I Love the Illusion: The Life and Career of Agnes Moorehead (15 page)

Welles and Agnes had a close director/actor relationship. He also did the
unexpected with her to get the performance he wanted. One day Welles was
directing Agnes in an emotional scene where Fanny gets hysterical and has
to cry.“Blow the glycerin into those classic orbs!” yelled Welles. The make-up
man blew, and Agnes had giant tears rolling down her face. Orson yelled,
“Now Aggie,
Action!,”
and Agnes posed for her close-up — but it didn’t
meet Orson’s satisfaction. He called cut. He walked over to Agnes and said,
“Aggie, listen to me.” He leaned over her, as if he is whispering into her ear,
then he jerked down and bit into her neck! Agnes screamed and Orson
bellowed, “Aggie! You adorable irresistible creature —
Cry!”
He walked back
behind the camera and called “Action!,” but this time she didn’t need the
glycerin blown in her eyes; the tears were real. On another occasion Orson
said to Agnes, “You must have a mustache and more lines on your face. I
love women with mustaches!” Welles grabbed a make up pencil himself and
began to apply the lines and an almost unnoticeable mustache.

The picture finished principal photography in mid-January. Orson soon
left on a State Department project in Central America and he cabled his
instructions to editor Robert Wise regarding the cutting of the film. At least
initially Welles must have been encouraged by the studio’s reaction to the
picture. Schaefer enthusiastically cabled Welles about the film, and
especially Agnes:

P
LEASE FORGIVE ME FOR NOT HAVING WIRED YOU IMMEDIATELY ON MY
RETURN FROM THE COAST TO TELL YOU OF MY HAPPINESS AS A RESULT OF
WHAT
I
HAVE SEEN OF YOUR CURRENT PICTURE
. E
VEN THOUGH
I
HAVE ONLY
SEEN A PART OF IT
,
THERE IS EVERY INDICATION THAT IT IS CHOCK FULL OF
HEARTTHROBS
,
HEARTACHES
AND
HUMAN
INTEREST
. F
ROM
A TECHNICAL
STANDPOINT IT IS STARTLING AND
I
SHOULD NOT FORGET TO MENTION
ESPECIALLY THAT
A
GNES
M
OOREHEAD DOES SOME OF THE FINEST PIECES OF
WORK
I
HAVE EVER SEEN ON THE SCREEN
. A
LTHOUGH
I
SAW ONLY PART OF
THE PICTURE HER WORK IN PARTICULAR MADE A TREMENDOUS IMPRESSION
ON
ME
. A
GAIN
, I
AM
VERY
HAPPY
AND
PROUD
OF
OUR
ASSOCIATION
.
C
ONGRATULATION AND BEST WISHES
.

There was a preview of the picture at the Fox Theater in Pomona,
California on March 17; the preview was still basically Orson’s cut. As
always in a preview the audience doesn’t know what to expect. Is it a musical?
A comedy? Drama? Suspense? What? The preview was held following the
showing of
The Fleet’s In,
a patriotic musical starring Dorothy Lamour. The
result was not good. Of 125 preview cards only 53 rated
The Magnificent
Ambersons
positively. Among the comments on the negative side: “We do
not need trouble pictures, especially now . . .” “It stinks,” and “No, it’s as
bad if not worse than
Citizen Kane
.” But others saw the greatness of the
film: “This picture is magnificent. The direction, acting, photography, and
special effects are the best cinema has yet offered. It is unfortunate that the
American public, as represented at this theatre, are unable to appreciate fine
art.” And, “I think it was the best picture I have ever seen.” Some people
showed their disdain for the movie by walking out. Did showing such a
bleak, yet brilliant film, after a patriotic, breezy musical-comedy help seal
its fate? Was this the reaction the studio wanted anyway, so that they could
cut the film the way they wanted? One wonders.

Needless to say, Schaefer once again contacted Orson, this time by
special delivery mail. “Never in all my experience in the industry have I
taken so much punishment or suffered as I did at the Pomona preview. In
my 28 years in the business, I have never been present in a theater where
the audience acted in such a manner . . . It was just like getting one sock in
the jaw after another for over two hours.”

A second preview, in Pasadena, with a slightly older audience was held
shortly after the first. A few minutes had been cut, but the results, while
somewhat more positive, were still not what the studio was hoping for. The
audience had a hard time following the various relationships in the film.
Was Fanny an Amberson or not? Who was Uncle Jack?

But Orson’s cruelest jab must have been when he received a heartfelt
letter from his best friend, Joe Cotten: “. . . Dramatically, it is like a play
full of wonderful, strong second acts all coming down on the same curtain
line, all proving the same tragic point. Then suddenly someone appears on
the apron and says the play is over without there having been enacted a
concluding third act. The emotional impact in the script seems to have lost
itself somewhere in the cold visual beauty before us and at the end there is
definitely a feeling of dissatisfaction.”

Welles, still in South America, cabled revisions to the studio. “I was
bargaining. ‘I’ll give you that if you’ll leave me this.’ ” The studio wanted
an upbeat ending. Orson tried to oblige and cabled this idea to RKO on
April 2, 1942: “To leave audiences happy . . . remake cast credits as follows
and in this order: First oval framed old-fashioned picture very authenticlooking Bennett in Civil War campaign hat. Second, live shot of Ray
Collins . . . in elegant white ducks and hair whiter than normal seated on
tropical veranda ocean and waving palm tree behind him — Negro servant
serving him second long cool drink. Third, Aggie blissfully and busily playing
bridge with cronies in boarding house. Fourth, circular locket authentic
old-fashioned picture of Costello in ringlets looking very young. Fifth, Jo
Cotten at French window closing watch case obviously containing
Costello’s picture tying in previous shot: sound of car driving away, Jo
turns, looks over shoulder and waves. Sixth, Tim Holt and Anne Baxter in
open car — Tim shifting gears but looking over shoulder — as he does this,
Anne looking same direction and waving, then turn to each other then
forward both very happy and gay and attractive for fadeout. Then fade in
mike shot for my closing lines as before.” It was all in vain.

The actors were called back to do retakes to try and make the ending
more upbeat, at least in the eyes of the studio. On April 18, 1942, Agnes
and Joe Cotten shot a scene in the hallway of the hospital where Georgie
had been taken after his accident. In the scene, Aunt Fanny arrives at the
hospital just as Eugene Morgan comes out of Georgie’s room. Much of the
dialogue in this scene is the same as in the original final scene that Orson
shot with Eugene telling Fanny that Georgie told him, “you must have
known that my mother wanted you to come here today . . . ,” and Georgie
and Lucy reconciling. The difference is that the dramatic tension and the
sense of isolation and bleakness which Fanny had in the scene originally
shot by Welles is lost. As directed by Fred Fleck, the dialogue was now mere
words with little meaning behind them. Cotten and Moorehead walk down
the corridor together with schmaltzy music playing as if they are walking
out into the sunset — looking up with serenity written all over their faces.

All in all, the studio cut forty-four essential minutes from
The
Magnificent Ambersons.
The film was released, and is still shown today, at
eighty-eight minutes long. It is a mangled masterpiece. It still has brilliance
especially the first half of the picture, which is spared the most. The second
half is disjointed; partly the work of Welles, with brilliant shots interspersed
with the work of various others who directed retakes such as editor Robert
Wise and assistant director Fred Fleck. Welles, years later, saw
The
Magnificent Ambersons
at a theater in Paris and at first thought, “hmm, this
isn’t that bad.” But as the picture proceeded, he said “all hell broke loose.”
He was talking about his baby.

The amazing thing about the film is that even today in its butchered
state it still works, and at times, is even better than
Kane
— especially in
terms of performances. Agnes Moorehead’s performance survives — it is a
performance for the ages. One of the best performances ever recorded up to
that time, one that still rings true. Author James Naremore sums up her
performance well: “Throughout the film Moorehead conveys Fanny’s
torment in every bird like gesture of her body, frequently drawing the
spectator’s eye into little corners of the frame, where she dominates the
screen without saying a word. In the brief scene at Morgan’s automobile
factory, she can be seen bestowing an adoring look on her beloved as he tells
Isabel that he feels like writing poetry again; the glance speaks volumes, but
is delivered at the very margin of the playing area and is ignored by the
other actors.” Over the years, other critics have testified to the greatness of
this performance. Pauline Kael would later write: “As the nervous, bitter,
hysterical old maid aunt, Agnes Moorehead just about belts you out of the
theatre.” Charles Higham said, “Agnes Moorehead moves deeply inside the
frustration and misery of the character, she conveys in high-pitched whines,
in querulous outbursts of rage, and in her whole taut, cramped, tightly
corseted body and pinched, hawk like face, in every movement of her
hands, in every fit of hysteria, a life wretched on the rocks of repression.”
The British critic Kenneth Tynan, who first saw the film as a sixteen-yearold movie lover and who began a pen pal relationship with Welles, later
wrote that Agnes’ performance “seemed to me then (and seems to me still)
the best performance of its kind in the English-speaking cinema.” That
Tynan did indeed love the film and Agnes’ performance as a teenager is
confirmed in a letter he wrote to a friend on 4/11/43: “The acting throughout is exquisite but of course the real star is Agnes Moorehead. That
performance is the finest I have ever seen particularly when she sits down
and laughs at Tim Holt and the scene where he taunts her for being in love
with Cotten and she screams at him from behind her bedroom door — her
entire performance was logical hysteria, which is rare — very rare.”

The contemporary reviews of the day were mixed on the film, but mostly
quite positive regarding Agnes’ performance. Upon the films release in July
1942,
Newsweek
wrote that
Ambersons
“falls considerably short of matching
. . .
Citizen Kane,
” but said the cast was “fine,” particularly “Anne Baxter as
the attractive Lucy Morgan and Agnes Moorehead as George’s hysterical,
repressed Aunt Fanny.”
Commonweal
said that Agnes gave “a splendid
portrayal as the frightened, frustrated Aunt Fanny.” The
New York Times
referred to Agnes’ performance as “splendid.” The
New Yorker
said she was
“especially fine as George’s Aunt Fanny.” The critic for the
Detroit Free Press
wrote: “Miss Moorehead’s performance is a gripping and thrilling piece of
acting which marks her for stellar honors.”

While he was still filming
Ambersons
by day, Welles began to shoot the
third Mercury production
Journey into Fear
by night. This film was to be a
departure from
Kane
and
Ambersons
in that it was considered to be a purely
commercial film. The film was co-written by Cotten and Orson. The story
concerns a married couple, played by Joseph Cotten and Ruth Warrick, in
Turkey where the Cotten character, Howard Graham, has been working to
upgrade Turkish munitions. In a bar for a farewell drink, an assassin (played
by Jack Moss) makes an attempt on Graham’s life but ends up killing a
magician (Hans Conried) instead. The head of the Turkish secret service,
Col. Haki (played by Orson), puts the bewildered Graham on a freighter
leaving for Batum (his wife stays at a hotel). At this point Graham interacts
with the various other passengers on the freighter including Josette
(Dolores Del Rio) and Gogo (Jack Durant) who were entertainers in the
bar where the attempt on Howard’s life had been made. While there is
sexual tension between Howard and Josette, Howard is faithful to his wife.
Among the other passengers are a German archeologist, a tobacco salesman
and Mr. and Mrs. Matthews (played by Agnes and Frank Readick). Mr.
Matthews is a socialist while his wife, a French woman, is not — and
deplores it when he talks politics. Also on board is the assassin, actually
more than one.

Orson produced the film and gave the directing credit to Norman Foster,
though many Welles fans believe that the direction has many classic
Wellesian touches. But, as Welles himself noted, he was out of the country
during much of the filming (his role as Taki is actually quite small). He
always gave Foster his due as director, but admits that he “supervised the
planning” of many of the shots. Originally, Welles didn’t want to act in the
film and was hoping to get the veteran character actor Thomas Mitchell to
portray the head of the Turkish secret police, but he proved unavailable.
The film is tense and well made, playing like a Hitchcock suspense film.
One of the best scenes in the picture is when Graham, escorted ashore by
the assassins and driven away, uses a penknife to create a commotion by
sticking it in the car’s horn to create a diversion. Graham grabs the wheel,
crashes the car and flees. It is a superbly directed scene. The Hitchcock
comparison was made by other critics as well, including
Time:
“Welles
shows himself a careful student of Alfred Hitchcock, but he falls far short
of the old master.
Journey into Fear
also falls short of the best Orson
Welles.” The film also has elements of
film noir;
it is dark, cynical, full of
characters who seem to have something to hide, and ambiguous heroes.
Agnes is fine in her small role and plays it with a realistic accent, but there
are no shining scenes like she had in
Kane
and
Ambersons.
The film belongs
to Cotten and especially Jack Moss as the silent assassin. Once again,
though, this film would be recut by RKO and Welles would later say the
film had “lots of brilliant character performances which all got chopped out
and thrown out.” Welles, himself, thinks he was pretty “awful” in it.