Ambersons trailer   

    The Ambersons trailer is interesting for a couple of reasons.  Its rapid-fire summary of a beautiful and complex story sounds sort of like a war correspondent reporting on a major battle.  It also depicts the film in a most lurid way by playing up on the 'scandal' that Isabel has perpetrated by being in love with Eugene.    As well, it contains some of the lost footage that you won't find anywhere else, including sequences from the original ending in the boardinghouse, and other scenes that were filmed by Welles but were later deleted and reshot by other crew members.

I've divided the trailer into 5 parts due to length and file size (clips are approx 4-5 MB).

     Part 1.                                               Part 2.                                                Part 3.

    Part 4.                                                  Part 5.

 Ambersons clips   

1. The introduction.  This clip is part of the approximately 3 minute introduction in which Orson Welles narrates.   Here we're introduced to the slow-paced and almost fantasy world that existed before the advent of the automobile.     An expressionistic technique that Welles used here was to shade the edges of the film to seem like a vignette, to make this period of time seem antiquated.   

2.  The sleighride.   This was filmed in an icehouse with real snow.    In this clip, Eugene, Lucy, and several Ambersons are out for a sleighride in Eugene's horseless carriage.  George has just reluctantly helped push the carriage out of the snow, and everyone celebrates the good times with a rousing rendition of "The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo".  These are the last happy sequences from the film.

3. The bathroom.    George is shocked that his uncle Jack is OK with Isabel and Eugene getting married.  Just before these clips, George has just been kicked out of the house of one of the townspeople, after he barged in and badgered her about details of the scandal surrounding her mother and Eugene.     The bathroom scene is a true classic.

Part 1.                                                                                 Part 2.

4.  Major Amberson's speech.  After Isabel's death, Major Amberson sits alone with his thoughts. George and Jack are questioning the Major about the deed for the mansion, but unfortunately the Major can't remember where it is. The Amberson fortune and reputation are gone, and he is close to death.  Richard Bennett acts this scene beautifully, even though he wasn't able to remember even a single line of dialogue (his lines were read to him by Welles).  Bennett himself died shortly after the film was finished.