The 100th Anniversary Committee of the Cape Charles Memorial Library hopes you are planning on attending the free showing of the movie The Magnificent Ambersons at the Historic Palace Theatre.
The showing is Sunday, February 17 at 3 p.m.
Also, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. – Lemon Tree Gallery and Studio presents Conversation Cafe “Romancing Dance” featuring Ballroom Dancing and Love Stories. Light Refreshments and cash bar. Come early before the movie.
The movie culminates the town-wide read of the novel by the same name. The novel was written by Booth Tarkington and the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 1919, the year our library was founded.
The movie is being offered for free, with complimentary popcorn and beverage for everyone, regardless of whether they read the novel. A cash bar will also be available.
The Magnificent Ambersons stars Joseph Cotton and was produced by Orson Welles. It was four times nominated for an Academy Award and was released in 1942.
Welles adapted Booth Tarkington’s novel, about the declining fortunes of a wealthy Midwestern family and the social changes brought by the automobile age.
Welles lost control of the editing of The Magnificent Ambersons to RKO, and the final version released to audiences differed significantly from his rough cut of the film.
More than an hour of footage was cut by the studio, which also shot and substituted a happier ending.
Although Welles’s extensive notes for how he wished the film to be cut have survived, the excised footage was destroyed. Composer Bernard Herrmann insisted his credit be removed when, like the film itself, his score was heavily edited by the studio.
Even in the released version, The Magnificent Ambersons is often regarded as among the best U.S. films ever made, a distinction it shares with Welles’s first film, Citizen Kane
The winners of the 100th Anniversary Essay Contest for students in grades 3-4 and 5-6 will be announced, and prizes presented, prior to the start of the movie.
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