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Memorable, crazy movie

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

I don't care about lost footage. I can only see what's put on the screen in front of me. And what we see in this movie is an over-wrought, over-rated, ponderous waste of time. Just like Citizen Kane, come to think of it. If it weren't for the brilliant Touch of Evil, which I can watch frame for frame without every getting bored, Welles would have cranked out zero watchable movies. The only drama for me was hoping to see one or more of the characters drop dead. I would have preferred Agnes Moorehead or Tim Holt but turns out one of the Minafers bought the farm (who was this guy again and why should I care about him?). Given it nearly bankrupted RKO, I'm surprised Welles ever got funding to make another movie in his life.

Booth Tarkington often wrote of boyhood in Indiana. The 1950 and 1951 musicals ON MOONLIGHT BAY and BY THE LIGHT OF THE SILVERY MOON are supposed toinclude anecdotes of his childhood. This film is drama not comedy as are the other two is avaialbe today in a shortened allegedly 88 minute cut not appoved by diector Orson Wells yet the storyboard of the effect a spoiled rotten son who destroys not as in the musicals merely annoys his family is well cast, edited, photographed and directed. Wesley in the two musicals grows up and his family moves on. George in this drama negatively effects his family who separates just when in his adult life he might need them the most. What is edited into the final cut is brilliant and thought provoking though many movie fans would rather it include what the the studio cut after Orson Wells fully prepared it for distribution.

Here is the story of a family that dazzles from the outside but is hurt and crippled in reality.Isabel, played by the elegant Dolores Costello (Drew Barrymore's grandmother), didn't appreciate the automotive inventor Eugene (Joseph Cotton) in their youth, and both went on to marry other people.Isabel raised her only child, George (Tim Holt), to be a spoiled brat who believed he was above work. Once both Isabel and Eugene are widowed, George does everything he can to thwart his now-wiser mother from having a second chance at love.And, ninny that she is, she lets the priggish twit get away with it!Eugene is about to stand up to the little nudnick when Isabel is on her deathbed but he turns tail at the last minute and passes up the opportunity.Something psychological was going on here but the movie doesn't show much interest in it. Agnes Moorehead is interesting as the spinster Fanny but her character is wishy-washy as well, producing lots of sturm und drang that peters out to nothing in the end.I'll have to read my fellow reviewers' work to try to understand why this film is so well-respected.I'd say the best thing about it was the sleighs!

Ambitious story about a family resistant to change at the turn of the 20th century. In particular the son George (Tim Holt), who resents his mother (Dolores Costello) rekindling a romance with an old flame (Joseph Cotton) and does everything he can to prevent it. That's an oversimplified plot summary as there's a lot going on in this film. Orson Welles' follow-up to Citizen Kane that was notoriously taken out of his hands and heavily edited by the studio. How good Welles' original version was we'll never know but the version that remains is pretty great. Wonderful cast, beautiful cinematography, brilliant direction by Welles. Definitely a classic that everybody should see at least once.