too much money.
Only he didn't have any mother to get money out of a grandfather for him.
But I believe he's done fairly well of late years,
and I doubt if he needs anybody else's money to back his horseless carriage.
Well, what's he brought the old thing here for then?
[Wilbur] I'm sure I don't know. You might ask him.
I'll be in to say good night, dear.
[whispering] Aunt Fanny.
[Fanny] What in the world's the matter with you?
I suppose you don't know why Father doesn't want to go on that horseless carriage trip tomorrow.
What do you mean?
You're his only sister, and yet you don't know.
Well, he ‒
he never wants to go anywhere that I ever heard of.
What is the matter with you?
He doesn't want to go because he doesn't like this man Morgan.
Oh, good gracious!
Eugene Morgan isn't in your father's thoughts at all,
one way or the other.
- Good night. - Why should he be?
- Good night. - Good night.
- Hey. - You two at it again?
What makes you and everybody so excited over this man Morgan?
- "This man Morgan." - Excited?
- Oh, shut up. - Can't ‒
Can't people be glad to see an old friend
without silly children like you having to make a to-do about it?
I ‒
I've just been suggesting to your mother
that she might give a little dinner for them.
For who?
"For whom," Georgie.
[mocking] "For whom, Georgie."
For Mr. Morgan and his daughter.
Oh, look here. Don't do that. Mother mustn't do that.
[mocking] "Mother mustn't do that."
- Wouldn't look well. - "Wouldn't look ‒"
See here, Georgie Minafer.
I suggest...
that you just march straight on into your room!
Sometimes you say things that show you have a pretty mean little mind.
- What upsets you this much? - [Jack] Shut up!
[Fanny] I know what you mean!
You're trying to insinuate that I'd get your mother to invite Eugene Morgan here on my account.
[Jack] I'm gonna move to a hotel!
- Because he's a widower! - What?
"What?"
- [chuckles] - [laughs mockingly]
I'm trying to insinuate that you're setting your cap for him
and getting Mother to help you?
- Oh! - Is that what you mean?
[Fanny] You attend to your own affairs!
[quietly] Well. I will be shot.
I will.
[louder] I certainly will be shot.
- [Fanny shouts] Oh! - [grumbles] Oh.
[George laughs]
[door slams]
[Fanny] Do you think you'll get it to start?
[Isabel, Fanny groaning]
[Jack] What's wrong with it, Gene?
[Eugene] I wish I knew.
[engine sputtering, backfiring, chugging]
Jack! Push! Not in front of there!
Push here! Come on!
Push!
Get up, Jack! Come on!
[engine continues chugging, backfiring]
Come on! Push! Come on, Jack!
[George] Get a horse. Get a horse!
- [Lucy laughing] - Get a horse!
- [Lucy] Get a horse! Get a horse! - [engine backfiring]
- Look out, Lucy! - [Lucy screams, gasps]
[Isabel] What's happened to them? Oh, George!
- [Jack] Don't get excited, Isabel. - [Eugene] Lucy!
- Are you all right? - [Isabel] Georgie!
They're all right, Isabel. The snow bank's a feather bed.
- Georgie! - [Eugene] Lucy dear.
- Oh, I'm fine, Papa. - [Eugene] Nothing's the matter.
- [Isabel] Oh, Georgie! - They're all right, Isabel.
[Fanny] Are you sure you're not hurt, Lucy dear?
- Georgie. - Don't make a fuss, Mother.
- George, that terrible fall. - Please, Mother, please.
- I'm all right. - Are you sure, Georgie?
- Sometimes one doesn't realize the shock. - [Jack] Oh, Isabel!
[Isabel] You've just got to be sure, dear.
[George] I'm all right, Mother. Nothing's the matter.
- Let me brush you off, dear. - Leave me alone.
[Eugene] You look pretty spry, Lucy. All that snow becomes you.
- [Jack] That's right, it does. - [all laughing]
[George] That darned horse.
[Jack] Pendennis will be home long before we will.
All we've got to depend on is Gene Morgan's broken-down chafing dish yonder.
- [women laughing] - [engine sputters, stops]
[all groaning]
- [Eugene] She'll go! - All aboard!
- [Jack] You'll have to sit on my lap, Lucy! - All right!
Stamp the snow. You mustn't ride with wet feet.
They're not wet. For goodness sakes, get in. You're standing in the snow yourself.
Get in, Mother.
You're the same Isabel I used to know. You're a divinely ridiculous woman.
George, you'll push if we get started, won't you?
Push.
"Divinely" and "ridiculous" just counterbalance each other, don't they?
Plus one and minus one equal nothing.
So you mean I'm nothing in particular?
No, that doesn't seem to be precisely what I meant.
- [laughing, chattering] - [engine sputtering, starting]
- [Jack] What are you doing? - [chattering, shouting]
- [George groans] - [engine sputtering, backfiring]
[groans, coughing]
[women continue laughing]
Come on, Georgie! Push!
I'm pushing!
- Push harder! - [sighs]
- [grunting] - Hooray!
[laughing, cheering]
- [engine sputtering] - [all groaning]
[exhaling, groaning]
[engine continues sputtering, idling]
Come on, Georgie! Push!
What do you think I'm doing?
Your father wanted to prove that his horseless carriage would run even in the snow.
- It really does too. - Oh.
- [Jack singing] - It's so interesting.
He says he's going to have wheels all made of rubber and blown up with air.
I should think they'd explode.
- [coughing] - But Eugene seems very confident.
- [Jack, Isabel singing] - It seems so like old times to hear him talk.
[joining in] ♪ The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo ♪
Here we go! Hooray! We're off!
- [laughing, chattering] - [engine sputtering]
♪ As I walk along the Bois de Boulogne With an independent air ♪
♪ You can hear the girls declare "Must be a millionaire" ♪
- ♪ A millionaire ♪ - [all laughing]
[singing continues]
George, you tried to swing underneath me and break the fall for me when we went over.
I knew you were doing that. It was nice of you.
Wasn't much of a fall to speak of. How about that kiss?
♪ You can hear them sigh and wish to die ♪
♪ And see 'em wink the other eye ♪
♪ At the man who broke the bank At Monte Carlo ♪
♪ As I walked along the Bois de Boulogne With an independent air ♪
♪ You can hear the girls declare "Must be a millionaire" ♪
♪ You can hear them sigh And wish to die ♪
♪ You can see them wink the other eye ♪
♪ At the man Who broke the bank... ♪
[doorbell chimes]
Wilbur Minafer.
Quiet man.
Town will hardly know he's gone.
[rain falling]
[thunder crashing, rumbling]
Where did Isabel go to?
She was tired.
Never was becoming to her to look pale.
Look out.
Oh, boy. Strawberry shortcake.
It's the first this season.
Hope it's big enough.
- You must've known I was coming home. - Mmm.
- What did you say? - Nothing.
- Mmm. - Sweet enough?
It's fine.
Suppose your mother's been pretty gay at the commencement.
Going a lot?
How could she, in mourning?
All she could do was sit around and look on. That's all Lucy could do either, for that matter.
How did Lucy get home?
[muffled] On the train with the rest of us.
Quit bolting your food.
Did you drive out to their house with her before you came here?
No.
She went home with her father.
Oh, I see.
Don't eat so fast, George!
[thunder continues rumbling]
So, uh...
Eugene came to the station to meet you?
To meet us?
How could he?
I don't know what you mean.
Want some more milk?
No, thanks.
I haven't seen him while your mother's been away.
Naturally. He's been east himself.
Did you see him?
Naturally, since he made the trip home with us.
He did? He was with you all the time?
Uh-uh.
Only on the train, in the last three days before we left.
Uncle Jack got him to come along.
- You're gonna get fat. - [scoffs]
[muffled] I can't help that.
You're such a wonderful housekeeper.
You certainly know how to make things taste good.
Mmm.
I don't think you'd stay single very long if some of these bachelors or widowers ‒
It's a little odd.
[thunder continues rumbling]
What's odd?
Your mother's not mentioning that Mr. Morgan had been with you.
Didn't think of it, I suppose.
- But I'll tell you something in confidence. - What?
Well, it struck me that Mr. Morgan was looking pretty absent-minded most of the time.
And he certainly is dressing better than he used to.
Oh, he... he isn't dressing better. He's dressing up.
Fanny, you oughta be a little encouraging
when a prized bachelor begins to show by his haberdashery...
what he wants you to think about him.
Jack tells me that the factory's been doing quite well.
- "Quite well"? - Honestly, Aunt Fanny ‒
Why, listen, Eugene's got ‒
I shouldn't be a bit surprised to have him request an interview
and declare that his intentions are honorable,
and ask my permission to pay his addresses to you.
- What had I better tell him? - [stifled sobbing]
- Oh, Aunt Fanny. - Oh, Fanny, we were only teasing.
- Oh, let me alone! - Please, Fanny.
- We didn't mean anything. - Let go of me! Please!
We didn't know you'd got so sensitive as all this!
[sobbing loudly]
It's getting so you can't joke with her about anything anymore.
It all began when we found out Father's estate was all washed up
and he didn't leave anything.
I thought she'd feel better when we turned over his insurance to her.
Gave it to her absolutely without any strings to it.
But now... I don't know.
Yeah.
Think maybe we've been...
teasing her about the wrong things.
Fanny hasn't got much in her life.
You know, George, just being an aunt isn't...
really the great career it may sometimes seem to be.
I really don't know of anything much Fanny has got.
Except her feeling about Eugene.
- [hammer hitting anvil] - [woman gasps]
[women gasping, squealing]
[Lucy] We're now turning out a car and a quarter a day.
- Isn't that marvelous? - What's marvelous?
They're turning out a car and a quarter a day.
- [Fanny] Oh! - [George] All this noise ‒ Mother?
Mother, all this noise and smell seems to be good for you.
I think you oughta come here every time you get the blues.
[Fanny] Oh, she never gets the blues, George.
I never knew a person of a more even disposition.
- No, it's this place. - I wish I could be more like that.
Wouldn't anybody be delighted to see an old friend take an idea out of the air like that ‒
an idea most people laughed at him for ‒
and turn it to such a splendid humming thing as this factory.
Do you remember this?
Our first machine.
The original Morgan Invincible.
I remember.
[Fanny] How quaint.
Of course I'm happy. So very, very happy.
[Lucy] Just look at the Morgan now, Mrs. Minafer.
It's beautiful.
Just beautiful.
- Did you ever see anything so lovely? - As what?
As your mother. She's a darling.
And Papa looks as if he were going to either explode or to utter loud sobs.
It's just glorious.
It makes us all happy, Eugene.
Give him your hand, Fanny.
There.
If brother Jack were here, Eugene would have his three oldest and best friends
congratulating him all at once.
We know what brother Jack thinks about it though.
I used to write verse about 20 years ago.
- Remember that? - [laughs] I remember that too.
I'm almost thinking I could do it again...
to thank you for making a factory visit into such a kind celebration.
Isabel, dear.
Yes, Eugene?
Don't you think you should tell George?
- About us? - Yes.
There's still time.
I think he should hear it from you.
He will, dearest.
Soon.
- I'll still take a horse any day. - [laughs]
- Whoa. - Oh, don't.
Why? Do you want him to trot his legs off?
- No, but ‒ - "No, but" what?
I know when you make him walk, it's so you can give all your attention to proposing to me again.
- George, do let Pendennis trot again. - I won't.
Get up, Pendennis. Go on, trot. Commence.
[chuckles] Lucy, if you aren't the prettiest thing in this world.
When are you going to say we're really engaged?
Not for years. So there's the answer.
Lucy.
Dear, what's the matter?
You look as if you're going to cry.
You always do that whenever I can get you to talk about marrying me.
- I know it. - Well, why do you?
One reason's because I have a feeling it's never going to be.
- You haven't any reason or ‒ - It's just a feeling.
I don't know.
Everything's so unsettled.
If you aren't the queerest girl. What's unsettled?
Well, for one thing, George, you haven't decided on anything to do yet.
Or at least if you have, you've never spoken of it.
Lucy, haven't you perfectly well understood
that I don't intend to go into a business or adopt a profession?
Well, what are you going to do, George?
Why, I expect to lead an honorable life.
I expect to contribute my share to charities
and to take part in ‒ well, in movements.
- What kind? - Whatever appeals to me.
I should like to revert to the questions I was asking you, if you don't mind.
- No, George. I think we'd better ‒ - Your father's a businessman.
He's a mechanical genius. Of course, he's both.
Isn't it your father's idea that I ought to go into business
and you oughtn't to be engaged to me until I do?
No. I've never once spoken to him about it.
But you know that's the way he does feel about it.
Yes.
Do you think that I'd be very much of a man
if I let another man dictate to me my own way of life?
George. Who's dictating your way of life?
I don't believe in the whole world scrubbing dishes,
selling potatoes, or trying law cases.
No, I daresay I don't care any more for your father's ideals than he does for mine.
- George. - Giddap, Pendennis.
Well, seems to have recovered.
Looks in the highest good spirits.
- I beg pardon? - Your grandson.
Last night he seemed inclined to melancholy.
What about?
Not getting remorseful about all the money he spent in college, is he?
I wonder what he thinks I'm made of.
Gold.
- And he's right about that part of you, Father. - What part?
Your heart.
I suppose that may account for how heavy it feels nowadays sometimes.
This town seems to be rolling right over that old heart you mentioned just now, Jack.
Rolling over it and burying it under.
[Major] I miss my best girl.
We all do. Lucy's on a visit, Father. She's spending a week with a school friend.
- She'll be back Monday. - Ah.
George, how does it happen you didn't tell us before?
He never said a word to us about Lucy's going away.
Probably afraid to.
Didn't know that what he might break down and cry if he tried to speak of it.
Isn't that so, Georgie? [chuckling]
- Or didn't Lucy tell you she was going? - She told me.
At any rate, Georgie didn't approve.
I suppose you two aren't speaking again? [laughing]
Gene, what's this I hear about someone else opening up a horseless carriage shop,
somewhere out in the suburbs?
Well, I suppose they'll drive you out of business.
Or else the two of you'll get together and drive all the rest of us off of the streets.
Well, we'll even things up by making the streets bigger.
Automobiles will carry our streets clear out to the county line.
Well, I hope you're wrong, because if people go to moving that far,
real estate values here in the old residence part of town
will be stretched pretty thin.
[Major] So your devilish machines are going to ruin all your old friends, eh, Gene?
You really think they're going to change the face of the land?
They're already doing it, Major, and it can't be stopped.
- Automobiles are ‒ - [George] Automobiles are a useless nuisance.
[Major] What did you say, George?
I said automobiles are a useless nuisance.
Never amount to anything but a nuisance, and they had no business to be invented.
[Jack] Of course you forget Mr. Morgan makes them.
Also did his share in inventing them.
If you weren't so thoughtless, he might think you rather offensive.
I'm not sure George is wrong about automobiles.
With all their speed forward, they may be a step backward in civilization.
It may be that they won't add to the beauty of the world or the life of men's souls.
I'm not sure.
But automobiles have come.
And almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring.
They're going to alter war and they're going to alter peace.
And I think men's minds are going to be changed in subtle ways because of automobiles.
And it may be that George is right.
It may be that in ten or 20 years from now,
if we can see the inward change in men by that time...
I shouldn't be able to defend the gasoline engine,
but would have to agree with George...
that automobiles had no business to be invented.
Well, Major, if you'll excuse me.
Fanny.
- Oh, Eugene, ple ‒ - [Eugene] Isabel.
Got to run down to the shop and speak to the foreman.
- I'll see you to the door. - Don't bother, sir. I know the way.
I'll come too.
Georgie dear, what did you mean?
Just what I said.
- He was hurt. - I don't see why he should be.
I didn't say anything about him.
Didn't seem to me to be hurt. He seemed perfectly cheerful.
What made you think he was hurt?
I know him.
By Jove, Georgie, you are a puzzle.
In what way, may I ask?
Well, it's a new style of courting a pretty girl, I must say,
for a young fellow to go deliberately out of his way
to try and make an enemy of her father by attacking his business.
By Jove!
It's a new way of winning a woman.
[whispers] George.
You struck just the right treatment to adopt. You're doing just the right thing.
Oh, what do you want?
Your father would thank you if he could see what you're doing.
Quit the mysterious detective business. You make me dizzy.
You don't care to hear that I approve of what you're doing?
For the gosh sakes, what in the world is wrong with you?
Oh, you're always picking on me, always, ever since you were a little boy.
Oh, my gosh.
You wouldn't treat anybody in the world like this except old Fanny.
"Old Fanny," you'd say, "It's nobody but old Fanny, so I'll kick her.
Nobody'll resent it. I'll kick her all I want to."
And you're right. I haven't got anything in the world since my brother died.
- Nobody, nothing. - Oh, my gosh.
I never, never in the world would have told you about it,
or even made the faintest reference to it
if I hadn't seen that somebody else had told you,
or you found out for yourself in some way.
- Somebody else had told me what? - How people are talking about your mother.
What did you say?
Of course, I understood what you were doing when you started being rude to Eugene.
I knew you'd give Lucy up in a minute if it came to a question of your mother's reputation.
- Look here ‒ - Because you said ‒
Look here! Just what do you mean?
I only wanted to say that I'm sorry for you, George, that's all.
But it's only old Fanny, so whatever she says, pick on her for it.
- Hammer her! Hammer her! - Jack said ‒
It's only poor old, lonely Fanny!
Uncle Jack said if there was any gossip, it was about you!
He said people might be laughing about the way you ran after Morgan, but that was all!
Oh, yes, it's always Fanny! Ridiculous old Fanny. Always! Always!
Listen! You said Mother let him come here just on your account, and now you say ‒
He did.
Anyhow, he liked to dance with me.
He danced with me as much as he did with her.
You told me Mother never saw him except when she was chaperoning you.
Well, you don't suppose that stops people from talking, do you?
They just thought I didn't count.
"It's only Fanny Minafer," I suppose they'd say.
Besides, everybody knew he'd been engaged to her.
- What's that? - Everybody knows it.
Everybody in this town knows that Isabel never really cared for any other man in her life.
I believe I'm going crazy.
You mean you lied when you told me there wasn't any talk?
It never would have amounted to anything if Wilbur had lived.
You mean Morgan might have married you?
No.
Because I don't know that I'd have accepted him.
Are you trying to tell me that because he comes here and they see her with him,
driving and all that,
they think that they were right in saying that she was ‒
she was in love with him before ‒
before my father died?
Why, George.
Don't you know that's what they say?
You must know that everybody in town ‒
- Who told you? - What?
Who told you there was talk? Where is this talk?
Where does it come from? Who does it?
Why, I suppose pretty much everybody I know. It's pretty general.
- Who said so? - What?
- How did you get hold of it? You answer me! - I hardly think it would be fair to give names.
Look here, one of your best friends is that mother of Charlie Johnson's across the way.
- Has she ever mentioned this to you? - Well, she may have intimated it.
You and she have been talking about it. Do you deny it?
- Why, George ‒ - [shouts] Do you deny it?
She's a very kind, discreet woman, George, but she may have intimated ‒
George!
- What are you going to do, George? - [door slams]
Mr. Amberson. [chuckles]
I mean Mr. Minafer.
- Won't you come in, please. - Thank you.
Well! How nice to see you, Mr. Minafer.
Mrs. Johnson?
Mrs. Johnson, I have come to ask you a few questions.
Certainly, Mr. Minafer. Anything I can do for you.
I don't mean to waste any time, Mrs. Johnson.
You ‒ You were talking about a ‒ a scandal that involved my mother's name.
Mr. Minafer!
My aunt told me you repeated this scandal to her.
I don't think your aunt can have said that.
We may have discussed some few matters that have been a topic of comment about town.
Yes, I think you may have.
Other people may be less considerate.
Other people? That's what I want to know about.
These other people. How many? How many?
- What? - How many other people talk about it?
[chuckles] Really, this isn't a courtroom.
And I'm not a defendant in a libel suit.
You may be.
I want to know just who's dared to say these things
if I have to force my way into every house in town.
- I mean to know just who told you these ‒ - You mean to know!
Well, you'll know something pretty quick.
You'll know that you're out in the street.
Please to leave my house!
[creaking]
Oh! Now you have done it.
What have I done that wasn't honorable and right?
You think these riffraff can go around town bandying my mother's good name?
They can now!
Georgie, gossip's never fatal till it's denied.
Well, if you think I'm gonna let my mother's good name be ‒
Good name! Nobody has a good name in a bad mouth!
Nobody has a good name in a silly mouth either.
Didn't you understand me when I told you people are saying my mother means to marry this man?
- Yes, yes, I understood you. - Great gosh! You speak of it so calmly!
- Why shouldn't they marry if they want to? - Why shouldn't they?
- It's their own affair. - Why shouldn't they?
- Yes! Why shouldn't they? - That you can sit there and speak of it!
- Your own sister. - Oh, for heaven's sake, don't be so theatrical.
Come back here!
[doorbell ringing]
Needn't mind, Mary. I'll see who it is and what they want.
Probably it's only a peddler.
Thank you, Mr. George.
[doorbell ringing]
Good afternoon, George.
Your mother expects to go driving with me, I believe.
If you'll be so kind as to send her word I'm here.
No.
- I beg your pardon. I said ‒ - I heard you.
You said you had an engagement with my mother, and I said no.
What's the matter?
My mother will have no interest in knowing that you came here today.
- Or any other day. - I'm afraid I don't understand you.
I doubt if I can make it much plainer, but I'll try.
You're not wanted in this house, Mr. Morgan.
Now or at any other time. Perhaps you'll understand this.
[door closes]
- Isabel? - Yes.
I've just come from Eugene.
Yes?
I want to talk to you.
[Fanny] Well!
[whispering] I can just guess what that was about.
- He's telling her what you did to Eugene. - You go back to your room.
- You're not going in there! - You go back to your room.
George! George!
No, you don't, Georgie Minafer! You'll keep away from there!
- You let go of me! - I won't! Let them alone!
- Stop taking ahold of me! - Hush up. Hush up.
Go onto the top of the stairs! Go on!
It's indecent!
Like squabbling outside the door of an operating room.
The idea of you going in there now.
Jack's telling Isabel the whole thing.
Now you stay here and let him tell her.
- He's got some consideration for her. - I suppose you think I haven't.
- You, considerate of anybody? - I'm considerate of her good name.
- Ah! - Look here.
Seems to me you're taking a pretty different tack.
I thought you already knew everything I did.
I was just suffering, so I wanted to let out a little.
Oh, I was a fool!
Eugene never would have looked at me, even if he had never seen Isabel.
And they haven't done any harm!
She made Wilbur happy.
She was a true wife to him, as long as he lived.
But here I go, not doing myself a bit of good by...
just ruining them.
You told me how all the riffraff in town were busy with her name,
and the minute I lift my hand to protect her, you attack me and ‒
Shh! Your uncle's leaving.
[Jack] I'll be back, Isabel.
George. Let her alone.
She's down there by herself. Don't go down.
[door closes]
Let her alone!
[Jack's voice] Dearest one,
Yesterday I thought the time had come when I could ask you to marry me.
And you were dear enough to tell me, sometime it might come to that.
But now we are faced not with slander
and not with our own fear of it, because we haven't any,
but someone else's fear of it ‒
your son's.
Oh, dearest woman in the world, I know what your son is to you,
and it frightens me.
Let me explain a little.
I don't think he'll change.
At 21 or 22, so many things appear solid and permanent and terrible,
which 40 sees are nothing but disappearing miasma.
Forty can't tell 20 about this.
Twenty can find out only by getting to be 40.
And so we come to this, dear ‒
Will you live your life your way,
or George's way?
Dear, it breaks my heart for you,
but what you have to oppose now
is the history of your own selfless and perfect motherhood.
Are you strong enough, Isabel?
Can you make a fight?
I promise you that if you will take heart for it,
you will find so quickly that it's all amounted to nothing.
You shall have happiness, and only happiness.
I'm saying too much for wisdom, I fear.
But, oh, my dear, won't you be strong?
Such a little short strength it would need.
Don't strike my life down twice, dear.
This time I've not deserved it.
[knocking]
[Isabel] Come in.
Did you read it, dear?
Yes, I did.
All of it?
Yes.
Well, what do you think, Georgie?
- What do you mean? - You can see how fair he means to be.
Fair?
Fair when he says that he and you don't care what people say?
What people say?
- That Eugene loves me? - He's always loved you.
That's true, Georgie.
But you're my mother.
You're an Amberson.
You just ‒
Yes, dear?
I don't know, Mother.
I'll write Eugene.
He'll understand.
He'll wait.
Be better this way.
We'll go away for a while, you and I.
Hello.
Lucy, you ‒
- Haven't you ‒ - Haven't I what?
Nothing.
- May I walk with you a little ways? - Yes, indeed.
- I want to talk to you, Lucy. - Hope it's about something nice.
Papa's been so glum today, he's scarcely spoken to me.
- Well, it's ‒ - Is it a funny story?
May seem like one to you.
Just to begin with,
when you went away, you didn't let me know.
- Not a word. Not even a line. - Why, no!
I just trotted off for some visits.
- At least you might have done something. - Why, no, George.
Don't you remember? We'd had a quarrel.
We didn't speak to each other all the way home from a long, long drive.
And since we couldn't play together like good children,
of course it was plain that we oughtn't to play at all.
Play?
What I mean is, we'd come to the point where it was time to quit playing,
well, what we were playing.
At being lovers you mean, don't you?
Something like that. It was absurd.
Didn't have to be absurd.
No, it couldn't help but be.
The way I am, and the way you are, it wouldn't ever be anything else.
This time, I'm going away.
That's what I wanted to tell you, Lucy.
I'm going away tomorrow night, indefinitely.
I hope you have ever so nice a time, George.
I don't expect to have a particularly nice time.
Well then, if I were you, I don't think I'd go.
This is our last walk together, Lucy.
Evidently, if you're going away tomorrow night.
This is the last time I'll see you, ever.
Ever in my life.
Mother and I are starting on a trip around the world tomorrow,
and we've made no plans at all for coming back.
My, that does sound like a long trip.
Do you plan to be traveling all the time, or will you stay in one place for the greater part of it?
- I think it would be lovely to ‒ - Lucy!
- I can't stand this. - [chuckles]
I'm just about ready to go in that drugstore there
and ask the clerk to give me something to keep me from dying in my tracks.
- It's quite a shock, Lucy. - [laughing] What is?
To find out just how deeply you care.
To see how much difference this makes to you.
- George! - I can't stand this any longer!
I can't, Lucy.
Good-bye, Lucy.
It's good-bye.
- I think it's good-bye for good, Lucy. - Good-bye, George.
I do hope you have the most splendid trip.
Give my love to your mother.
[whistling tune]
May I please have a few drops of aromatic spirits of ammonia
and a glass of water?
[whistling resumes]
For gosh sake, miss!
It's mighty nice of you, Lucy.
You and Eugene to have me over to your new house my first day back.
You'll probably find the old town rather dull after Paris.
I found Isabel as well as usual.
Only I'm afraid "as usual" isn't particularly well.
Struck me Isabel oughta be in a wheelchair.
What do you mean by that?
Oh, she's cheerful enough.
At least... she manages to seem so.
She's pretty short of breath.
Father's been that way for years, of course, but...
never nearly so much as Isabel is now.
I told her I thought she oughta make Georgie let her come home.
"Let her"?
Does she want to?
She doesn't urge it.
George seems to like the life there in his grand, gloomy, and peculiar way.
She'll never change about being proud of him and all that.
He's quite a swell.
She does want to come.
She'd like to be with Father, of course, and I think she's ‒
Well...
she intimated one day that she was afraid it might even happen
she wouldn't get to see him again.
Think she was really thinking of her own state of health.
I see.
And you say he won't let her come home?
Well, uh, I don't think he uses force.
He's very gentle with her.
Doubt if the subject is mentioned between them, yet ‒
Yet knowing my interesting nephew as you do...
wouldn't you think that was about the way to put it?
Knowing him as I do, yes.
- [bell clanging] - [train whistle blowing]
Changed.
So changed.
You mean ‒ You mean the town?
You mean the old place is changed, don't you, dear?
Yes.
It'll change to a happier place, old dear, now that you're back in it.
You're going to get well again.
Mr. George will be right down, Mr. Morgan.
Thank you.
I've come to see your mother, George.
I'm sorry, Mr. Morgan.
Not this time, George. I'm going up to see her.
The doctor said that... she had to be kept quiet.
- I'll be quiet. - [crying]
I don't think you should right now.
The doctor says ‒ [sobbing]
Fanny's right, Gene.
Why don't you come back later?
All right.
[nurse] She wants to see you.
Darling.
- Did you get something to eat? - Yes, Mother.
- All you needed? - Yes, Mother.
Are you sure you didn't catch cold coming home?
I'm all right, Mother.
That's sweet.
Sweet.
What is, Mother darling?
My hand against your cheek.
I can feel it.
I wonder...
if Eugene and Lucy know that we've come home.
I'm sure they do.
Has he asked about me?
Yes.
He was here.
Has he gone?
Yes, Mother.
[sighs]
I'd like to have seen him...
just once.
[nurse] She must rest now.
George!
She loved you.
[narrator] And now, Major Amberson was engaged
in the profoundest thinking of his life.
And he realized that everything which had worried him or delighted him
during this lifetime ‒
all his buying and building and trading and banking ‒
that it was all trifling and waste, beside what concerned him now.
For the major knew now that he had to plan how to enter an unknown country,
where he was not even sure of being recognized as an Amberson.
[Jack] Father?
- Father. - Ah?
The house was in Isabel's name, wasn't it?
Yes.
Can you remember when you gave her the deed, Father?
No.
No, I... can't yet remember.
It doesn't matter.
Whole estate's about as mixed up as an estate can get.
You oughta have that deed, George.
[George] No, don't bother.
Uh ‒
It must be in the sun.
There wasn't anything here... but the sun in the first place.
The sun.
The Earth came out of the sun...
and we came out of the Earth.
So, whatever we are, we must be of the Earth.
[train whistle blowing]
Well, odd way for us to be saying good-bye.
[bell clanging]
One wouldn't have thought it even a few years ago.
But here we are.
Two gentlemen of elegant appearance in a state of bustitude.
Ah, you can't ever tell what'll happen at all, can you?
Once I stood where we're standing now to say good-bye to a pretty girl.
Only it was in the old station, before this was built.
We called it the depot.
We knew we wouldn't see each other again for almost a year.
I thought I couldn't live through it.
She stood there crying.
Don't even know where she lives now.
Or if she is living.
If she ever thinks of me, she probably imagines
I'm still dancing in the ballroom of the Amberson mansion.
She probably thinks of the mansion as still beautiful,
still the finest house in town.
Ah, life and money both behave like...
loose quicksilver in a nest of cracks.
When they're gone, you can't tell where, or what the devil you did with them.
But I... believe I'll say now,
while there isn't much time left
for either of us to get any more embarrassed, I ‒
I believe I'll say I've always been fond of you, Georgie.
I can't say I've always liked you.
But we all spoiled you terribly when you were a boy.
But you've had a pretty heavy jolt, and you've taken it pretty quietly.
With the train coming into the shed, you'll forgive me for saying
there have been times I thought you oughta be hanged.
And just for a last word, there may be somebody else in this town
who's always felt about you like that.
Fond of you, I mean, no matter how much it seems you oughta be hanged.
- You might try ‒ - [conductor shouts, faint]
I must run.
I'll send back the money as fast as they pay me, so good-bye
and God bless you, Georgie.
[conductor continues shouting]
Did you ever hear the Indian name for that little grove of beech trees?
No.
You never did either.
Well?
The name was... Loma-Nashah.
It means "They couldn't help it."
- Doesn't sound like it. - Indian names don't.
There was a bad Indian chief lived there, the worst Indian that ever lived.
And his name was ‒
It was... Vendonah.
- Means "Rides down everything." - What?
Name was Vendonah, same thing as "Rides down everything."
I see.
[chuckling]
Go on.
Vendonah was unspeakable.
He was so proud, he wore iron shoes and walked over people's faces with them.
So at last the tribe decided that it wasn't a good enough excuse for him
that he was young and inexperienced.
He'd have to go.
So they took him down to the river, put him in a canoe,
and pushed him out from shore.
And the current carried him on down to the ocean.
And he never got back.
They didn't want him back, of course.
They hated Vendonah,
but they weren't able to discover any other warrior
they wanted to make chief in his place.
They couldn't help feeling that way.
I see.
So that's why they named the place "They Couldn't Help It."
Must have been.
So, you're going to stay in your garden.
You think it's better just to keep walking about among your flower beds
till you get old...
like a pensive garden lady in a Victorian engraving?
Hmm?
I suppose I'm like that tribe that lived here, Papa.
I had too much unpleasant excitement.
I don't want any more.
In fact, I don't want anything but you.
You don't?
- What was the name of that grove? - "They couldn't help ‒"
Oh, the Indian name, I mean.
Oh.
Mola-Haha.
[laughing]
Mola-Haha.
That wasn't the name you said.
Oh, I've forgotten.
I see you have.
Perhaps you remember the chief's name better.
I don't.
I hope someday you can forget it.
Please try and understand.
It's not doing either of us any good going on arguing this way.
- That place you picked out ‒ - But this boardinghouse is practical.
- And we could be together. - How?
On eight dollars a week?
I'm only going to be getting eight dollars a week at the law office.
Why, you'd be paying more of the expenses than I would.
I'd be paying?
- I'd be paying? - Certainly, you would.
We'd be using more of your money than mine.
My money?
My ‒ [laughing]
I've ‒ I've got $28.
- That's all! - Twenty-eight?
- Twenty-eight dollars? - That's all.
I know I told Jack I didn't put everything in the headlight company,
but I did.
Every cent.
[sniffles]
And it's gone.
- Why did you wait till now to tell me? - I couldn't tell till I had to.
It wouldn't do any good.
My gosh!
Oh, I know what you're gonna do.
[crying]
You're ‒ You're gonna leave me in the lurch.
I'm only asking you to be reasonable,
to try and understand that it's impossible for either of us to go on this way.
- Will you get up! - I can't.
I'm too weak.
Oh, none of this makes any sense.
Will you get up.
I knew your mother'd want me to watch over you.
And try and make something like a home for you.
And I tried.
I tried to make things as nice for you as I could.
I know that.
I walked my heels down looking for a place for us to live.
I ‒ I walked and walked over this town.
I ‒
I didn't ride one block on a streetcar.
I wouldn't use five cents, no matter how tired I was.
Oh, for the gosh sakes, will you get up!
Don't sit there with your back against the boiler.
Get up, Aunt Fanny!
It's not hot, it's cold.
The plumbers disconnected it.
I ‒ I wouldn't mind if they hadn't.
I wouldn't mind if it burned.
I wouldn't mind if it burned me, George!
- Oh, Fanny, for gosh sakes, get up! - [laughing hysterically]
Now stop it! Stop it! Listen to me. Do you hear me?
Stop it! Stop it!
Listen to me now!
There. That's better.
- Now let's see where we stand. - [laughs]
See if we can afford this place you picked out.
I ‒ I'm sure the boardinghouse is practical, George.
- I'm sure it's practical! - I know it must be practical, Aunt Fanny.
And it is a comfort to be among ‒ among nice people.
It's all right. I was thinking of the money, Aunt Fanny.
There's ‒ There's one great economy.
They ‒ They don't allow tipping.
They ‒ They have signs that prohibit it.
That's good.
But the rent's $36 a month,
and dinner's 22 and a half for each of us.
I've got about a hundred dollars left.
A hundred dollars. That's all.
Won't need any new clothes for a year.
- Perhaps there ‒ - Oh, longer.
- So ‒ So, you see. - Yes, I see.
I see that 36 and 45 make 81.
That's the lowest. We'll need a hundred dollars a month.
And I'm going to be making 32.
A real flair!
Real flair for the law.
That's right. Couldn't wait till tomorrow to begin.
The law's a jealous mistress, and a stern mistress.
I can't do it. I can't take up the law.
What?
I've come to tell you that I've got to find something quicker,
something that pays from the start.
I can't think of anything just this minute that pays from the start.
Well, sir, I've heard that they pay very high wages to people in dangerous trades.
People that handle touchy chemicals or high explosives.
Men in the dynamite factories.
Thought I'd see if I couldn't get a job like that.
I want to get started tomorrow, if I could.
Georgie, your grandfather and I were boys together.
Don't you think I ought to know what's the trouble?
Well, sir, it's Aunt Fanny.
She's set her mind on this particular boardinghouse.
Seems she put everything in the headlight company.
Well, she's got some old cronies.
I guess she's been looking forward to the games of bridge
and the harmless kind of gossip that goes on in such places.
Really, it's the life she'd like better than anything else.
Struck me that she's just about got to have it.
I got her in that headlight business with Jack. I feel a certain responsibility myself.
I'm taking the responsibility. She's not your aunt, you know, sir.
No, I'm unable to see, even if she's yours,
that a young man is morally called upon to give up a career at the law
to provide his aunt with a favorable opportunity to play bridge whist.
[bell clanging]
All right, all right.
If you promise not to get blown up, I'll see if we can find you the job.
You certainly are the most practical young man I ever met.
[narrator] George Amberson Minafer walked homeward slowly
through what seemed to be the strange streets of a strange city.
For the town was growing and changing.
It was heaving up in the middle incredibly.
It was spreading incredibly.
And as it heaved and spread,
it befouled itself and darkened its sky.
This was the last walk home
he was ever to take up National A venue to Amberson Addition
and the big old house at the foot of Amberson Boulevard.
Tomorrow, they were to move out.
Tomorrow, everything would be gone.
Mother, forgive me.
God forgive me.
[narrator] Something had happened.
A thing which, years ago,
had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town.
And now it came at last.
George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance.
He got it three times filled...
and running over.
But those who had so longed for it were not there to see it.
And they never knew it.
Those who were still living
had forgotten all about it...
and all about him.
- All right, stay back there, now. - He run into me as much as I run into him.
And if he gets well, he ain't gonna get not one single cent out of me!
I'm perfectly willing to say I'm sorry for him, and so's the lady with me.
Wonderful the damage one of these little machines can do. You'd never believe it.
All right, sonny. Back in your car, back in your car.
All right. Stay back there now.
What are you going to do, Papa?
I'm going to him.
You coming, Papa?
[door closes]
How is he?
- How is Georgie? - He's going to be all right.
Fanny, I wish you could have seen George's face when he saw Lucy.
You know what he said to me when we went into that room?
He said...
"You must have known my mother wanted you to come here today,
so that I could ask you to forgive me."
We shook hands.
I never noticed before how much like Isabel Georgie looks.
You know something, Fanny?
I wouldn't tell this to anybody but you.
But it seemed to me as if someone else was in that room.
And that through me, she brought her boy under shelter again.
And that I'd been true at last...
to my true love.
[narrator] Ladies and gentlemen, The Magnificent Ambersons
was based on Booth Tarkington's novel.
Stanley Cortez was the photographer.
Mark-Lee Kirk designed the sets.
Al Fields dressed them.
Robert Wise was the film editor.
Freddie Fleck was the assistant director.
Edward Stevenson designed the ladies' wardrobe.
The special effects were by Vernon L. Walker.
The sound recording was by Bailey Fesler and James G. Stewart.
Here's the cast ‒
Eugene: Joseph Cotten.
Isabel: Dolores Costello.
Lucy: Anne Baxter.
George: Tim Holt.
Fanny: Agnes Moorehead.
Jack: Ray Collins.
Roger Bronson: Erskine Sanford.
Major Amberson: Richard Bennett.
I wrote the script and directed it.
My name is Orson Welles.
This is a Mercury Production.