TCM’s Welles Cut Of ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’; To Debut On 80th Anniversary In 2022

TCM is teaming with filmmaker Joshua Grossberg, who is leading a search to Brazil to locate the missing reels of the 1942 film “The Magnificent Ambersons” in the hopes of restoring the film for the big screen. TCM will sponsor the latest leg of Grossberg’s search and produce a documentary titled “The Search for the Lost Print: The making of Orson Welles’ ‘The Magnificent Ambersons” about the 25-year process Grossberg has already endured to attempt to find it.

The original excised footage was melted down for its nitrate for use in World War II.

The resulting film, even in its truncated form, has still managed to live on as a certifiable classic and was even nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and three others, but it lost the opportunity to win. Welles has said he thought in its original form The Magnificent Ambersons topped Citizen Kane, a movie still considered by many as the greatest of all time, as well as the inspiration for the current David Fincher movie of its creation, Mank, which leads all others in Oscar nominations this year.

What are the plans for Debut?

As part of the initiative, TCM will sponsor Grossberg’s research trip to Brazil, where he believes the Welles version exists somewhere — even possibly sitting in the attic of a collector to follow up on leads he’s developed over his 25-year search.

At Deadline’s 2019 New York Contenders Film event, Greenblatt in fact approached me and told me of plans for the documentary, then in pre-production, and he followed up later in July 2020 to share a “sizzle reel” they had put together even as the pandemic had delayed the project and their trip to Brazil to finish filming.

Grossberg’s return trip to Brazil will (hopefully) commence in summer 2021, though Brazil’s dire Covid situation is not ideal, to say the least. It will chronicle him as he renews his search for the lost print as well as interview more key players.